Weddingbee Blog

Oh, invites, how I abhor you. While I was never brave enough to avoid you altogether — the nerd in me still loves paper goodness — I was also unwilling to spend gobs of money and time on you. So you cost me more than I wanted, and failed to bring me any joy. I put you in the mailbox with a smile on my face, happy that you are on your way to our people, and happier yet that you are no longer in my house or on my mind.

Much as I’d like to vent and analyze, I have decided not to spend one second more obsessing over invitations. Well, except for this post. They have the correct date, time, location, and website information, and will serve their purpose — to invite. Will they delight? Not likely. Will they cause the receiver to think we’re cheap? Perhaps. Will anyone not come because they were disappointed in our invitations? Nope.

I used Mrs. Lovebug’s invites as a starting point, then hunted down the free Monterrey BT font (similar to the popular Feel Script but FREE) which I used with an Adobe font that was already on my PC. I made up the thingie at the bottom using a combination of free fonts and vectors on my free (what else?) Inkscape program. I would share, but I’m not that organized, sorry. My fellow WB bloggers double-checked my wording (special thanks to the lovely and helpful Mrs. Cupcake). Note: if you or your man go by a name other than your given name, use quotes instead of parentheses.

The initials (can I really call something so simple a “monogram”?) at the top came out of a need to hide the squiggly thing, which the mister h.a.t.e.d. While it doesn’t hide, it does distract; I even centered it better after I printed this one out.

And yes, we’re going public with the fact that we’re bat-shit crazy and live with seven animals (two dogs and five cats, as you can see). I’m rather proud of my resourcefulness and Mr. Cheese was quite happy because his little silhouette guy looks pretty dashing. Good enough for us.

Next up, the hometown celebration invitation, first in Stardream Sapphire from PaperSource that I had in my desk, then on other paper when I ran out. Since people will only see their own invite and will never know that it didn’t match the others, I decided I didn’t care. Yes, that’s my new married name… and fireworks in the corner, because I’m cheesy like that.

Then, the RSVP card, which directs our peeps to reply online via our website or to call directly. Am I looking forward to voicemails? No, so I’m hoping the website is easy enough for most people. We borrowed the possible responses off the web somewhere, then added our own. After reading it to my mom, who didn’t get it, I added the asterisk. Sigh.

This is the back of the RSVP card asking people to share their favorite songs and quotes. I have no idea if they will; we shall see.

And, with the help of Mrs. Cupcake (again!), I printed these little inserts to remind people to wear safe shoes.

I’m not gonna lie. I scribbled the addresses in my usual penmanship with a crappy Bic pen. I hit a point where I realized that it would be fine even so. Ever received a birthday card in the mail and been disappointed because the penmanship on the mailing address was messy? I didn’t think so.

Oh, yea, and since I’m purging my soul here, if we didn’t know last names (it’s apparently a man thing), we left them out entirely (”Bill and Stephanie”). Ah, yes, and if I don’t have their addresses, I am sending a link to our wedding website via MySpace and Facebook. Sue me, Ms. Post.

And all together, the whole shebang looks like this:

Is it perfectly color-coordinated? Nah. Am I happy with the quality of the envelopes (they’ve haunted my dreams)? No. Are those even our “wedding colors” (even though I’m back to “green like the grass, blue like the sky, yellow like the sun, pink like flowers…” when anyone asks)? Nope. It’ll be okay. People will still come, and I can do an ice cream bar with the money saved on invites.

Total cost: $52

2 invite packages on clearance at Walmart: $26 (I could have used just one except for all of the design attempts I printed out)

Stamps: $12 (we’re hand-delivering about a dozen and saved with online RSVP’s)

Stardream paper: $6 on sale

Cost per invite: $0.87

If you’re a guest, don’t think I love you less because your invite had no calligraphy. And I won’t think you love me less because neither will your gift card. Smoochies.