Weddingbee Blog

After my first attempt at Gocco printing our invitation sleeves went awry, I was determined to master the screen-burning/printing technique during my second attempt this weekend. I’m happy to report that round two was (mostly) a success!

I did have a few mishaps: Two of the bulbs I used while trying to burn our names onto the screen were duds, causing an uneven master; only one side of the image burned correctly, and because I wasn’t sure if you can expose an original multiple times, I decided to wait until this evening to try again with a fresh copy.

I was, however, able to create a crisp burn of our quote to print on the bottom of our sleeves. Remember last time a few letters didn’t turn out? Well, I followed the advice I received (Thanks guys, the Hive is great!) and mounted my original on cardstock and ironed it (to get rid of excess carbon?). It worked like a charm!

I really, really love the white Gocco ink on this paper. It makes me smile : ) Working with the white ink is a pain, though– it’s so freakin’ thick. I had to use a TON of it to get even prints.

Read more…

We’re doing letterpress invitations, a fact that I’m pretty freaking excited about. I thought letterpress was going to be way out of our price range, but thanks to my beloved Boxcar Press, and the quote they gave Ribs, I found out that letterpress was 100% doable for us. She told me to stop whining, get a quote, and, well, I did.

We’re having…

• 80 A7 Invites
• 80 A7 Reception Cards
• 80 4-bar RSVP Cards
• 240 Envelopes (Inner, Outer, RSVP)

…pressed in 1-color for around $600. My custom design, which is what I was planning to do in the first place, but again, I thought it was way out of our range.

Now, insert some neuroses.
Read more…

I letterpress printed my own invitation suite, in four colors, and I saved more than $10,000… no joke.

I spent a total of $650.

Let me explain briefly why I saved $10,000: A high-quality, one-color invitation alone costs about $700 for 100 invitations. Add on additional colors, and elements like save the dates, response cards and programs, and the price mounts exponentially. This is why most people have two-colors-or-fewer invitations. I did 20-plus total press runs for our save the dates, invites, programs and response cards. That means for each color, the invitation was hand-fed into the press about 130 times in my case (I allowed for spoilage… and man, was there a lot of it.)

The entire process took one week, an exhausting yet exhilarating 50-plus hours with my new-found friend and mentor. I worked from 9 AM until 7 or 8 PM, often without taking breaks or eating. I was focused. I didn’t want to stop. I loved it. Here’s the tale of how it happened:

I started getting serious about the process a year ago. But the story actually starts two years ago.

Read more…

Woo hoo!! I have been excited to write this post for some time. Let’s start from the beginning…

I searched and searched for invitations that spoke to me and I just couldn’t find any. I knew I really wanted letterpress but I didn’t know how I could make that work. I automatically assumed that letterpress meant that I would be spending thousands of dollars, and as I searched and realized that I wasn’t all that far off. I temporarily got the idea of letterpress out of my mind and started scouring Etsy and Wedding Paper Divas for cute invites. Although I found a few, nothing really made me excited. I felt like I would be settling.

Then, as I was about to give up, I remembered that I am surrounded by talented, awesome women that can create beautiful paper products and I decided that I should ask one of them to do just that. I hinted about this in this post, but I didn’t tell you whom I asked. Some of you guessed right even though I didn’t give any clues! It was our very own Mrs. Cupcake through her design studio Curious and Company. The suite she made for us will be part of the Claremont Collection!

Let me tell you, she was AMAZING to work with. She helped me save some money by doing letterpress invites, but flat printed RSVP cards. I would have never thought to ask about that! So, are you ready to see it?

Read more…

Welcome to the fourth episode in an ever-expanding series of Hamster invitations posts (I’m wrapping things up soon, I promise). My last encounter with the main invitation cards left me in tears. I experienced a small victory afterward, successfully Goccoing our RSVP envelopes, RSVP cards, and reception cards.

However, the main cards left me trembling in my boots. Let’s review, shall we?

Not to be bested (at least not yet), I sought out the advice of readers and bees, and gave it one more try. Boy am I glad I did! The result:
Read more…

I sent a piece of our invitations to the printers this week, so it’s safe to reveal at least part of this process!

I started fiddling with invitations in June of last year. The style has stayed more or less the same, with minor tweaks over the months. The style of the invites was dictated by my chosen print method: letterpress. To keep costs down, I knew I had to keep it limited to one to two colors because each additional color means the invite needs to be run through the press another time, which equals more money. Since I designed the invite myself, I also knew I had to take stock of my talent — which does not include illustrations!

So I needed a simple design with minimal colors. To spice things up, I bought a font set and got to work.

The first attempt was a mix of calligraphy and typography.

