Weddingbee Blog

… Or, the invitations. Insert fanfare here.

I started thinking about our invitations almost immediately after we got engaged. I went through a bunch of bad designs, then I went through a bunch more, and finally, I picked one and just got the damn things printed. I hemmed and hawed over what kind of belly band to use. I spent countless hours bent over my Cricut working on envelope liners. I wore down the blade of my paper trimmer to cut out backing sheets. I rolled cards through my Xyron until I could roll no more. And finally, there they were.

So, without further ado (and without much narration, because I am EXHAUSTED), here are our invitations. I’ll start with what the guests saw when they received them. Mr. Panther and I chose the Hawaiian Rain Forest stamps, because they were colorful and different. OK, and because we were both rain forest nerds in elementary school. Plus, um, hello! Panthers live in the jungle! (Right? Do they?)

We didn’t realize until we got them that they were HUGE, but it was too late then!

The envelopes above are of last-minute invitations, so they don’t have the real calligraphy on them. Just my chicken scratch in a gold pen. So, here’s another envelope with fancy calligraphy! I don’t even have to blur out the address, because we moved! Please excuse the paint all over my nails. It’s from our table numbers, which are DONE! Post coming up next!

The back, as I already showed you back in February, had our addresses letterpressed on the flap (by the amazing Twin Ravens Press). I forgot to take a new picture of this, but you can see it in the old post if you’re really curious!

When our guests opened the envelopes (very, very carefully), they saw my metallic envelope liners. Just like the ones in our save the dates, I printed these on Stardream text-weight metallic paper. There were three differences: They were lavender, instead of aqua; they had a cute little decal thingy with our names and wedding date; and I used a LASER PRINTER! This made a HUGE difference. It looked much crisper, and it didn’t smudge. Whew. Lesson learned.

Here’s a better image of the liner, from closer up.

When our guests took the whole chunk of paper out of the envelope, it looked like this:

It took us a long time to find that lavender ribbon. I tried satin, grosgrain, wire, everything. They were all too thick and didn’t let me close the envelopes. Finally, I saw a post on Elizabeth Anne Designs that featured what seemed to be the perfect ribbon in the perfect knot. I commented and begged for a recommendation, and Jana directed me to Etsy seller CCustomCreations. The ribbon is gorgeous and has the perfect sheen, but it’s SO thin! (In a good way, not in a cheap way.) Hooray! Wedding blogs to the rescue, as always!

Anyhoodle, hopefully at this point, our guests turned our invitation sideways and noted the lovely aqua edge painting. Then they said, “Oooooooh.”

The first piece that came off the stack would be our website cards. Like many a bee before me, I went with Mini Moo cards, and I’m so glad I did. They’re adorable!

Next up was the RSVP card, printed by catprint.com on their heavy cotton paper. Guests who were invited with a date (or their whole family) got this card:

And because I’m a grammar freak, guests who were invited solo got this card:

Yes, I filled in the second blank in “__ of __ is excited to attend.” Maybe it was overkill, but it worked! Nobody has added unwanted guests to their cards … yet.

Our RSVP envelopes were letterpressed by Twin Ravens Press, and they looked AWESOME. I have to use Kristin’s photo here, because she’s way better at photographing letterpress than I am. She probably gets a fair amount of practice, I suppose!

Photo by Twin Ravens Press

Our directions card was nothing fancy, but hopefully it’ll do the trick. It was printed by Catprint. This photo is by me.

And then, of course, there was the invitation. The beautiful, beautiful invitation.

I’m trying to toot my own horn here. It’s not the design that makes it so beautiful. It’s that gorgeous letterpress on that wonderfully cushy duplex-weight paper, and the shimmery edge painting, and the awesome bonus that Kristin printed the peony pattern on the BACK! Let’s go back to Kristin’s photos.

Photo by Twin Ravens Press

Get a little closer. The imprint is amazing.

Photos by Twin Ravens Press

I just can’t say enough good things about Twin Ravens Press. In addition to letterpressing (is that a word?) our outer envelope flaps, RSVP envelope fronts and both sides of our invitation, she also did the edge painting, and it came out SO. GOOD. She is crazy amazing. I wish I weren’t so tired so I could use better words to describe her amazingness.

Aaaand, here’s the entire suite. (This is my photo again.)

What do you guys think? Pretty, right? I’m so glad I didn’t go full-on DIY with these like I did for the save the dates. Don’t get me wrong. I loved our save the dates. But I saved a TON of time by leaving things to the pros this time around, and I just love, love, love how they came out.

Woohoo! Let me know if you have questions on what kind of paper I used or anything like that!

I promise to write peppier posts soon. I’m falling apart at the seams over here, but I’ll be OK!