Weddingbee

Just a few short hours ago, we gave the official word for our invites to be printed!! I couldn’t be more ecstatic with how the design came out!! Sorry you guys will have to wait until after we mail them for pics, though.

But this new stage of wedding prep, like alllll the other stages, comes with new questions to ponder. So today I’ve spent much of the day thinking about… envelopes.

<from www.bagnboxman.co.uk>

As I see it, the envelope quandry can be broken down into the following sectors:

1. Color/type of paper/vellum/box
2. One envelope or two
3. Envelope Liners - to have or not to have?
4. Return address - printed/embossed/hand written/sticker etc.
5. Mailing address - calligraphy/handwriting/sticker/etc.
6. Wording on envelope - Mr. & Mrs., Bill & Susan, “and family,” etc.
7. Stamps - whatever/picking pretty ones/personalized

1. As for the color/type of paper we are just going with the same type as our invites. That’s an easy one! So it’s not colored (but our reply card envelope is!)

2. We are not doing an inner envelope because, well, honestly, I don’t see much point. I think it’s nice and all, and I appreciate the tradition - and I’m usually all about traditions - but it just seems like a ton of extra paper which doesn’t serve a whole lot of purpose. I guess the don’t-waste-paper side of me won out over the traditionalist on that one. We’re just going to write the names of everyone invited (including kids) out on the outer envelope. So even though that might be a lot of names for a single envelope on a couple of them, it just “made more sense” than getting an inner envelope for everyone just to avoid two or three wordy outer envelopes.

3. Envelope liners are never something we really considered. I think they’re so so pretty and in an ideal world of unlimited time/money/resources/energy I’m pretty sure I would have searched until I found The Perfect Ones to Complete my invitation set… but while I think they’re a gorgeous extra, they’re definitely an extra, and one I can live without.

4. We are having our return address printed on the backs of the envelopes. I love embossers and really wanted one for a long time, but they are just too expensive for me to justify getting one now with my unmarried name when I’m going to be changing it so soon! And yes, I know we could just get another plate made afterwards for not that much additional cost, but we’re probably moving soon, so then we’d have to get ANOTHER one and who knows when we’ll have a real “permanent” address. Chances are getting them printed professionally will end up costing about as much as an embosser, but then it’s just done with no effort from us and will match exactly. And sometimes, despite my DIY urgings, I’m all about the easy.

5. We are just going to handwrite the addresses on our envelopes. Calligraphy is so lovely but not enough extra lovely to justify the extra cost for us. Eh. That’s probably something I would try to do if we had an unlimited budget, but it’s really not something I’ll miss. Right now I’m just trying to decide if I want to enlist Mr. Bluebell and/or assorted friends and family to help me, or if I want to try buying a semi-calligraphy-style pen and writing them all myself. I made a vague attempt at pretty writing on my save the date envelopes that I thought turned out nice enough even with a regular pen, so I’m leaning towards doing them all myself right at this moment. But they do need to go out soon so I might change my mind when it’s 2:00 AM and my hand’s all crampy.

6. I think we’re just going to write “Bob & Martha Smith” with “Billy & Edna Smith” on the second line if there are kids invited too. Again, despite my unnatural affection for tradition in just about everything, writing “Doctor” and “Miss” out for everyone just seems silly for some reason. Don’t get me wrong - when I get a formally addressed envelope I get all giddy and feel important and like to pretend that it’s the 1800s. (Okay, that’s an exaggeration. Um, sort of. ) But I just don’t think it quite fits with our wedding. I don’t want people to feel that they’ve been invited to the prince’s ball so much as a cozy family event, which doesn’t lend itself to proper titles as much.

7. I just bought our stamps online today! I ended up spending about $10 extra total to get prettier stamps that I thought worked better with our invites, than to get exactly $0.63 (for outgoing invites) and $0.41 (for RSVP’s that might be mailed back after the May 15 rate increase). Just a few cents extra for more “appropriate” stamps felt worth it to me, although I did have to endure a fair amount of mocking from Mr. Bluebell. When I first heard of having customized stamps made, I thought it was ridiculous to pay extra for a service with a flat rate that will be performed identically no matter how much you spend on it. But, well, now that I kept talking myself into 2 or 3 cent increases per envelope…I totally see the point! I’m happy with our stamp choices but in another world it might have been fun to actually upload our own picture/graphic for an even more appropriate stamp.

So that’s about it (and wow, quite a lot) for my envelope situation! I was going to post some polls on what the hive is doing too, but I’m afraid that will have to wait for Part II.

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