…and I’m feeling fine!

That’s right, readers – dare I say that my obsessive need to work ahead has paid off…here are the projects we have left:

- Cut squares of fabric for the tables. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend.

- Sew a lining into the flower girl dresses. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend.

- Gather (and print, if necessary) a few pictures of Jordan and I for a photo feature. When we’ll get it done:  by Friday.

- Wrangle and frame few more wedding pictures of our relatives. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend, hopefully.

- Practice making our DIY tiered surprise wedding cake. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend, hopefully.

- Print and mail gift-opening invites. When we’ll get it done:  this needs to happen ASAP!

- Fold napkins. When we’ll get it done:  first round tomorrow, second and final round hopefully next week.

- Reception playlist. When we’ll get it done:  probably next weekend; it’s about 70% done right now.

- Silhouettes (of Jordan and I) for frames. When we’ll get it done:  next weekend; we just need to format and print.

- Finalize pew decor. When we’ll get it done:  tonight.

- Purchase gifts for our parents and our ceremony helpers. When we’ll get it done:  next Friday (payday!).

- Tie baker’s twine on the programs. When we’ll get it done:  Probably the week of the wedding…eek.

- Take photos of decor, pack up decor items in boxes according to tables. When we’ll get it done:  next weekend. BIG project, but I hope to have lots of help.

- Get our marriage license. When we’ll get this done:  the Wednesday of the wedding week.

I have my hair trial and my final make-up trial on Thursday and my final gown fitting on Saturday. We also are having our premarital counseling session with my uncle, our officiant, on Saturday. We also turn in our guaranteed guest count to the Pavilion on Saturday. My wedding week beauty treatments are all scheduled, with the exception of a manicure appointment…truthfully, I may just paint my own nails!

Things are coming together really nicely – I hope that I’m not forgetting anything!?

[Photo: www.free-flow-coaching.com]

Big news, readers: our DIY wedding invitations were featured on the lovely Gotham Bride Guide!

Click here to read the full post; a big thank you to the folks over at Gotham Bride Guide for featuring us!

[Photo: Gotham Bride Guide]

Here’s what we’ve been doing:

- Last week, I spent the evening building our photo booth with the great help of my future father-in-law. The photo booth turned out wonderfully; I can’t wait to see how it looks in our wedding photos! I hope to provide a full tutorial for you all at some point, so stay tuned…

- Made a list of must-have photos for our photographers, and met with our lovely photogs to discuss our wedding day. I’m SO excited that we’ve chosen such wonderful and supportive photographers; they will be so great to have with us on our wedding day, and I know that Kara will help to keep me relaxed.

- Started tanning! While I’m definitely not a fan of how bad tanning beds are for my skin, I do need to build up a base tan of sorts before heading off to Jamaica. So, I’ve stared tanning a few times per week!

- Started the napkins process! With the great help of my bridesmaid Serena and her mother, we’re making headway with the DIY napkins project! We’re about halfway through the project, and I plan to bring the last batch of fabric over to Serena’s home this week for cutting.

- Mailed our rehearsal dinner invitations. They turned out wonderfully, and we’re so excited for our Italian-themed rehearsal dinner!

- Ordered 3 one-half sheet cakes for our wedding reception. We ordered 1/2 sheet of red velvet (my favorite!), one half sheet of strawberry (Jordan’s favorite) and one half sheet of vanilla cake from a local bakery. I’m glad to have that completed!

- Set up a final meeting with our on-site reception coordinator and our florist to cover last-minute details. Both of these appointments are next week, and I’m excited to finalize all of the details!

- Set up a meeting to visit the chapel where our ceremony will take place. I’m visiting my alma mater, Augustana College, this week to set up decorations around the chapel to see what they look like. I’m excited to see how/if the pew bows will attach to the pews…frankly, that’s all I’m concerned about. I know that everything else will look great!

- Finalized gifts for the groomsmen and ushers; everything should be done next week, so I can wrap the gifts!

- Secured a classic car to transport Jordan and I from the ceremony to the reception!

- Got the guys measured for tuxes! Only a few of our guys have yet to do this, and they’re under strict instructions to do so ASAP.

