Wedding Blog

Since our wedding was only 7 months away, we considered not sending out Save the Dates. But my high-strung personality was scared of attempting to DIY the invites, programs and place cards without first trying something a little easier first, JUST in case I freak out and have to be taken away in a straight jacket.

My 21 year old cousin, who is one of my bridesmaids, attends Rhode Island School of Design and is amazingly talented. I asked her if she would be able to create a few characters for us to use on save the dates, place cards, and other little things throughout the wedding. It was a huge favor but she was very excited to help out with something she was good at. A couple of weeks later, she sent me this:

I was ecstatic. How adorable is this? She also knew that I am Photoshop illiterate so she made it incredibly easy for me with mulitple layers so that I could change around the colors any way I wanted.

Unfortunately I am just THAT dumb when it comes to Photoshop and I still couldn’t figure out how to make changes the way I wanted them - so when I expressed my frustration to one of my BMs, she immediately came over and helped me out. Well, I wish I can say that she “helped me out” but in actuality she pretty much did the whole thing for me. I just eagerly watched over her shoulder in fascination while she made a template so I could easily print it on 4X6 glossy photo paper.

Then Mr. Martini and I headed over to B&H and bought our first big for-the-wedding purchase. A Canon Pixma all in one printer/scanner/copier.

Then I headed over to Paper Presentation in NYC (this place is like paper heaven, no joke) and bought dark purple textured paper for the border, and green card stock for an inner border. Of course I always have to try out two designs and torture myself with trying to decide on one, but these are what I came up with:

In the end I chose the one on the right, since it had a cleaner look. I bought a roll of magnet tape, attached the magnet to the back of the STD, tied ribbon around the entire thing, and then rejoiced at the fact that I actually completed something.

Our STDs are very simple, but I was still happy with the results. I didn’t want anything elaborate, and it also has a slight “scrapbooking” feel to it, which I wanted because scrapbooking will play another part in our wedding (more on that later!)

The cost:

1 box of 4 x 6 photo paper (100 sheets): $18.00
18 sheets of textured paper in Royal Plum from Paper Presentation: $16.00 (about 89 cents a sheet)
2 packs of Tropical Green flat cards: $17.50
1 roll of magnet tape: $7.99
1 roll of ribbon: $11.50
My wonderful cousin’s adorable drawing: PRICELESS