They. Are. So. Close.

The invitations. My nuptials included, but mostly... the invites! My invitations got the cutting and printing started tonight!

The only problem with it was that when I first started planning for invitations, I was doing a 4" x 6" invite, so I only bought enough paper to get 6 invites out of each sheet of paper. However, once I nixed the pocket fold invites I decided instead to do a flat card in 5" x 7".

Um, on a 12" square sheet of paper... you only get 4 5" x 7" cards. So, I didn't have enough paper. I will have to go to Hobby Lobby to get the rest of my paper. I had enough white paper and black paper, just my gorgeous pink paper. I'm sure Trenton wouldn't mind me losing the pink, but I still love it. I'm going to get some so I can get these suckers finished!

Want a teaser? Hmmmm?

(personal photo)

Also, why yes, that is a Blue Moon in the background. It was late, I was finishing them as I finished my delicious beer. Never fear, I'm of age. I bought that beer, and I have the identification to prove it!

[sigh] I'm glad I've finally gotten a small step accomplished with my invitations. There's still a lot to do, like assembling them, rounding the corners, layering them, gluing them, etc. Then I have to print the RSVP postcards, the directions, and decide if I'm going to include information to get people to our website.

So many decisions. But, at least one thing is done!

It's Like a Marathon

We're rapidly approaching the 100 day mark in our wedding planning. Can you believe it!?

However, along with our impending nuptials, are all of my pending projects. Still left are... invitations, centerpieces, guestbook, table linens, food, drinks, dressing the guys, and programs. (All are going to be addressed in later posts! Never fear, I won't let you down!) And that's only what I can think of off the top of my head. It feels like the middle of a race, a marathon, that I will never finish.

Now, when I last left you, I was still considering pocketfold invitations. That has since changed. Upon looking into pocketfolds, ordering them pre-made online was just a little too expensive for me. I wanted to keep our invitations as a budget-friendly project. So, I thought about making them myself, but that would either require ordering larger paper (another costly thing) or re-sizing our pocketfolds to fit common scrapbook paper (12"x 12"). Neither of those options seemed like something I wanted to do, so I just decided to scrap the idea. I loved the look, but my goal in this wedding is to GET IT DONE.

So, now we're going with just a plain flat card invitation. We're still going to have a response postcard, directions to the venue, and I'll probably include a list of hotels in the area for our out-of-town guests. I want to wrap the invitation "suite" in a belly band. Yes, it sounds like something for a third trimester, but in reality it's just a simple piece of paper designed to hold everything in place. Just a strip wrapped around the middle (or "belly") of the stack to keep it together.

The rounded corners were an issue for several months. I love the look of them.

source

But, for the longest time, my friends convinced me that it would be WAY to much work to round all of the corners, even with a corner rounder. After two months of debating my decision, I finally told myself that if I still wanted rounded corners this bad after so long, I should just do it. Yes, it's an extra step and added complication to the invitation suite, but I just love the look. It will make me feel better about sending them out.

 source

That, my friends, is a belly band. This one is taken apart, but imagine all those other papers stuck under the yellow strip of paper. Probably, this is where I'll use our monogram I told you about here. I can't really find another place to use it, so that's where it'll show up! I have to start working on invitations soon, as they have to go out in about 5 weeks. I have none of it done, and I still need to do envelopes and all of that. Lots and lots of cutting left to do. Can you say "invitation party"?!

What ways can you cut back on wedding invitations? E-vites are always good (for the environment and otherwise) but some think it's tacky. How do you feel about online invitations?

Whoops...

Totally meant to post. Well, there's not a ton to fill you in on, but still... I post to post. What has happened...

Well, I tried on the shoes. They're pretty comfortable, some extra padding may be necessary for all night dancing, but all in all, comfortable and easy to walk in despite the height. However, I'm not sure if I can justify spending almost as much on the shoes as I did the dress. I know I could find some other shoes I like for a better price, but I have a hard time discerning what I should and shouldn't spend money on. I would love the shoes, but at the same time my practical mind is telling me to find a different pair. What do you think?

