Finally....my boarding passes are done! I must have looked at over ten versions of the boarding passes on this forum for ideas - thank you to everyone for sharing! A lot of the questions/solutions I had while creating my invites were sometimes tough to find so I'm going to try and paraphrase all of the details that crossed my mind!
Tools:
Paper cutter (bought add'l blade for perforator) - $38 + $10 blade = $48 (Office Depot)
Doublesided tape (used for boarding pass envelope) - double package for $5.50 (Staples)
X-acto knife - $5.50 (Staples)
Corner cutter - $5 (Target)
Paper for boarding pass - white card stock (provided by work where I had them made)
Paper for boarding pass envelope - colored card stock from Staples (I ended up using orange and green because a multi-pack was available and then I didn't have to choose one color!) - $12
Raffia ribbon -
Raffia Twisters - Pearlescent - Premier Packaging - $4.95 x 2 = $10 - I bought the Green and Citrus colors
Mailing Envelopes - $7 for 50 and I need over 150 - $28 total - I bought the White Linen A10 envelopes at Office Max
Stamps $0.58 for invite, $0.41 for each reply card - Total invites 160 (postcard stamps couldn't be used for reply card because my paper wasn't within 3.5 x 5")
Total cost per invite ~ $2 each (160 qty)
I was fortunate enough to have my company print each boarding pass page for $0.10 a page (3 to a page) in color on white stock paper (the RSVP cards were $.20 because they were double sided). Very cheap compared to places like Kinkos! I also created a newsletter (in color) to send with the invitation and that was $0.067 per page.
I started off using the Word templates from this website but grew way too frustrated with moving text and pictures around so switched to PowerPoint immediately. When ready for printing I had three passes per page and the last page (pass D) was double-sided so I could use it as a reply card. I perforated the left side by the website and then perforated the right side by the bar code. I printed the envelopes on my work computer / printer and the return address on the back of the envelope....saved some time/money.
Key lessons learned!
1) Use PowerPoint for creating your template vs. Word (assuming you have access and knowledge of software!)
2) Do not use fonts that are not normally in the Microsoft Word / PowerPoint package. You'll eventually need your document in PDF and when asking others to PDF it, if you have these 'alternative' fonts, it becomes a big pain. It's easiest to have your invites in a PDF format to also ensure that the font and spacing doesn't get messed up and it's frozen exactly where you want it. If you were to send your Microsoft Word/PP document to an outside place, and they didn't have your font, your invite will not appear how you want it!
3) As I said above, if an outside place is printing your invite, make sure it's in PDF. When I tried to have my company duplicating center make mine (even with ok fonts) - the spacing was messed up unless I used PDF. Finding someone with the ability to 'write' PDF is not easy so start asking around early!
4) Be precise with your boarding pass reply card if that's the route you choose - check with the post office in person to ensure your card stock is thick enough and the size is ok. Somewhere along the process of changing my template and having the passes trimmed to get rid of black lines, my reply card became too small and I have to now pay $0.41 vs. $0.26 per card.
5) Do not buy stamps for invites until you're at the post office with your invitations. I bought the RSVP stamps in advance and thought, why not buy all of them. The first time the post office weighed my invite the $0.41 stamp was ok, but now they are saying it's $0.58!! Very frustrating.
That's all I can think of now...hopefully this helps the new brides!
Finally....my boarding passes are done! 
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