Joy, oh well, our coord gave us some extra cards liaoz but still not enough. About 20+ short. She say at best she try to get discounted price for us to go buy if need be. But we think we will just give specially designed cards for our helpers ~ about 20+. More personalised anyway. BTW, I just collected my wedding cards, still researching on cheap printers. Probably can't get much cheaper but I find it quite fun to research around anyway. Will share my experience/findings once I finalised.
As for wedding cards, ONLY AWT is free. T-Dragon is just that Sheraton tie up with them for special printing/hotstamping price. T-Dragon cards NOT free. Anywayz, T-Dragon is not the cheapest for printing and think they take a bit long (check other forum threads), so you may want to look around when you've decided what type of printing you want. If it's hotstamping, then wait for my news! I'm hotstamping on my card itself cos I don't want inserts. ;p
As for the types of printing, few things to consider:
1) Inserts needed? - Some cards you can print on the card itself, some you need insert, or some you can have option of print on card OR insert (those traditional open-up type). But ribbons/gold strings all NOT provided by AWT, you need to get yourself, maybe buy from printer. Some say Hi-Tech provide free gold strings but not sure if they still do. In any case, tying the ribbons come at a cost, I think.
2) No. of sides to print - Some cards you need to print on 2 sides (cover and inside), the one I chose is 3 fold but is folded in such a way it opens to one LOONG side, so printing is done on a single side but in 3 sections - end up, I still have cover page, 1 English page and 1 Chinese page! *beams* Usu if you print one side, it's cheaper than 2 sides no matter what. =)
3) Type of printing - in order of cost, a) flat printing with matt ink, b) hotstamping, still flat but ink is shiny (gold/silver/sometimes bronze), c) emboss (protruding shiny ink). Different printers charge differently, so must decide on the type of printing you want, then get quotation. Also, usually if more than 1 colour of ink, higher cost. Some printers also charge more if you want to include little icons (like those Precious Moments cartoons), but it's a one-off cost of say, $10 per icon for the whole lot of cards, so not that bad la.
Yep, hope this info helps! =) When is your AD?