Weddingbee

Bespoke woodsy postcard themed invitation by Chewing the Cud.

Square hemp-corded booklet invitation by Original Paper Art.

Simple yet gorgeous Information Book Invitation by kswaay@ Flickr.

Absolutely incredible - my dream invitation - Wedding Book Invitation by Ryan Masuga.

Book-inspired sewn invitation from larawysong @ Flickr.

Journey of Love passport-themed wedding invitation booklet by iamanne.

Gorgeous wedding booklet with cardboard and vellum envelope from redtandemstudio @Flickr.

Are you swooning over these booklet invitations? I sure am!
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We wrote everything in Spanish and English, to avoid any language barrier situations. Also, we chose to put a line saying “We have reserved ___ seats in your honor.” As we put the invites into their envelopes, we will hand write in the number of seats that each party has. Finally, we opted to send out our invitations a little early so that the RSVP date is three weeks from the wedding. We figure this would give us ample time to make any calls to people who haven’t RSVP’d.

How did you all handle the wording on your RSVPs? Did anyone else have language/culture barriers to work with?
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Well, I guess blocking out my last name kind of defeats the purpose of this post , but trust me, it felt pretty cool. Perhaps slightly bittersweet that I gave up my maiden name, but bittersweet in a joyful way nonetheless.

Let me go on a tangent for a second to satisfy your DIY cravings. I crafted them in the same way as I did our guest placecards, except a little bigger (1.75″x4.75″), without the jewel, and with more paper flowers. To be honest, I only did it that way because I ran out of the little jewels, so I thought I’d compensate by adding more blooms.

Here’s the one I crafted for Mr. D too…

Any little personal touches you are adding to your wedding, for no one else other than the two of you?
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…in four different patterns (every bridesmaid got a set of all four patterns)…

…with some memo cards to match!

It was a pretty simple DIY process to create all these, taking me about one full night.

I used:

• Paper Source cover weight Luxe paper (210g) in Blush, Glass, Frost, and Cream
• Green and Ivory satin ribbon
• Corner rounder
• My trusty color inkjet printer that I used for all of my wedding paper goods, the Canon MP530 Pixma

I first created the basic template, by creating two 5.5″x5.5″ dotted line squares flushed with the long edge of the slide. Then I added a dotted line down in between the two squares to get the perfect dimensions for the memo cards (and to use up the entire sheet of paper!).

Using the basic template, I created four different designs. The fonts I used were Bickham Script and Minion Pro. I then copied each design over 8 times (for my 8 bridesmaids!) and replaced it with their names. I made sure to order the slides such that all 8 of each design would print out before the next design, so that all I would have to do is stack in 8 sheets of each color on top of one another in my printer and hit the print button!

Once everything was printed, I cut each sheet along the dotted lines and rounded the corners. Just a warning: Rounding the corners can be very tiring when using heavy cardstock! You’d be amazed at how tired your hand muscles can get. Lucky for me, Mr. D was close by .

Using the ribbon, I then tied the squares together with some 5.75″x5.75″ square envelopes. I tied the memo cards together separately.

And here was the final product! I hope they loved them!


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Here is my friend Julie showing off her escort card.

Making them was simple. I cut squares out of ivory card stock. I purchased a corner die-cut with lace embellishments and punched holes in all 4 corners. I went on ebay and found 100 acrylic chandelier prisms for only 19.95$ plus shipping. I purchased brown organza ribbon and tied both the chandelier prism and ribbon on the place card. Voila! an escort card.

When it came to displaying them, there were many possibilities. Hung on trees like the famous picture below that Miss Pineapple blogged about, hung on ribbons like the picture above, hung on a string making a glamorous clothes line… well this decision La Bosse des Noces (the wedding tv show filming our wedding) took into her own hands.

{image}

Since I didn’t have a clue what La Bosse des Noces would do to display our escort cards, I decided to make a poster with all the table numbers and names. That way, the guests could find their table number and then search for the card.

For the board, I used elements from our invitations. I found leftover embellishments in my scrapbooking box and used sticker rhinestones to add some extra glamour to the board. It came out beautifully. Don’t you think?

Here is a sneak peek of the escort display:

How did you display your escort cards?
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Step 1: Creating the Lining Paper
I purchased the pattern from istockphoto.com for $5. I then opened it in Adobe Illustrator and changed the colors to match the rest of the invitation suite. I then printed out 8.5″ x 11″ pieces of paper with the pattern repeated across the sheet like wall paper.