I liked it enough and let that design sit for several months. Returning to it in December, though, I realized it wasn’t really capturing the high fashion look I wanted. I had to give up the calligraphy.

Back to InDesign I went. I experimented with things like all caps, small caps, and the leading (spacing between lines). I also toyed with bold colors.
Read more…

So I already gave you all a small sneak peek of our invitations (the envelopes) and how we finally got to transform brochures into our booklet Invitations. I also shared how hard it was to let them go, because it was a TRUE labor of love, and took LOTS of hours of work.

And finally, the time has come! Let me introduce you to the Poodles’ invitations! ♥

(click on images to enlarge)

Here you can see the envelope and the front and back of the invitation (each envelope only has one; I put both of them there just so I could show it all together).

Read more…

Welcome to the Hamster Show, where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter. Yep, that’s right - if you’re wondering how I am now leading Battle: Invitations by 498 - let’s just say I used a little creative math.

In my last invitation showdown, the Lettra paper was the big winner and I was left cowering in the corner. While I’m still figuring out the main invite cards, I totally whupped some Gocco butt this weekend - take a look!

Reception Cards

Read more…

OK, so I can truly say that every time I read abut brides being so attached to their invitations I thought they were crazy. Until — I became one of them!

When we sent our Save the Dates I was so relieve that the task was done and maybe just because they were not much work I had no feelings when we let them go. But now it’s totally different!!

Yesterday, MIL B and I went to the post office to ask about hand canceling them, because well, I did spend 2 WHOLE DAYS sewing those little Kraft envelopes. The Post Office guy said that there was no difference between just sending them normally hand canceling, so I believed him and painfully handed them over.

The funny part was that I sent a Save the Date to one of my friends in Chile that never got there, and when he saw our invites he asked me if we were the same people. He actually remembered us because the design of our STDs were so similar to our invites. That was pretty cool!

Anyway, here’s my face after letting them go!

Read more…

… want to make another invitation as long as I live. If you’ve been following along, you know that the home party invitations have been quite the pain in my little arse. But my friends, they are finished, thanks to you!

I decided to make one mock-up on VistaPrint and one on Shutterfly to compare the quality. The mock-up on VistaPrint was pretty much identical to what I had tried to make myself (this is the actual VistaPrint card)…

…except I kept the wording on the inside black because it was an extra charge for color.
Read more…

Dad says “bong” -> baby laughs -> I fall out of my chair laughing -> chair goes flying -> hits computer -> computer starts smoking -> I get to go home because I can’t work without a computer = perfect world I don’t live in

You know how one little thing can cause a chain reaction and affect more than expected? Yeah, we were hit with one of those little things last week.

If you remember, we picked a possible date for our home party in June based on the tentative Cubs schedule a few months ago and now that the official schedule is confirmed, we know that our date is available. Weeeeeeee! It had to be on a non-Cubs game day, otherwise it would be pure mayhem.
Read more…

I’ve shown you all the individual components of the invitations, but now that they’re off in space (or in peoples’ homes, since we’ve already received a few RSVPs!), I thought I would show you how they all came together and do a price breakdown.

This is what people will see first: my so-so handwriting with a simple roller pen, and standard USPS $0.44 wedding stamps.

I very, very briefly considered vintage and custom stamps, but the price was prohibitive and I just didn’t care that much. I also considered purchasing a calligraphy pen to address the envelopes, but I figured that my mediocre handwriting would stand out less if I used a simpler pen. It’s not perfect, but I’m not unhappy with how it came out.
Read more…

… that I’d be stalking rubber stamps online, I would have laughed and told you that you obviously know nothing about me. Oh, little wedding bug making me think about the little details I never thought of before…

After I decided to go to the pros with our invites, I decided that I wanted to add a special touch to each. I thought about getting some sort of stamp for the inside, maybe something floral or swirly to put along the side of the wording because they seem a little plain…

And then I stumbled upon this awesome rubber stamp…

Read more…

After I figured out my flip-flop debacle, I was feeling like I could conquer any DIY project that was dreamt up in my little noggin! But I have to tell you, our home party invites have seriously become a pain in the pooper. My original plan was to make them myself to save a bunch of money. If you remember, they started like this…

Then they morphed from this, which I don’t think I’ve shown you…

Read more…

A sneaky peek at our invitation design! It’s just a little one. Don’t get too excited!

Mm mmm, swirls and dots and stuff…

As you can see, our entire invitation suite will be pink. I love it, and it’s cost-effective to have only one color since we opted for letterpress (squeeeee!). However, our other colors are grievously absent. I posted this inspiration board before, but just as a reminder, our complete palette includes bright yellow, pink, and orange:
Read more…