Weddingbee Blog

Programs are something that I had always wanted to DIY. After seeing all the inspiration around on the hive, initially it was hard to decide which direction to go in.

A looooong time ago, when my love affair with Weddingbee began, Mrs. Bell Pepper had a lot to do with it! Probably because her color scheme was so similar to mine, and alright, because I though it was super neat that she was planning her wedding during residency. I swooned over her awesome fan programs for years (seriously - years, this chick was ahead of her time):

Love. But, since I need to make a bajillion programs, I started looking into other options that did not require such serious scissor usage.

I found these seeming simple options on the knot:

Super cute and relatively easy to make, no?

But then, like so many of you have, I found some programs that I couldn’t get out of my head - designed by our very own, uber-talented Mrs. Cupcake!

So perfectly pocket-sized and incredibly accordion … I knew I had found our program design!

Alas, the beauty of her custom cut program cover perplexed me. How does one acquire such a rare beast and how much is it going to cost? After some research (primarily on Cards & Pockets - I tend to stick to what I know), I realized that I could get any shape I wanted, in any paper I wanted, cut to order! Victory!

Then, I promptly realized that the paper would be blank, and that I didn’t have a Gocco or another fancy way of printing on my awesome custom-shaped paper. Hmph. Fail.

[Sidebar: ohhh the Gocco debate. I’ve had this debate approximately 5 times. Should I buy one? Restrain yourself, Cheeseburger. Should I borrow one? From who - the Gocco Fairy Godmother? Should I pay a more talented bee who has a Gocco to do this for me? Probably the best option here. Ultimately, I restrained from purchasing or using a Gocco for my DIY projects, but that’s not to say I still don’t regret it every now and then... anyway, back to programs.]

So, I was at a crossroads. What to do, what to do? Well, lucky for me, fate intervened. You see, I had always wanted to make circular menus, a la (who else?!) Mrs. Bell Pepper, for our reception tables. I had already purchased a bunch of 5.5″ circle cards from Paper Source in sage, and I was ready to crank this project out on some rainy day or another. Welp, it turns out there are no plates or chargers at the place settings at our venue, and I certainly wasn’t paying to get them just so that I could create a menu to put on them! Nothankyouverymuch.

So, our round wedding programs were born! No, they’re not very typical of a wedding program, and they probably won’t fit in your pocket, either. But I think they’re going to be cute, and I love that they saved me from wasting 300 circle cards .

Now get ready for part two: graphic design - Cheeseburger style (i.e. with Microsoft Office products only, because I know nothing about graphic design)!

Where did you get your program inspiration?