{this photo is not completely accurate because I ended up skipping the crease-then-tape part}

Step 2: Creating a Template
This was definitely the hardest part of the project. I traced around a pre-made envelope onto a thin piece of cardboard. Then I drew a line slightly inside the outline and one line below where the lick and stick part would be. Now, this sounds simple enough, but for some reason it took me several templates to get the angles on the top portion just right.

Step 3: Trace Template on Lining Paper

Step 4: Cut Out Lining Paper

Step 5: Insert Lining Paper into Envelope

Step 6: Tape
I found that you only need on strip of tape for each envelope. Place the strip of tape right where my fingers are in the bottom left photo.

Step 7: Close the envelope and crease. A few other instructions call for creasing the lining by closing the envelope prior to applying your adhesive, then closing again. I found, however, that is you just tape the top then your lining paper has room to adjust itself while you are closing the envelope and the crease will not move when you apply your adhesive.

This was a good project to get out of the way ages ago. It was one of the easiest projects I have taken on and it really makes a big impact when you open the envelope. Plus by repeating the pattern in multiple places throughout the suite the look is even more pulled together and custom.

Is anyone else taking on the envelope lining task?
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Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

For some reason, I couldn’t get the floral background to scan on this one…tis strange. It’s a Barred Fruiteater for those who are curious.

My ode to Mrs. Hummingbird came out way too dark and evil looking, so consider this my “before” shot and expect an “after” shot sometime this week!

I first came up with the idea to draw birds because I was thinking of subtle ways I could honor my grandparents who have passed. Some of my grandparents are harder to come up with ideas for than others, but this idea seemed so obvious since my grandpa was always painting and drawing birds. He had dozens of small bird paintings that he worked on up until he got too sick, some of which I have hanging in my bedroom. As a reference (since I’m not exactly an ornithologist), I’m using an illustrated animal encylopedia that he gave me when I was younger. I feel like this is my way of including him so my grandma will feel like there’s a little piece of him there in spirit with her.

Some of my grandpa’s bird paintings in our bedroom.

How are you including your loved ones who can’t be there on your wedding day?

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The large clothespin table card holders were purchased at Michael’s and painted blue. I plan to punch subtle floral designs along the sides of the cards (the floral hole puncher thingamabob that I purchased is also by Martha), which I was going to do before taking these photos, but I spotted a centipede crawling in my general direction and ran for the hills (aka our bedroom). Anyway, enough rambling. Here is a sneak peek of what our table numbers will look like, minus a few last minute details (I have only finished four of them, and I plan to do at least twelve).

What types of table number ideas have you guys come up with?

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We used one of the photos from our engagement session for the cover and just added titles in Photoshop.  Since we used a MAC, we used Pages to create the layout; it could have been done just as well in Word.  The format is just a normal sized 8 1/2 X 11″ sheet of glossy paper folded in half.  We ended up having a professional copier print and bind it for us. But if we had a bit more time, it would have been easy to make double sided copies from our home printer, and purchase an extended reach stapler to staple them ourselves.

We included short bios and photos of everyone in our wedding, including how we know each other.  Our wedding party sent us their most memorable moment about us, either as an individual or a couple to include as well. 



(pages 7-11 were of bios)

At the end, we had a list of all our vendors, other acknowledgments and just to fill up space, some photos of us.  


Our guests absolutely loved it, and we had something nice to send friends and family who couldn’t come to our wedding. 
 

Disclosure: cover photography by Adam Nollmeyer, Acme Photography.  

~~~

If you have a DIY project you’d like to share with us, please email us at guest@weddingbee.com.
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I loved the idea of using “places” for names, since our guests would be “going” to a table. Come reception planning time, and the question became, well, what type of places? We could do places we’ve lived, since we’ve moved around so much. Or places that we’ve been, since we’ve both traveled fairly extensively. We bounced around a bunch of ideas.

Ultimately, we landed on using places of significance to us, that represented either a memorable moment or a period of time in our lives. At first, we tried thinking of one place for every letter of the alphabet, but we found ourselves choosing places that actually weren’t that special just to make it work (I mean, there aren’t that many places in general that begin with the letter Q ).

We came up with a list of places, and wrote a short 2-3 sentence blurb about why that place was special (or rather, Mr. D did, because I was getting really stressed at that time - He was seriously such a great sport and the most helpful groom ever!!). We chose places like where we were when we first decided to start our relationship, where we used to study together in college, our favorite date places, where we were going on our honeymoon, where our new home would be! Of course, we created (double-sided) table name cards that would match all of our other wedding stationery.

Are you naming your tables?  If so, what’s the theme??
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