Post office lessons

When making your own invitations be very careful to make everything according to post office regulations. My sister chose to DIY her invitations after my success with the same project. Somehow in the process her rsvp postcards ended up 3x5 instead of 3.5x5. Well the post office has delivered the postcards but has also decided that since they aren't exact that they are going to charge her 78 cents more per card that she recieves. I don't know how exactly they will enforce this, but it's not necessarily welcome news.

Secondly she did wrap around labels, used spray adhesive to adhere them to the envelopes. The post office machines damaged some of them even to the point of completely ripping them off resulting in lost invitations. Needless to say this has caused her significant headache and extra work. It's not any help now but lesson learned to make sure to double check all post office regulations and send a test invitation before mailing them all out.

Our invitation that made it safely to us!

DIY Flower Tip

Many of you know that I DIYed a bunch of items in my wedding. One being our centerpieces. I love, love, love fresh flowers but my budget couldn't handle the cost of a florist. For under 100 dollars I bought all the flowers for my centerpieces. Our vases cost 75 cents a piece and the candles were party packs bought at hobby lobby with their 40% off coupons. All in all with tax each centerpiece came in somewhere between 10-11 dollars, pretty good I would say. I will make sure to post pictures once I get them.

But anyways because they were real flowers we couldn't do them to far ahead. Meaning at 11pm the night before my wedding my sister and I rolled up our sleeves to make the centerpieces. Luckily I had numbers on my side, we only had to make 10. To be more efficient we set up an assembly line with Tiffany cutting the stems and myself arranging and finessing.

Picture of trial until the professional pictures are ready

The idea was to get the ball/dome shape of tightly packed roses. So what I did was cut a piece of ribbon for the height of the rose in the middle, the tallest. Tiffany used this ribbon as a guide for every single rose. She cut all the roses in each centerpiece the exact same using this ribbon, put them in the vase and handed them to me. Then I would start at the outside trimming all the roses and arranging them to get the dome shape. The ribbon trick allowed Tiffany to quickly cut all the roses the same height so that everything would be uniform. This also allowed her to do so with efficiency so that she finished quickly enough to be able to help me with the final finessing. The centerpieces weren't perfect but they were definitely good enough. I don't know how a real florist would feel about this method but it worked for us. Between the two of us we were able to complete them in about an hour and fifteen minutes.

T's Wedding

Despite the fact that my wedding is over I seem to still be working on weddings. My sister's wedding is the focus however this go round. Today I proofed her wedding invitations at the printers. She lives out of town and wanted to use the same printer I did. However she waited until last minute so I will most likely be driving them out to her tomorrow.

I also did a mock up flower arrangement for her shower. And of course if you know me you know I LOVE fresh florals, so any excuse to buy flowers I jump at. I wanted to test putting sliced limes in the vase to see how well it does or does not work. I started the arrangement yesterday and put in the limes. I quickly learned that the limes will turn overnight so I definitely can't put the limes in until the morning of. However I was really happy overall with the look. I don't know if I will be making an arragement this big, I might make a bunch of smaller versions to space them out. But the look will be similar. Her wedding colors are green and brown, but her flowers will be white and green at the wedding.

Fallen By the Wayside

I have had a few projects fall by the wayside as we grow nearer. One being the photo sharing cards. While I created a group account on photobucket for our guests to share their wedding pictures with us and others I dropped the ball on the cards. I have a design ready to go but it's just to late to order the cards. I could order them and pay ridiculous amounts to have them rushed but at this point it's just not worth it. I might just print slips and put them in thank you cards.

Another project that might get dropped is making myself a bracelet. I bought the materials months ago but just was plain lazy and haven't done it yet. Now I might not have time, I guess we will just see. oops.

Finished!

Da Da, the invitations are complete! They are all assembled, addressed and stamped. Now they are waiting to go to the post office. This project has been a labor of love. Many hours and help from my Mom, Tiffany and Heather was needed in order to get these completed. But it was all worth it in the end! Here they are:

Putting all the stamps on.



The front with the brand new wedding stamp and the return address on the back flap.

All ready to go to the post office.

Almost Done

The invitations are almost done and my excitement is palatable! Tonight my good friend and DOC Heather came over to help with the process of assembling invitations. There are only a small number of people who I would allow to help me with such a detailed project but Heather and I are cut from the same cloth and she understands my penchant for detail. She was such a huge help especially since she was extremely more efficient than me. I definitely would not have gotten as far as I did if it hadn't been for her help, thanks Heather!

I am proud to say that I only have five more invitations to go. Through the process of assembling the invitations and putting them in the correct envelopes I found a few errors that unfortunately can't be corrected until tomorrow. But tomorrow evening they will all be done and ready for me to go to the post office, determine outer postage, and mail them off!

The assembly line all ready to go!

All the pieces separately.

All the pieces stacked together ready to be enclosed by the ribbon.

All set ready for the envelope.

