Weddingbee Blog

Several months back, I told my newly-engaged friend that I wanted to throw her a bridal shower. The wedding date was set for March. Then they moved it to December.

December and late November are — to make a gross understatement — very busy times for us. Aside from the usual holiday rushes, we have the end of the semester and finals upon us. It’s a busy time at work, too. We’re also dealing with wedding-aftermath stuff this year (photo sorting and ordering for gifts, sending Thank Yous, etc). But a December wedding for my friend meant I couldn’t push off the bridal shower until February (like I’d originally planned)! I needed to get off my butt and plan this thing!

Thankfully, it’s not at my house. There were over 30 invitees, and my friend’s mom offered to host the shower. Her home is larger and more of the guests know where it is. The moral of that story is: I won’t have to clean. But I did need to create some invites!

My friend’s wedding invitations weren’t anything too elaborate. They were a beautiful tan and green design, traditional and simple. Very nice. So I knew I did not want a wild-and-crazy, elaborate and brightly-colored shower invitation; it would not match her style. (That worked out great too: simple = faster!)

I really wanted something I could print and send in an afternoon, so I turned to Office Max to look for some patterned paper. And boy did they deliver!

Our store had about 20 different options for printer-ready paper. Most were packs of 100. Some were for full 8.5″ x 11″ printing, and others were made to chop in half (you could make two invitations per sheet). Most of the paper was inexpensive too: under $10 for 100 sheets. I also bought matching envelopes for another $7.

Here is the paper I purchased:

In the photo you can see the front and back of the envelopes. The paper is under those. The background is light ivory and the details are steely blue and green. The store had lots of different paper choices, my favorite being a rowboat scene (but I couldn’t figure out how that would work for my friend’s Minnesota-in-December wedding!).

I used Microsoft word to type out the invitation, then I played with fonts and alignment until it pleased me. (Fonts I used: Anke Calligraphy and Porcelain, both from dafont.com.)

Here is [an example of] the final product:

I ran the envelopes through the printer (yay, mail merge!), and Mr. Mary Jane helped me fold and stuff these. Total project time, about 3 hours. Cost: under $20.

Whew. Now back to the books! And Thank Yous! And Christmas decorating!

Have you had to bust out any DIY projects in record time?