Wedding Blog

We’ve already received some of the RSVPs in the mail, so now I think it’s safe to show you the goods.

First up, our invitation:

This probably isn’t the best angle to see the whole invite, but I wanted to share it because it helps you to see the texture of the watercolor paper.

Here’s a picture of the full invite card. These are 5″x7″, one-sided, made from 140 lb. watercolor paper, and printed with a Kodak inkjet printer. (Of the initial feedback I’ve received so far, most people ask me where I got them printed and don’t believe me when I say they were done with an inkjet printer. They really turned out great!)

Here are the reception cards, printed on the 90 lb. watercolor paper and trimmed to 4-bar size:

While a reception card is certainly not necessary, especially in our case, where the ceremony is also at the same place, I wanted to include one for two reasons. First, when I put “Reception to follow in the lobby of the Cathedral” on the invitation, it kind of made it look too cluttered to me. I already thought there was too much text on the invitation card with the necessary ceremony information, so I wanted to do a separate reception card. (Maybe if I were a professional designer, I would have been able to make it work with all of the text, but oh well—I’m happy with them.) Secondly, I wanted to stress to people that the reception would immediately follow the ceremony. Since we are taking 95% of our photos prior to the ceremony, there will be minimal lag time between the two events. I wanted the guests to be aware of this so they didn’t miss the start of the reception, which could be anytime between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m. I thought a separate reception card would help drive that point home.

Oh, and maybe I did have a third reason. I really liked the different flower graphics and wanted to incorporate as many as I could.

The RSVP card is may favorite part of the invitation set! Check it out:

It’s hard to tell from the pictures, but the RSVP card is folded and opens up to provide blank space for guests to write us a note if they so desire. This is also 4-bar size and printed on the 90 lb. paper. I love the peony, and even included a simpler, smaller one on the reverse side. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture.) Because I like the peony so much, I’ve incorporated it into our table number signs, which I hope to share with you soon.

I didn’t use inner/outer envelopes. My reasons for not doing so included the extra cost to purchase two sets of envelopes, and the increased postal weight. Instead, I went the belly band route. Here is how that turned out:

I used paper that matched the envelopes to create the band. I just cut 8.5″ x 11″ sheets into 2.75″ strips, then used my Scor-Pal to create straight and even creases for easier folding around the invite. For the flower, I used a rubber stamp I found in the $1 bin at Pat Catan’s. I thought it worked perfectly with the other flower graphics. For each invite, I wrote the names of the guests to the left of the flower in black ink.

Here is everything together, ready to be wrapped in a belly band, stuffed in an envelope, and sent on its way:

I designed the entire invitation suite myself using Adobe Photoshop Elements. I used the font “Exmouth” for our names (downloaded for free from dafont.com) and “Copperplate” for the main text. For the line art flower drawings, I used Photoshop brushes I found for free online.

The envelopes and the paper for the belly bands were purchased from envelopemall.com. They are made by Carnival, and the color is Pine. I thought envelopemall.com had great prices, the color I selected was the closest match I could find to our color scheme, and their shipping was reasonable and quick. Overall, I had an excellent experience with this vendor!

I was really pleased with how our invitations turned out. They were a lot of work, but well worth the effort. I’ve already been rewarded in both cost savings and personal gratification. This is definitely a DIY project that I will never regret.

For those of you who made your invitations, was it worth it? Do you have any regrets?