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Mrs. Gardenia, La Habra Age and Occupation: 30, IT Security Administration Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Accountant Engagement Date: February 6, 2006 Wedding Date: January 5, 2008 Venue: Black Gold Golf Club About Me: After 9 years of dating, I’m finally getting hitched and planning a multi-cultural wedding in Orange County, California. I think making brownies is my secret passion in life - I will make my mark in this world through them (a la Betty Crocker). Aside from baking, I also enjoy scrapbooking, being a dessert connoisseur (current fave: French macaroons), photography and I’m also a self confessed spa virgin turned addict.
About Miss Gardenia

You’re Cordially Invited

December 17th, 2007 @ 11:56 am by Mrs. Gardenia

Invitation styles played a gigantic role in the grand scheme of our wedding planning. We wanted our save the dates and invitations to be able to tell a story, or give our guests a hint of what to expect come January 2008. Since we had a rigid budget, we knew that DIY would be our solution to infusing our style into our stationery, and making them affordable at the same time. When I stumbled upon Mrs. Eggplant’s post about her wedding invitations, I finally had a direction and a vision!

Typical Filipino wedding invitations include an insert that lists your entire wedding party, so we knew that we needed to add that to our other inserts (response cards, reception cards, etc), and a pocket folder seemed to be our best bet. We started with sample pocket folders that we ordered from Cardandpockets.com and Paper Source, completed several mock up pieces, and finally decided on the Vertigo pocket folder from Cardsandpockets.

Once the color schemes had been decided and the materials had been ordered, we conceptualized the design and looked at different ideas that we’d seen in the past. My MOH (who else?) used istockphoto for ideas of graphics that we would be able to use, and she came up with a design that Mr. Gardenia and I were both very excited with. We completed a mock-up and took it to a local printer for a quote, and they were able to produce a proof within hours. As soon as the proof was approved, our invitations were printed within hours.

So with the invitations printed, pocket folders, spools and spools of ribbon, stamps, crafting tools and lots of double stick tape on hand, we were ready to start cranking these out. I decided to get all of the print jobs done at the same time to make it a bit more organized and bearable.

 

 

Envelopes and RSVP Postcards

1. Print return addresses on all the envelopes using MS Word.
2. Print all of the guests’ names and their addresses on the envelopes using MS Word as well. Tip: I ended up using a calligraphy-style font to avoid the costs of a calligrapher.
3. Print return addresses on clear labels and attach them to RSVP postcards.
4. Attach stamps on all RSVP postcards and main envelopes.

RSVPS

Since we used postcards for our response cards, we were limited in the space that we had to put information and decided to number each response card inconspicuously to correspond with the number of each guest in our spreadsheet. I really wanted to use invisible ink, but after trips to numerous craft/art supplies stores, I was discouraged they didn’t carry what I was looking for. In fact, on my trip to Michael’s one of the workers pointed me to the Crayola washable magic markers since she thought that’s what I wanted.

Pocket folder, Main Invitation & Inserts

6. Measure the pocket folder with a ruler to get the center where the ribbon will be attached. Wrap the 7/8″ ribbon around the pocket folder using double stick tape. I found that double stick tape works wonders since it’s not as noticeable as other things I’ve tried (glue stick, fabric glue).

7. Use double stick tape and attach the blue hydrangea-colored matting to the top portion of the pocket folder.

8. Attach the main invite to the blue matting with double stick tape.

9. Arrange the inserts in order and put them inside the sleeves in the bottom portion of the pocket folder.

10. Place the pocket folder inside the corresponding envelope. Once we got to this step, we checked our spreadsheet to make sure that it was going to the appropriate guest.  We wouldn’t want our guest who only needs 2 seats to receive the response card for 6 guests.

Monogram Stickers

We printed the monograms that one of our groomsmen created for us on cream colored cardstock paper and matted it against the same hydrangea-colored cardstock.  Then we ran it through our Xyron machine to achieve that adhesive backing. These were used to seal the pocket folder flaps.