Second thing, I saw a post recently on weddingbee.com and the post was for bamboo tableware. Knives, forks, spoons, plates. I mean, they're not terribly fancy but they're good for the environment and are pretty cheap. For $7.00 I can get 100 knives. Same price for 100 spoons and forks. So, for $21 I could get enough utensils for everyone and be helping the environment. They're not quite as cheap as plastic ware, but it looks better and it's green! :) I'm keeping it in mind as our entire venue has about the same color woodwork as the bamboo.

We're still in the talks about whether to do hors d'oeuvres or a buffet meal and we can't really decide. With the fiance basically out-of-touch, most decisions come down to me, and we all know how indecisive I can be. I can't even decide on a veil! For the longest time I said 'NO VEIL!' but... I don't know. I sorta feel like I should have one, but I don't want to mess with it, but it would look so good, but it would be hard to find one to complement my dress, etc. The inner conversation could go on forever.

Also, while I was planning on doing my pocketfold invitations myself, I found pre-cut postcards and needed to change around my measurements and it messed with the look of them. To save myself the time of cutting, scoring, folding, and making each pocketfold, I'm probably going to re-prioritize my time and just spend the extra money to buy pre-made, pre-assembled pocketfolds. All I would have to do is print my inserts and assemble. As my beloved reminded me, "Time is Money". Sometimes you just have to let go.

We have about 4 1/2 months left. Couldn't be more excited, but I look at my "To-Do" list and just... wow. Lots to do, but so worth it.

TGIF

Holy cow. This has been one looooong week. Seriously. Between full-time work, plus a bunch of school work and getting bronchitis, I'm just a train wreck. I'm ready to have two days to sit in my apartment. (I'm contemplating not even leaving this weekend.)

With that two days, I'm going to get a whole bunch of school work done, maybe some laundry, and a nice little mock-up of our invitations. Y'know the ones I showed you earlier? (http://saraandtrenton.blogspot.com/2010/01/invitations-again.html)... well, they're changing. Again. I know, I know. Indecision wracks me.

But, I found some pre-cut postcards to possibly use as our response cards (cheaper postage, ftw!) if they'll work with my printer/Word. And, I decided to go against the green background and do a pink background on the invites and use a green belly band and a green envelope(since I really don't feel like hand addressing each envelope, which I would with black envelopes). The green is super bright, not lime or anything but pretty bright, but since it's really only an accent anyways, I don't mind it. I really want some bright pink gerbera daisies (my favorite flower!) for our centerpieces, but we'll have to mess with those later.

swoon

How amazing are those!? I love gerbera daisies, so I would love to do something like that, but maybe not so intense. (I can't imagine that doing something like that for 12ish tables would be budget friendly.)

Le sigh. Lots of thinking still to do. And lots of looking. Interwebz stalking here I come.

It was seriously like the apocalypse...

So... around 11:00 this morning, our hot water heater exploded in my apartment...
With my Save the Date cards sitting on the floor...

Anyone else see the possible destruction coming?!

Thankfully, all was not lost. The nice neighbors realized that water was coming into their apartment from ours and called maintenance. When my roommate, Meghan, got to the house at 11:30, the maintenance guys had huge vacuums sucking the water out of our apartment. By the time I got there at 12:30, all the water was off the tile, but our carpet was still a small pond. The carpet guys had managed to move all of our furniture- including things on the floor like my laptop, blankets, pillows, textbooks, and my Save the Date cards! YAY!

Absolutely nothing was ruined. We got very, very lucky with our small flood. Right now, my apartment is in total chaos with furniture moved off of wet spots, into my hallway, and some giant fans and dehumidifiers all over my hallway and the living room. They are hoping to get our carpet pads replaced in a few days and in the process of our carpet getting ruined, we got our stove top, toilets (yes, toilets. Both toilets in our apartment went out and we were having to use the toilet in the clubhouse.), kitchen light and base boards fixed. They are thinking they may have to even rip out part of our wall to fix it because of all the mold that's been growing for who knows how long.

