Weddingbee

….well, the NorCal ones at least. ~60 more to go for SoCal.

I was commenting to Mr. Tomato the other day that “I hope people will understand the significance of the individual components of the invitations.” He gave me a blank look. Uh oh.

“They have significance?” he asked.

So I have decided to post and explain what each component stands for, so all my labor is not disposed within 10 seconds by the receiver.

Here is my labor of love (heh) for the past six weeks…the wedding invitation!

Edwardian Script and Felix Titling font (I’m all about combining style and practicality). “True Blue” stamp (I wanted something whimsical) in the upper right hand corner.

Gold “Love” wax seal to convey elegance.

Vellum envelope tied with a pale yellow ribbon. Pale yellow and peachish-pink are the wedding colors, which are supposed to convey warmth and the sunset (after all, our venue, Auberge du Soleil, means “Inn of the Sun”). I’m a perfectionist so I must have tied and retied those things for I don’t know how long…I wanted the bows and ends to be near equal length. By the way, that ribbon was going to cost me $156 at Ribbonerie in SF!!! (Don’t worry, I bought much less and ended up spending around $30). Whew.

Vellum cover with gold leaf motif…the gold here ties in with the gold wax seal…both are supposed to convey elegance. The gold leaves are supposed to give the upscale country feel of Auberge/Napa Valley (where the wedding is to be held).

“The Strongest and Sweetest songs yet remain to be Sung.” -Whitman. (quote on upper right hand corner)

Whitman is perhaps my favorite poet… Mr. Tomato often jokes that I’d probably run off with him if he was still alive. I engraved this quote on Mr. Tomato’s silver necklace when we first started dating…it symbolizes that the strongest and sweetest part of our relationship is yet to come (which has continued to prove true!).

I hand drew the two flower branches. They symbolize two souls joining at one (see where they touch at the bottom?). OKAY JUST KIDDING–I just made that up (this is why I was an English major). I drew the branches because I wanted something to go with the gold leaf motif, and got the idea from the flower branches Mr. Tomato buys every so often to stick in his vase at home. Each card was painstakingly colored in. Peachish-pink flowers to go with the wedding colors, and gold leaves to go with the vellum. Was it worth it? I have no idea. You tell me.

Pale yellow (again, wedding color) RSVP card is enclosed in a vellum envelope.

“We hope you can share this day with us.”

Inside, the guest finds an RSVP code. Mr. Tomato spent two weeks coding an online reservation system on our wedding website and it’s great! We’ll be saving money in postage. Guests can also find more wedding info (address, dress code, etc) on our website.

Inside the invitation. Simple and sweet, just the way I like it - I wanted to create something easy for people to read.

Mr. Tomato thought it’d be awesome if I signed the back of each invitation with my name. So I did.

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SIX WEEKENDS TO MAKE INVITATIONS…WAS IT WORTH IT?

I kinda knew what I was getting myself into. After all, I made wedding invitations for my friends before so I knew the cost of labor was going to be tremendous. But this was one way for me to personalize our wedding. Our wedding is going to be small, and I wanted the intimacy to come through with handmade cards. Still, from every experience I learn something new…

THINGS I LEARNED

-If you are making invitations just to save money, think again. There are so many economical options out there nowadays–including Costco.

-Never feed a hand torn edge into a printer. It will print crooked, again and again.

-However, if you insist on having the “torn edge look” (as I did) then try hand feeding. The chances of crooked printing diminishes greatly.

-For the most painless route, select plain card stock as your paper. Printing on slippery, shimmery paper is a bad idea–the home printer doesn’t grip it very well.

-Kinko’s won’t print anything smaller than 8.5 x 11.

-Never think you are done until you are actually done. We thought we’d be done in two weeks. Look where that got us.

Good luck!

• Practice Makes Perfect
• Open Question: Destinatio...