The invitation as it will look in the envelope. I am very happy that I went with the black envelopes because they will be more dramatic to receive them and the purple looks great against it!

Ribbons

Today was all about ribbons. I went to two different JoAnn Fabrics to track down more spools of the 1.5 inch, orange, satin ribbon since my local store was out. Unfortunately after I cut the ribbon I am still three short so I will have to go track down one more spool.

Today's project was the most tedious thus far. We folded them so that when the ends are secured under the square tag they taper in. I thought this looked a little bit more elegant or fancier than just attaching the ribbon flat. If you remember from the trial run the ribbons will look similar to this:

It was important to be precise so that the folds on each side of the taper are equal and that the dip in the middle is actually in the middle and not off-centered. Overall this part took around 3 hours with the help of my sister. Sure it could have been much worse, but again it was just tedious.

Here are all the folded ribbons ready to be attached.

Productivity

Today was another productive day! This week is Spring Break and I am trying to use my time off to get as many projects done as possible. I had a meeting with the florist to finalize the flowers. We will be using a mixture of ranunculus, roses, spray roses, and mini gerber daisies.

I also made my veil! I am very excited about this because I wasn't sure if it would work out. The veil is exactly what I want and I spent about $5 in supplies. One reason for making my veil was that I wasn't sure what length or style I wanted. When I pick my dress up on Thursday I will be able to try the veil on with the dress and make the adjustments based on how the 2 go together. I will post pictures once I have the final product.

Invitation Progress

Today I may significant invitation progress. I was able to score and fold all of the purple cardstock to make the gatefolds. Then later in the evening Tiffany and I adhered all of the invites to the gatefolds. I would say the scoring and folding took about 2.5-3 hours total but that was doing it by myself since I only had one scorer and at different intervals during the day. It took the two of us about 1 hour to adhere the invites to the cardstock. The project really ended up being painless and much easier than I had anticipated. Here is hoping the next step of cutting and folding the ribbons is just as easy.

Here they are waiting for the next step in the process and below is us working on them.

Ta Da!

So I finally found it, the purple paper I am going to use for all our paper products. It's perfect! Yep that's right I am enamored with a piece of paper, my brain has officially been kidnapped by the wedding bug. After weeks of searching online, ordering samples, and scouring small scrap book stores I found it at the nearby Hobby Lobby. I am excited because it is very vibrant and unmistakably purple.

Belly Bands

To close the gatefold and hold everything together we are going to use a ribbon belly band. It took some trial and error but finally figured out how I wanted them made. Originally I started with a thinner ribbon and all the pieces were orange. I like the thicker ribbon better, it seems more balance. The thicker ribbon was also easier to fold to create the luxe taper look. I followed directions from thecheshirekat on how to fold the ribbon. The graphic on the inside is orange but decided that it would be best to switch it to purple for the outside. Two of the mock ups are below, keep in mind these are ROUGH mock ups just to give ideas and help us figure out the final product. We are going to go with the one on the bottom. I think I need to make the cream square with graphic larger and I'm not completely sold on the shimmer orange paper since the rest of the invitation is matte cardstock.

Purple Paper Problems

The samples that I ordered last week came in on Friday. Over the weekend I made a few rough mock ups. Needless to say I wasn't thrilled with any of the purple paper selections. The shimmer papers were just too light, especially since I have made a conscious choice not to include anything lilac colored. Orange also doesn't go well with lilac it goes well with a true purple. The other paper selection was just too dark and in certain lights looked almost black.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think finding paper would be a difficult task. I have found many purple colors that I like but each side of the paper is the same one side is rough and one side is smooth, the front is matte and the back is shimmery, or one is lighter and the other darker. Because we are using a gate fold both sides need to be the same which has been the biggest problem. I really wanted to use a shimmer paper but none of the selections are darker than a lilac.

So the hunt is back on. I found a paper at Paper Source that I ordered a sample of and might be a viable option. Additionally we went to Archivers to check out a few things and I found a purple paper that I had somehow missed every other time I had been there. If the paper source sample proves to be a failure then I will go with the paper from Archivers.

Paper Source Cardstock in the color Beet

Paper from Archivers that is a purple in between the two mock ups.

Paper, paper and more paper

My current hunt is for the perfect paper, purple paper to be exact. I haven't had any trouble finding good cream or white cardstock for the invite card to mounted inside the gatefold. But finding the purple paper to make the gatefold has turned into my new obsession. I never thought that choosing my main color to be purple would send me in constant searches for the right shade in bridesmaid dresses, now paper, and who knows tomorrow maybe pew bows.

Today I made some headway and went downtown to Xpedx a paper store to be able to look at specific paper shades and feel their weight/texture. It definitely helped me cross out some options and narrow down my choices. They let me take home some samples and those I couldn't get samples from I ordered off of anchor paper online. Once they come in I am just going to have to settle and make a choice because deciding between a lighter metallic paper or a darker matte paper is beginning to make my head spin.

