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Last summer, my parents were kind enough to throw Mr. Peacock and me an engagement party. We made several different types of of hors d’oeuvres, fun party drinks and had a cocktail party in my parents’ backyard. My mom loves to garden and in the late summer the flowers are coming up everywhere. It was nice to be able to break up our crazy long engagement with a little celebration.
I had been playing around with the idea of making my invitations and I took advantage of the party as an excuse to play with my tools. I was inspired by a stamp (”Cottage Bloom”) that I bought at last year’s Paper Source Paper Wedding event. I used a watermark stamp pad and light gold powder to create the pretty, shiny flower. I had to test out several different combinations of stamp pad + embossing powder to get to just the right shade of warm gold. I paired it with some pretty blue (”Lake”) cards and ivory cardstock. Here are the results:
Stamping
Powdering
Drying
Invite Done!
The ivory cards were 4.5×4.5 and the blue cards are 5×5. Cutting squares was pretty easy, compared to my previous forays into cutting rectangles. I loved using the embossing powders and I even had fun picking out the fonts. It was also nice to give my newly acquired embossing dryer a test run. This experience taught me two things- 1) I can totally make my wedding invitations and my mom and I might even enjoy it and 2) I really don’t want to make my wedding invitations. I will commit to the save the dates, the direction cards, the menus and place cards. A girl can only do so much without a printing press.
I know a lot of you are making your invitations. Anyone want to convince me that I should go for it? 
Any other words of wisdom for those venturing into that arena?
Miss Peacock, you’re a graduate student, right? I don’t know how life is in your field of study, but in mine — my hours are long, my patients is tested (and tested again, and tested again, and then the day before a committee meeting ALL YOUR CELLS DIE AND RUIN THE EXPERIMENT YOU HAVE BEEN WORKING ON FOR 3 MONTHS). Ahem. Back to the point at hand — I’m in oncology/chemistry, and my life is hell right now. And I decided to make my own invitations a while ago, not really thinking things through.
Within the span of the next 3 weeks, I have my first thesis committee meeting, a major presentation that my PI asked ME to do for a major collaborating lab, a trip to present my preliminary data to a pharmaceutical company which may start production of the drug we’re developing, two bridal showers to attend, and 150 invitations to design, Gocco, assemble, and drop in the mail.
Word of advice. If your realm of graduate school is half as hectic as my realm of graduate school, hire someone else to make your invitations. If your program is 9-5 and you have lots of free time, then it’s different, but when I’m working 14-16 hour days, 7 days a week, the LAST thing in the world I want to think about when I get home is the invitations. And if I run out of time and am forced to choose between throwing my time into the invitations or my research, well… then everyone is getting e-vites to the wedding, because I can’t let my research suffer on behalf of some crazy invitations I decided to make. If I could go back and do it again, I’d be willing to shell out however much money it took to have someone else do these for me!
Er, patience. Not patients. Right. Can you tell I haven’t slept in about 2 weeks?
I originally planned on creating our invitations, and after the Save the Dates I’ve decided to have them printed elsewhere. That might be a good compromise…you can still design and assemble, but don’t have to do the printing?
I made my own invitations yesterday in a craft marathon. Thank goodness it’s a small wedding. It took forever, but I am so pleased with the results - I got exactly what I wanted for a good deal.
I think that making your own invitations is maybe more beneficial to gals having small weddings, since that initial print/design fee makes up the bulk of the cost with professional invitations. I was dead set on my color scheme and somewhat unusual inserts, so I used cardsandpockets.com and my six-year-old to put ‘em together. The worst part, by far, was the cutting. If you can do that, you’re golden.
Um, that would be my six-year-old printer. I don’t have a craft prodigy child around the house.
They look great! Please tell me– where did you get light gold embossing powder? From Paper Source?
Julie- It is pretty hectic, but it will be less hectic this summer when I need to make them.
JB- Haha! I was very impressed with your child! 
I agree with you on the cutting being the worst part.
rzbina- it is “honey pearl” by Top Boss. I actually bought it at a scrapbook store called Archivers.
Oooh, pretty. How do you not scorch the paper with the embossing tool? That’s what always stumps me. I char the heck out of things.
Get plenty of GOOD HELP if you’re going to make your own invite. I got my youngest brother doing the design (he’s really good), my other brother is doing the folding and trimming and sister on the gluing duties. Fiance is in charge of counting them and later putting them in envelopes. I’m doing the cutting as I don’t trust them to cut straight (i’m a perfectionist…) We’ll getting the printing done professionally. Without helps, I would’ve pulled all my hair out and be a hairless bride. So solicit some help from friends and family member…and pace yourself.
I just finished making my invites - 160 gocco’d sets (folder, invite, 2 inserts, 1 laser printed insert.) If we had the budget for letterpress then I would’ve done that, but we didn’t so it was either design it myself and get them printed at a local printer or gocco them, and I’m glad I decided to gocco. They’re much more personal and impressive since they’re hand made. BUT, you need to have a lot of time and patience. I was a gocco virgin so there was a lot of trial and error, so total printing time was about 7 days. Plus with designing, choosing and testing paper, assembling, etc…maybe a month if I had worked on them without taking breaks.
Good luck if you decide to DIY!
I used that very stamp on my wedding invites that I totally DIY-ed. It’s a LOT of work and I’m not sure I would do it again but at least I had an invite that was totally made with love and different that anything else in the world.
Thanks!
Go for it!!
We made everything from scratch. Not only did I heat emboss the inserts, I also hand embossed the invitation “logo” (instead of the initials” and even made the embossing template as I couldn’t find one I liked online or offline…
…I found it quite relaxing (specially since the boss kept on asking me on Fridays at 4:30 wanting 50 different things done by 5pm)…it was my way of not thinking of work.
Luckily our tissue culture room was down during all this time….otherwise I’d be freaking out about my cells just like julieulie
Good luck if you decide to go DIY!
(oh, yeah, the other side effect of DiY wedding stuff: makes you want to tell everyone about how fun it is so you start a blog! :-P)
my fiancee and I just attended the Paper Source paper wedding event last weekend, we were quite inspired! we had decided we wanted to do our own invites for our September 2008 wedding, too. our theory is that it will be cheaper and give people a chance to participate who wouldn’t normally (ie. our out-of-town moms).
our “solution” to the enormous responsibility of the invitations is to make a party out of it. in May, we’ll be hosting our moms and about 15 of our friends to help us cut, stamp, emboss, even let their creativity out a bit and involve them in helping a bit with the wedding prep.
i applaud you for doing grad school and planning a wedding. tough work.
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Miss Peacock, Chicago Age and Occupation: 26, PhD Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Internet Whiz Engagement Date: December 5, 2006 Wedding Date: September, 2008 Blogging Since: December 13, 2007 Venue: St. Clement Church, Cafe Brauer (or a big church wedding and a fancy party at a cafe in Lincoln Park. About Me: I am a grad student with a secret obsession for all things wedding related. I also love to read, travel, drink champagne and go for walks with our dog, Maisy, and Mr. Peacock. We are planning our very vintage wedding in the greatest city in the world, our hometown of Chicago. I am so proud to be a Bee!
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