Wedding Blog

Ok, I have taken on a huge endeavor.

I am set on making my programs, menus, and placecards by hand for my 250-odd guests. (Not to mention the rehearsal dinner and brunch invites and the out-of-town bags). Is this insane? Perhaps. But I’m owning my insanity and plowing ahead.

With a little inspiration from Martha Stewart, and absolutely zero rubber stamping (or crafting anything) experience, I went to Paper Presentation and bought more paper than a girl can carry (hence I brought with me my handy pack mule/beloved fiance) in the form of 250 of the following program covers (which fold into a matchbook-like shape), plus accoutrements (inserts):

I chose Daffy Blue as the color since my bridesmaids’ dresses have an aqua accent color that I kinda, sorta love, and this picked up on it perfectly. I then headed to the Ink Pad, in the West Village to find stamps with which to decorate these blank canvasses (all 250 of them, let’s not forget). Since the Ink Pad has only about a billion stamps, there was plenty to choose from. I chose a set of decorative stamps by Kodomo Inc, called Lace & Tassels, since it had two long rectangular stamps that were long enough to do a border on the paper that would bleed off the edges.

I used Ancient Page Bordeaux ink, which is a “dye-inkpad” so dries quickly. This is an important factor when one has a cat weighing in at 20 or so lbs. and said cat is obsessed with sitting on paper (in truth, any craft project will do). This color is pretty much the same as the dresses’ main color (I know aqua + bordeaux sounds a hideous combination, but it’s not. It’s like french fries dipped in a Wendy’s Frosty– sounds gross, but is indeed awesome.)

This is what my first effort looked like:

The stamping was a bit imperfect here and in a few other early efforts, but that’s kind of the charm of handmade. (Or so I told myself as I bore in mind the hundreds left to do.) Now I have about half of the outside covers done, and none of the inserts. Only because I have yet to choose ceremony music or figure out the order of things, and that stuff. The programs will hang from the chairs in the room where our ceremony will be held, rendering un peu useless our ushers, but hey, now they can focus on seating people expediently…

The various stages of my efforts to date:

Initally, I thought to include a stamp of our to-be initial in the center of the program, so i mocked it up as follows:

But then I decided I liked the simplicity of the blue expanse… (which worked out well, in that centering an initial stamp for every one of these suckers would be tedious to say the least!)

Am I the only one who has decided to DIY without *any* prior craft experience? Please tell me I’m not… because although I am pretty sure I have bitten off enough to induce fatal choking more than I can chew, overwhelmed loves company.