Embossed stickers

I bought a PSA embosser a while back to use for our STD cards and since they had our wedding date on it, I figured we could use them again for our wedding invitations seals.

I will make sure to blog next about the vendors that we used and the total costs for our invites. Looking at our invites now that they’re out of the coop, I feel that we came up with a harmonious piece that tied everything together from beginning to end.

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15 Responses to “You’re Cordially Invited”

1.
Guest Icon
Guest
cookiechristina

The invites are beautiful! I love the colors, though I’m a bit biased since I’m using blue and green too! May I ask what the total cost came out to be?

 
2.
Guest Icon
Guest
Sarah

Could you use the old spy standby of lemon juice to invisibly mark RSVPs? It browns when it’s heated.

 
3.
Guest Icon
Guest
scarlet16

I love the flourish you used! Can you tell me where you found it on istock?

 
4.
stargazerlily
Member
stargazerlily (message)  946 posts, Busy bee

beautiful! Incredibly well thought out and executed!

 
5.
AOEBuckeye
Member
AOEBuckeye (message)  255 posts, Helper bee

Crayola has something like an invisible ink. You use a clear marker to write whatever. Then you have to use one of the special pens it comes with to scribble all around the area you marked and it will be colored except for the area you drew the clear pen on, thus revealing the “secret message”. I use my nieces as an excuse to play with these…

 
7.
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Member
ms-c (message)  20 posts, Newbee

it looks beautiful! may i ask what font you used (the calligraphy-like font?)?

 
8.
Guest Icon
Guest
Amber

Ok weird question but would you be willing to share your monogram by any chance. Both my fiance and I have last names that start with E’s so I would love do use the mongram on your invites. I love the final product they look fantastic!

 
9.
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Guest
Lexie

Miss Gardenia, you sound so organized! This seems like a huge undertaking and your invites look flawless. May I ask…did you cut the paper yourselves –or how did that work exactly? I’m trying to figure out the easiest way to execute my own invite project and I’m not sure if the paper should be ordered in larger sheets and we’ll cut them ourselves, or if we should have them printed and cut by someone. Thanks for sharing!

 
10.
rzblna
Member
rzblna (message)  265 posts, Helper bee

What brand double-stick tape did you use? And what color pocketfolder is that?
Thanks!

 
11.
Bee Icon
Bee
Mrs. Eggplant (message)  297 posts, Helper bee

these look absolutely fabulous :)

 
12.
Member Icon
Member
jessicalynn (message)  62 posts, Worker bee

i LOVE mrs. eggplants invites! they are def. my inspiration too! congrats on such beautiful invites!! I hope mine turn out just as well!

 
13.
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Guest
Elizabeth @ Elizabeth Anne Designs

this is gorgeous. the color scheme looks great and the cards look so nice all lined up in their folder!

 
14.
Guest Icon
Guest
saraka

Miss Gardenia,
Beautiful invitations! I am inspired. :)
I am also getting married at Black Gold, and I really enjoy reading your posts. Since I’m planning my wedding at the same venue and it appears we might be neighbors - I’d love for us to share ideas, vendors, questions, etc. Do you mind sending me your email address? Mine is sara_kim86 at yahoo dot com. Thanks!

 
15.
briannie
Member
briannie (message)  273 posts, Helper bee

i love your invites! would you be able to send me the info for your printer (i’m in OC, too)? aneenguyen at gmail dot com!

 


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Mrs. Gardenia Mrs. Gardenia, La Habra Age and Occupation: 30, IT Security Administration Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Accountant Engagement Date: February 6, 2006 Wedding Date: January 5, 2008 Venue: Black Gold Golf Club About Me: After 9 years of dating, I’m finally getting hitched and planning a multi-cultural wedding in Orange County, California. I think making brownies is my secret passion in life - I will make my mark in this world through them (a la Betty Crocker). Aside from baking, I also enjoy scrapbooking, being a dessert connoisseur (current fave: French macaroons), photography and I’m also a self confessed spa virgin turned addict.
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