Des Moines & Central Iowa, Iowa

Stationery & Invitations

In Des Moines & Central Iowa: Four stationery and invitation vendors are listed — two in Ankeny and one each in Ames and Johnston — with one clearly labeled alternative below the listings that is not a stationery business and should not be counted as one. Budgets typically run $300 to $2,200. Four is thin, and it shapes how you should work: the practical route in this region is to settle design locally and accept that some printing and specialty finishing will come from outside the metro, which adds shipping time you need to build into the schedule. Give yourself more lead time than the standard advice, not less. There is one genuinely local detail worth getting right on the paper itself. Many central Iowa venues sit on rural routes where a mapping app sends guests to the wrong gate or down a gravel lane, so print written directions and the nearest cross-road on your day-of pieces rather than relying on a pin. Weigh a finished invitation at the post office before buying stamps for all of them.

4 listings · checked October 2026

• Ames Copyworks — Ames · copyworks.com · (515) 292-3630
• Des Moines Printing — Ankeny · desmoinesprinting.com · (515) 518-1992
• Expressions by Em — Ankeny · expressionsbyem.com · (515) 836-8276
• Sprint Print Inc — Johnston · sprint-print.com · (515) 244-9444

Bringing your own design to a commercial printer

These are commercial and trade printers, not wedding stationers. None of them designs an invitation suite, and none of them lists weddings as work they do — they are here because they will print a design you already own, usually well and usually for a fraction of a stationer's price. That makes them a real option if you have bought a template, hired a designer separately, or are printing menus, programs, table numbers and signage rather than the invitations themselves. Send a PDF and ask for a paper sample first: weight, finish and color vary far more between printers than price does.

• Mail Services — Urbandale · mailserviceslc.com · (515) 727-7700

Details change constantly — confirm directly before booking. Something wrong? Update or remove a listing.