Our invitations are done! They were designed by the wonderful Lee of Pearl & Marmalade, and I couldn’t be happier with them. I think they are perfect. This picture kinda sucks, but they are beautiful in real life. We printed them at Kinkos on 100% post-consumer content recycled cardstock. It was pretty cost-effective to have them printed that way, especially since they are 3-color.
Lee made us two kinds of RSVP cards and an extra little notecard since there was room left on the paper. The RSVP card on the top has room for two names, and for their reply, says “accepts with pleasure” or “declines with regret.” Then the RSVP card on the bottom has room for only one name and says “I wouldn’t miss it!” or “Sorry, can’t make it.”
Lee came up with this wording for us because we were trying to think of a subtle way to let some people know we really don’t want them to bring a date. I have a lot of friends/family members who are single, but feel compelled to bring a date just for the hell of it, so my Mom suggested we find some way of dropping the hint. Hopefully it won’t seem too rude. I have no problem with someone bringing a date if they are acutally dating, but I don’t want them to bring someone they barely know just so they can say they have a date. Know what I mean?
I’m also in the process of making a DIY map using the instructions from MapBio on the Knot. I will hopefully get it finished today, then I will add some directions, out-of-town guest info, and invites for those coming to the rehearsal dinner. We need to get these suckers mailed out this week.
Wow, it’s all getting so real now. Once we send out the invitations there is no going back!
lovely design!
Was it difficult/expensive to print the small size paper in color at Kinkos? I think we’re going to need to do that for our menu cards, and i’m curious about your experience.
They’re gorgeous! I hope your single guests take the hint– though I’m sure you’ll get at least one person who won’t notice the “I” wording, and who will fill in an extra name at the top anyway. Good luck!
It was pretty easy getting them printed at Kinkos. I think it only took about 2 hours for them to finish them. They charged an extra $1.50 per cut for every 50 pages… but the way that our designer laid everything out for us minimized that expense.
Overall - the cost of the paper, the cutting, and the printing for 150 invitations, RSVP cards, and notecards came out to be a little over $200.
If you don’t mind cutting them out yourself, you could save another $50 or so. Oh, and I think the recycled cardstock might cost slightly more too.
I love the extra notecards - what a wonderful bonus!
so what was the wording?? in regards to singles…
They are sooo pretty… Love your colors! 
Those are gorgeous!
Wait, so kinkos DOES let you print on cardstock? That opens up a lot of doors for me in the DIY invite world then!
Miss Green Bean —
The RSVP cards for singles have one line for the name and the boxes to check say “I wouldn’t miss it!” or “Sorry, can’t make it.” It’s just supposed to be a subtle way to hint to people that we are inviting without a guest.
they’re beautiful…
I actually lost a formerly good friend because I invited her sans date. She’s been single for as long as I’ve known her and lives in town, but she was extremely offended and has speaking poorly of me since, trying to ask other mutual friends not to go.
Most people won’t care, but some will be offended.
Miss Radish - could you explain some more about the process of the design and printing? Did P&M give you 1 design that was then replicated at Kinko’s? Also, were the copies at Kinko’s letterpressed?
Didi — Pearl & Marmalade designed the invitation set using Adobe Illustrator and gave me the pages in Adobe PDF format on a disk.
I then took the disk to Kinkos and they printed it off of the disk. I just went up to the counter and explained what I wanted and they gave me a book with all the types of paper and cardstock to pick from and then I placed the order. Oh, also, if you are thinking about doing it this way, make sure your invitation designer puts “printers marks” on the page so they can be cut out easily.
P&M laid the invitation set out on 2 pages. The 1st page had 2 invitations laid out on it and the second page had 2 RSVP cards and 2 notecards. So for 150 invitations I had to print 75 of each page.
Hope that helps. Let me know if that doesn’t answer your question.
Didi — sorry, I forgot to mention that the copies at Kinkos are color laser copies. They don’t do letterpress.
Pearl & Marmalade does letterpressing, but it’s more expensive.
Uhm, wow. You rock my socks off. =D
Miss Radish…love the invites…what did you do for envelopes?
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[...] didn’t DIY our invitations since our design skills are not so hot, but we needed to cut our costs so we tried to go as cheap [...]
[...] I forgot to blog about before our wedding was making the direction/map card to insert with our invitations. Similar to when I made our after party invites, I decided to make them myself because I’m cheap [...]
Mrs. Radish, Chicago/Syracuse
Age and Occupation: 27, Executive Assistant/Journalism Student/Musician
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Anthropologist/Musician
Engagement Date: December 20, 2005
Wedding Date: August 18, 2007
Blogging Since: June 26, 2007
Venue: The Wellington House in Fayetteville, NY
About Me: Mr. Radish and I are both from upstate New York, so we are planning a wedding in Syracuse from about 700 miles away. When I’m not obsessing about our wedding I play the cello in my band (which Mr. Radish is in too), read as much as I can, sleep even more, travel whenever possible, and try to find time to have fun with my friends. I’m also working on finishing up my journalism degree with a concentration in environmental reporting and I’m the VP of my campus Amnesty International chapter… so I’m a pretty busy bee.
Your invitations look awesome! I like the creative wording for the response cards too, very nice!!