Invitations are out!

Invites started out as my favorite detail to obsess over. Towards the end of the DIY process, I couldn't wait to get them finished and out of my house!! It did save me some money, but took up a lot of my free time. It was a serious labor of love. I came up with about a dozen different designs and obsessed over fonts and colors and text size for weeks (I began this process about August 2009). I finally made my decision after looking online at a couple of different designs for inspiration. Here is my inspiration invite. It would have cost us $4.50 to have an invite and an envelope without inserts and pocketfolds. DIY is cutting that price to about a quarter - a third of that. See here: http://www.myjeanm.com/Engine.cfm?iCatID=52682

What you need to make these invitations

Here is the biggest tip I can give anyone who plans to DIY anything. Go to Michaels.com, right now, and register for their E-mail coupons. Every week you will get a coupon for 40% off any one non-sale item. You can print 7 copies of this coupon and go every day of the week and buy one item. Sometimes that coupon will say 50% off! And once I even got a 60%. It will save you TONS in the long run, you just have to have serious patience.

Final Invite design mock! 10/18/09 shown with watermelon and tangerine metallic cardstock and pink and orange 5/8 inch ribbon. I think I'm almost satisfied! I am going to adjust the spacing so the  text takes up more room left to right rather than up and down. I'm very excited as FI is still on board with this being "classy" yet colorful.

Here's a money saving hint if you plan on doing this: Buy full size card stock and cut it down yourself. If you have a normal ink jet (like me) thicker card stock tilts in the printer and can cut off some of the design which means you'll only get two cards when you want to get three out of one sheet. Save yourself the printing time and frustration by having them printed at Kinko's and cutting them down at home. Also, see if your job has a paper cutter (or friend). They cost about $50, but if you can borrow one, you can save yourself that cash as well.

11/10/09 - Ordered our invitation materials ON SALE! 25% off! I ordered everything from cardsandpockets.com. I highly suggest ordering samples before purchasing. They have tons of colors and styles. You can even see a design center of other peoples invites.

Here are my invites - ready to be cut, printed and assembled!

I decided not to have my invites done in calligraphy and decided to print them from my computer. I took a cue from knottie riss91 and will be printing mine using my inkjet. Here are a couple I've started. The font is Feel Script.

Reply cards

In case someone forgets to write their name on the card, I wrote the number of their invite from my excel list on the back of the card

I used see-through labels to print the address on the reply envelopes. And forever stamps instead of the pretty designer ones. It's just a stamp IMO!

Closure tabs

Reception & Accommodation Cards

HALF DONE!

UGLY STAMPS!

a little blurry, but you get the picture!

Lilly is um... helping!

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Stephanie's Invitations ::updated 03/07/11::

A friend of mine asked me to help with her wedding invitations, and I was all too excited to assist! Her wedding feel and design is much different than mine. She's going for more of a classic and fanciful feel for her event. She's using brown, champagne and gold in her invitations and accents. We decided to keep her invitations as clean as possible since there is A LOT of information that we need to encorporate and used the Gate Card from Cardsandpockets.com. She's not using any inserts besides the RSVP card and envelope. The monogram was applied with a custom rubber stamp from this Etsy Shop. The damask pattern is from iStock.com and can be found here.

still in progress

Invitation materials are here!

Monograms are taking over my table!!

This is one version of her invitation. Her wedding is in one state, and she is having two receptions in two other states. That's a lot of info!!

Damask belly bands pre-printed from Cardsandpockets.com. Milk Chocolate gate cards, and gold leaf pre-cut squares

Steph's monogram was designed on paper by her father. I cleaned it up using photoshop and had it created into a rubber stamp from this Etsy Shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/BearRubberStamps We stamped each of the Gold Leaf squares for the closure of the invitation.

Reply cards. Damask border was purchased from iStock.com