There are plenty of professional beach wedding invitations that you can purchase, but if you are trying to come in under budget and would like to add a special touch, then DIY wedding invitations are the way to go.

This article will cover a few ideas to get you started making your own invites, but you will probably come up with even more ideas as you read. The idea here is to keep things very simple, yet beautifully done. Be sure to enlist the help of your bridesmaids when making the invitations.

Sandy Memories

This is one DIY wedding invitation that can be done very quickly and easily. You will need light blue cardstock, a custom stamp with your wedding information on it, embossing ink and brown or sand colored embossing powder, as well as a heat source, such as a blow dryer.

This works best done assembly line style, one person should do the stamping, the next sprinkles powder and shakes it off and the third person can heat it to set the embossing powder. To really set things off, you may wish to add embossed blue waves at the bottom of the card, starfish or even seaweed along the edge. Or you could punch holes in the upper left corner of each card and use a string or ribbon to tie a small seashell charm to the card.

Starfish Invites

These DIY wedding invitations are a little more time consuming because you will need to cut out the shapes, unless you can find a die cutter that is the right size for this. You will need beige or ivory cardstock, folded in half and cut so that two arms of the starfish fall on the fold. Essentially you will have two starfish that are attached by the folded arms.

It really is useful to get a stamp made up with all your wedding information. While this may seem a little costly, it will save you hours of work.

Alternatively, you could carefully print everything on the computer and then cut out your starfish.

Add a little glue and some sparkling sand around the outline on the front of the starfish invitation and you're done.

Message in a Bottle

To really take the beach wedding theme to extremes, these DIY wedding invitations are particularly fun. You will need a small bottle for each invitation, about 3" long and 1" wide, more or less, as well as corks for each one and a piece of parchment paper.

Write, print or stamp your invitation information on a rectangle of paper, roll it up and push it into the bottle, then cork it. If you want to add a little extra oomph, try sprinkling some sand in the bottle or even drop in a couple of starfish or shell charms or beads before corking. You can also decorate the outside of the bottle with ribbons and charms, if desired.

These are just a few DIY wedding invitations to give you an idea of what is possible. It's amazing what you can do with some pretty paper, a little embossing powder and several friends in an evening!