Large Prints on a Budget

One of my favorite things about our wedding venue (The Soiled Dove) is that its usual life is one of Denver’s more intimate concert venues. There were a lot of pieces of this history that appealed to Drew & I and we wanted to bring to a bit of that concert venue feel to our wedding day.  The entrance to the venue was down a narrow staircase where on a usual day posters from upcoming artists would be showcased and they told us that we could fill those poster cases however we wanted.

The frames could hold a photo that went up to 2′ x 3′ so we wanted to find a way to use our engagement photos in this space and not spend a ton on printing. Most photo printing places can do large prints for about $20 per image.

After a bit of research we found two options that would stay within our Budget Bride mindset. Here’s how we got our large prints on a budget:

Option 1: Drafting Prints

Drafting prints are intended for architects or engineers and come in a variety of large sizes. If you are printing in black and white this is definitely the way to go. Typically drafting prints cost between $2 – $5 and can be printed at your local office store.

Option 2: Short Run Posters

Posters are intended to be printed in a ‘large’ run of 50 or more prints. This is what helps keep the cost down. Finding a place that can do a ‘short-run’ is the perfect way to have a high quality, full-color print with out spending $20 per piece.

We ended up ordering the posters we used from ShortRunPosters.com and spending around $18 TOTAL for all three, including shipping. This was a huge savings in comparison to having the images printed locally by a photo shop.

Tips for ordering large prints

• Make sure you have high resolution files (between 6-10 mb in size or 150+DPI). Anything smaller will not bring the way you want it to.
• Order the prints in advance. If you order them online its likely you will receive the posters in a tube and to make them useable you will need to give them time to lay flat (ShortRunPosters.com actually can ship flat, it just costs more).

I was really happy with how the posters turned out and how fast we received them and would definitely order from this company again – As a matter of fact we will likely order wedding photos from there as well.