Weddingbee Blog

As promised, here is second half of my DIY Illustrator Map Tutorial. You can view the original here, where we left off with this image:

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…SNOW PEA! (It was just too cheesy to pass up!)

This is a project that I was waiting foreverrr to do; since before we were engaged. As an addition to the OOT bags, I included some useful information, i.e., maps, affordable places to eat, wedding itinerary. Most people (me included) forget to bring the invitation or the map with them on the day of the wedding and need a quick reference. For convenience, I included all this information in one small booklet in the form of a Playbill.

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I feel like recently I have a split personality… One minute I am feeling totally productive about the things we are getting done for the wedding and the next minute I am freaking out about how much there is left to do in less than a month…

Today, I tackled the programs! Julia, one of my interns, actually did most of the work on putting it together. We made it in Illustrator and it will be printed on Luxe white paper along with the rest of the pieces for the welcome bags.

So, without any futher ado…

With special thanks to Miss Hibiscus and her phenomenal instructions on how to use PowerPoint to make wedding maps, I present to you our wedding map and directions. They are printed two-sided on Paper Source’s Luxe Cream Cover stock and are 5″ x 3 3/4″.

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I’ve gotten a couple of comments and emails regarding my DIY Powerpoint maps I made for my invitations. I will guide you step by step through the process so you can create your own.

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For those of you who love the look of Couture Map’s hand drawn maps, but don’t love the price ($350), check out Laura Hooper’s Calligraphy who does similarly beautiful work for a $125 design fee. She offers a variety of services including 29 different calligraphy styles for envelope addressing, placecards, etc., as well as custom map design, invitation design & printing, and monogram design.

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If you’re a typical, non-downtown-working-or-dwelling Angeleno like me, chances are you’ve rarely gone downtown. I’ve explored a tiny bit, ate there, did business, caught a concert at the Music Center or Disney Concert Hall, and sightsaw with OOT visitors, but I still get very disoriented and lost. It doesn’t help that I have the worst sense of direction ever (at least I’m good at reading and following directions and maps. Mapquest and Google Maps, how I love thee!).

I am braving it tomorrow in search of bargains on wedding-related things I need. Yikes. I hate haggling. Luckily, I’ll have my resale license on hand to get wholesale pricing (for others that can do this, PLEASE remember to tell cashiers that it is for personal use and to charge you sales tax! this is not the time to get in trouble with the tax man). I don’t have a good map zoomed in of just the areas of downtown, I needed, so I decided to try out the Wedding Mapper program Mrs. Bee blogged about awhile back. It was very easy to use, and it has more features if you pay for it, of course. The basic functions, which is all I needed for this little exercise, are free.

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Remember those invitation maps I designed awhile back for my guests? I finally got to the point where I really liked them enough to declare them ¢¢â€š¬…”done¢¢â€š¬? and stopped tinkering with the design. And then I started printing them out last night¢¢â€š¬¦ and I almost cried tears of DIY joy!

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This task is very difficult to do. Of course all the coordinators I met with, and caterers and florists I’ve been speaking with/meeting with don’t understand all the different areas of our venue or the flow of our event. I haven’t gotten a layout plan yet as the venue doesn’t give it to you until you do a walkthrough and layout with the site coordinator. I got sick of sketching the grounds of the estate on every single vendor meeting on some scrap (which I’d not-too-brightly toss afterward), so I drew this:

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Although our ceremony and reception locations are separated by only 1.8 miles, I still couldn’t resist the temptation of designing and including a map within our invitations. I guess that is just what happens when you’re a raving stationery fiend who like to fiddle with computers. While it’s not entirely necessary, I’ll be printing it on the other side of the direction card just for fun.

I started out with a Google map of the area (which I copied using the “Print Screen” function) and I imported the screen into Adobe Illustrator. I quickly got to work dissecting it and adding fun little colors and roads and icons (most are from clipart.com). I had quite a battle with proportions and size due to some tricky streets that needed to be noted, but after I got the streets down, everything else fell into place. It looks great on the invitation paper with my simple inkjet printer…so I think I can cross this project off the list! All I need to do is add a dolphin splashing in the ocean (Mr. Lemon’s request) and I’m all set.

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Wedding Mapper is a really cool program that lets you create an online google map with markers such as “ceremony,” “reception,” “hotel,” “airport,” even “entertainment” and “restaurants” for your out of town guests. I’ve marked our ceremony location, the hotel, and Times Square below.

You can even upload pictures of each location, as well as addresses, comments, and links to websites which appear when you mouse over each icon. It’s a really useful tool for out of towners to get directions, see everything on a map, and figure out things to do/places to eat.

(via lifehacker)

If you’re in need of a map to help guests find their way to the chapel, look no further than Couture Maps by Stephannie Barba. Her whimsical designs create that “wow factor” that many brides are looking for. From San Francisco to New York City and every little town in between!

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