Weddingbee Blog

Cuz blood, sweat and tears went into this baby (yes, there was a teensy bit of blood from a needle prick or 2!). I present to you, my programs!

The cover: The programs are 4.25″ x 5.5″ (an 8.5″ x 11″ cut down in half, and folded) printed on Pearl White metallic cardstock from Paperandmore, and rounded corners (that was Mr.E’s job!) Each cover is hand embossed in gold with our monogram. I ordered a custom stamp with our monogram from Impress, and the quality and detailing is fab!! I was very insistent on designing this particular size program because I wanted something small that would fit into a ladies purse, hence, they better take these with them, hehe!!

The first page is a vellum overlay that lays on top of one of our engagement pictures. The overlay incorporates the same red swirly flourish from our invitations (by designer Sarah, of Truly Smitten, email me for her contact info). I designed the vellum page in Adobe Illustrator, and printed 2 sets per 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of vellum on my Canon photo printer, and then manually cut them with my trusty Cutterpede trimmer. I love how the red flourish coordinates with the red tulips in the picture

This next layout includes a listing of our entire bridal party, parents, participating kids, and readers.

The next spread is the order of our ceremony, with music and reading selections, as well as a note at the end asking guests to remain in their seats after the ceremony for a group picture. You can see in this picture that I used a needle and sturdy gold thread to hand-sew all of these programs together (I think I was inspired by Miss Plumeria). Since it was difficult to get the needle through all 4 thick layers, I first used a thumbtack to punch tiny holes before I sewed. Worked like a charm!

On the left side, we have the lyrics to the song “The Prayer” by Josh Groban and Charlotte Church, which is one of my absolute favorites. This is also the song which will be playing as I walk down the aisle, as well as during the Unity Candle lighting ceremony. *shiver with excitement!*

Lastly, we have another engagement picture, with the back side of the vellum. When you lay the vellum over the picture, you will see the quote by Robert Browning, “Grow old with me, the best is yet to be…”

The end!! I really wish I could give some expert tutorial on how to put this together, but the fact is, it was entirely by trial and error. I was SO frustrated at times, especially during the design process (everything was done in Illustrator), trying to get all the pages perfectly aligned and printed properly. So I would lay it out, print it out, cut it to size, and see if everything lined up correctly. Rinse and repeat. I started this project back in April, so you can only imagine how many iterations I had to go through to get here!!

All the pages were printed on a color copier except for the vellum page, which was on my home printer. The inside pages were printed on a thicker  ivory stock, kind of like resume paper (but not). I made 105 of these babies for our 190 person guestlist. I’m hoping that they will all be gone by the end of the night!!