Simple Cardbox

Lauren is getting married on Friday and it didn't even cross her mind to make a card box. So when the reception venue coordinator mentioned it she already had enough last minute details to attend to that she asked me to take on the task. She didn't really care what she ended up with as long as it could hold cards. Since the wedding was less than a week away I figured simpler was better.

So I scrounged the house for boxes ending up with a sweater box left over from Christmas and a shoe box. I bought one roll of wedding wrapping paper for $2.49 + tax and 30-60 minutes later viola:

It really was quite simple and here is what I did. First I cut the hole in the bottom of the shoe box. Then I placed that in the middle of the sweater box lid and traced the hole I had just cut. Next I cut the same the same hole in the top of the sweater box. I wrapped the sweater box just like a present and then cut the paper over the whole and taped it inside. Next I wrapped only the shoe box bottom the same way. Lastly I cut a slit in the top of the shoe box lid, wrapped it and placed it on the top. You could glue the lid down so that no one can get into the box until after the wedding, but I did not so that they could just take the lid off to get inside.

Invitation Mock-ups

With yesterday's and today's snow days I was able to make some real headway in regards to our invitations. I played around with many different design ideas and formats and have ended up with two top choices. One is more simple and classic, the other is more modern. I like both but am drawn more to one and Andy is drawn to the other. So now I have the dilemma of picking one and refining the design. Which ever one we choose we will also use the design on all paper products: programs, table numbers, photo sharing cards etc...

Here are the two designs we are deciding between. Keep in mind these are rough mock-ups so yes the cutting is crooked and they aren't printed on ideal paper. The invites will eventually be sent to a printer and printed on a ivory card stock. We also are going to be deciding whether or not to just mount them onto the purple card stock like in the pictures or to use the purple card stock to create a gatefold. In each picture is also possible reply cards and escort cards that coordinate.

Let me know which one you like better and any other suggestions!

Here are some of the many other designs I made and rejected.

Ribbons and Bands

Another invitation idea I am considering is skipping any sort of graphic and using a ribbon or band across the invitation. The ribbon can be horizontal or vertical and is normally close to one of the sides so that is pushes the text up, down, left or right. This idea would be possible using a simple word document and complicated computer skills or programs are not needed. However there would be the factor of assembly time to put the ribbons on each invitation.

These invitations with the tied ribbon are really pretty but I am not sure if I like this idea. Inevitably the carefully tied knot is going to get smashed in the mail so when it gets to the receiver it won't look nearly as nice as how you sent it. Also the knot will add bulk and all the pieces won't lay flat in the envelope which for someone like me who is slightly anal retentive that would drive me crazy.

I was unable to find any pictures of invitations with a flat ribbon that I would be willing to post as a good example. If you can imagine it a flat ribbon would be just like the band in the picture below. I have seen many in person and I think a flat ribbon looks just as nice as the fancy knots and bows.

DIY Birdcage Veil

It's been awhile since I have posted any DIY directions or tips. Earlier this year I posted about how to make a traditional veil but birdcage veils are also very popular. One of my MOHs (yes I am having 2) is getting married in February and plans to wear one. Realizing how much they cost most likely we are going to attempt to make her's. To make your own you can find directions here and here.

Back to Invitations

I have spent a bit of time away from thinking about invitations because we were so focused on getting ready for and taking our engagement pictures. Now it is time to really think about what we are going to do for invitations so that we aren't left scrambling last minute. For the most part I have decided to go with either the gate fold or flat invitation card. The only difference is that the gate fold has the flaps that cover the invite and will enclose the extra cards. The focus is now on design which is difficult because there are endless opportunities.

One idea I am considering is using a graphic/flourish that I have found. Originally I thought I was going to use damask but I don't have the software to properly manipulate damask graphics so instead using flourish fonts in power point seems to be my best option at this point. Here are some pictures of invites that use one main graphic on the invite.

DIY Anxiety

We have gotten all the vendors booked and have started to take care of some of the small details such as centerpieces. One bigger detail that is still on my plate to tackle is invitations. I have decided to do these on my own because spending hundreds of dollars on paper that is going to get thrown away is just crazy in the scheme of our budget. But at the same time I want something nice which is why were are going to go the DIY route. I am excited about the project but things in life have been getting busy and now I am getting anxious that I have bitten off more than I can chew. I still have plenty of time but the invitations are ominously hanging over my head right now until I figure out a plan of action.

Why DIY?

Our power was out for a good portion of yesterday and most of today but after 26 hours our power is back on! Unfortuneatly most of the Cincinnati area is still without power and won't be up and running until the weekend. Who knew Ohio could have level 1 hurricane winds. Because of the outage I didn't think I would get to post today but since I can I wanted to leave you with something to read.

Over on In this Instance Tara posted about why DIY (Do It Yourself) for weddings has become so big and how it is about more than just saving money. I couldn't agree more with her opinion and think you should check out what she has to say.