On a happier note, I found an awesome website for free fonts! I literally downloaded close to 100 fonts for free! I'm planning fun ways to use them in invitations, programs, response cards, and whatever else I want. They're so cute!

Anyone need some free fonts!?

Invitations... again?

So, with our new color added to the basket, of course new invitations were created.

I started to look at pocket fold invitations recently and decided that I really liked the look of them. However, to purchase pre-made pocket fold invitations, even without inserts and such, is still ridiculously expensive. So... I give to you:

MY DIY POCKET FOLDS!

(All photos courtesy of yours truly!)

With the new color, it gave me new opportunity to try my hand at pocket fold invitations. I'm pretty excited about them. I'm going to change them up just a little based on how the response cards fit in. So, we'll see. But, I wanted to go ahead and give you a peek at what to expect when your invitation comes!

Homemade Excellence

So, before finals started I did a little shopping for cheap rubber stamps to make a "monogram" because buying a self-inking monogram stamp is ridiculous and I could never reuse it after the wedding. Hence, the rubber stamps.

I've decided to keep it a little off kilter, so not every stamp will be the same so each person will know that it was stamped with looooove. :)

The back of the envelopes will be stamped and embossed on the flap.


Then, for whatever else I decide to use the "monogram" for will be done in two different shades of pink to give some dimension to things. So, some things will have light pink and some will have dark pink. Also, excuse the extra stamp area. I did this quickly and without much precision.

(personal photos)

The best part about it is that the stamping, powdering and embossing took all of thirty seconds for the envelope and the two practice "monograms". Excellence.

Oh. Pain in my...

Well, so I started messing with formatting tonight for my invitations. It went on for about thirty minutes before I just got so frustrated I gave up. I'm not really sure how to get my printer to print on the size I want.

My plan originally was to just cut my white paper to 4"x6" and print on them and then cut them to the proper size for the invites. But, I can't seem to figure out how to make my freaking Word go to 4"x6" and I can't seem to find programs online to create nice response postcards or invitations. I'm getting frustrated and it hasn't even really started.

Perhaps a DIY invitation was a lofty expectation. Maybe I just need to do a DIY kit that already has everything there and I just print off the pages. They include formatting in the instructions with a template and everything. I just really like the handmade feel to the invitations I already wanted, but I think maybe I should just make it easier on myself and do a kit. :/

Continue the Weddingness

Well, much fun was had oh, ten minutes ago. I picked up the embossing heat gun and some embossing powder from Mary this weekend, so I decided that with my afternoon free, I was going to try my hand at embossing.

It was... fun. I think I have a new passion in life. Everything from now on is going to be embossed. Kidding. Kidding. It is pretty cool how it works though. My only problem is that my paper had sort of started to curl and become wavy, so maybe I need to get some thicker cardstock for the invitations. I'll have to look around.

I really like what I'm doing with the invitations, so I don't think I want to mess with it too much and change up paper and everything. I'll just have wavy invitations. Whatever! No one will really care that much. Plus, if I spend this long doing invitations, people should appreciate the handcrafted work rather than if there was something wrong with it. If people have something mean to say about my invitations, well... um, maybe they just don't need to come.

Many more trips to Hobby Lobby are on their way, and lots of sitting around messing with formatting on Word. Megs and I are going to go up to school and try to use Photoshop or InDesign to make response cards or the written font part of my invitations. We'll see.

More to come later. A date will be set soon.

Invitations!

Now that we've chosen a color scheme, invitations were the next step! They haven't been totally done because I don't have embossing powder or a heat gun, but my dear friend, Mary, is letting me use hers from her recent nuptials. But, for everyone who is curious, here is a sneak peak at our invitations minus the embossed stamp. :)

(personal photo)

That's without the embossing powder. So that stamp will be embossed on the final product, and obviously the "Wedding Info Here. Blah blah blah." will actually have information. Then, a black envelope for sending, and also, a response postcard will be enclosed for responses to be sent back to me.