- Finalized our wedding ceremony script. Yes!

- Trying to wrangle wedding pictures of our relatives; I only need a few more pictures, and we’ll be set!

I think that’s it!

Here’s what we have left:

- Our reception playlist. We’ve started working on it, but Jordan’s school quarter ends this Friday, so Jordan will have a lot more time to devote to finalizing our playlist starting next week. This is his pet project, and I’m excited to help with this process as much as I can.

- Getting a few more props for the photo booth, as well as finding/purchasing baskets for the day’s needs, a few picture frames, and a few props for our wedding photos on the wedding day.

- Figuring out what camera to use for the photo booth.

- Print the wedding programs. We’re waiting for the final OK from our officiant, and as soon as we have that, we’re good to go!

- Cutting table squares and a table runner for the reception; we are purchasing the fabric today, so it won’t be too long before this project is off our list.

- Sew a lining into our flower girl dresses. Again, the fabric for this has been purchased, so hopefully we can finalize this project soon.

- Purchase a gift for my personal attendant and our parents, as well as gifts for our hosts & hostesses and our ceremony reader.

- Gift-opening preparation and invitations.

- Bring my engagement ring and wedding band into the jeweler to be soldered and plated.

- Premarital counseling session with my uncle, our officiant, to discuss our personality inventory.

- Discuss our DIY tiered wedding cake with my mother, and maybe practice making a cake.

- Final wedding gown fitting; I’m so excited for this part!

- Final hair and make-up trial, as well as week-of beauty treatments; again, SO excited!

- Wrap gifts and box up ceremony/reception decor.

- Marriage license.

- Meet with our travel agent to finalize details for our honeymoon, and pack for our honeymoon.

- GET MARRIED!

Surprisingly, my stress level is rather low; while I know that there’s still more things to do, I feel remarkably calm heading into the final month before the wedding.

How are you handling wedding stress?

Dear readers, I don’t even know where to begin with this post, except to say that Jordan and I are SO excited to share our DIY wedding invitations with you today! This post is rather lengthy, but for you budget-brides out there, I wanted to give you an extensive look into what it takes to DIY your own wedding invitation suite.

A note on our inspiration

It was quite a challenge to try and explain to Jordan (or anyone, really) what “vintage” means to me, and how exactly I envision us capturing that feel in our wedding invitations. So, I frequented many a web site, from Etsy to super awesome stationery sites to simple Google searches of random objects (mason jars, for instance).

Jordan and I began the design process with the idea that we would utilize Adobe Photo Shop brushes. Since little touches of birds, nature and aviary motifs will appear throughout our wedding, we felt it was important to include a bird in our wedding invitations. We found a Photo Shop brush of a tree, and we started working with that.

However, with each draft of the invitation, we began to hate the look and the feel of it more and more. It didn’t look elegant, it didn’t look lovely, and it didn’t look vintage. So, much to my chagrin (seriously, I was stressed!), we scrapped that idea and started over, a mere month-and-a-half before we wanted to start the printing process.

However, in re-conceptualizing our DIY wedding invitations, I remembered an art class that I took in middle school, where we carved images into a wood block, and then used that wood block to stamp with ink. (I’m sure this was a Mother’s or Father’s Day project from way back when.)

So, I started to try and tell Jordan about what I envisioned based on this look. Then I saw a few invitations around the web utilizing different fonts and a woodblock/boxed layout, and after brainstorming with Jordan, we downloaded a variety of fonts (which is over-simplifying the process – I was very picky about what fonts I wanted to use, and Jordan just would not let me go with Feel Script, no matter how badly I wanted to shell out the money for it – and he was right in the end…) and we  got to work bringing together all of our inspiration into one invitation suite.

A note on the design process

Jordan and I used Adobe Fireworks to design our invitations. Jordan is very familiar with this program, and I found it to be a rather intuitive program myself after playing with it for 20 minutes or so.

Since Jordan and I are living 45 miles apart right now, we designed our entire invitation suite on the weekends we were able to be together. For us, the process worked like this:

1. Sara tells Jordan in advance, “We need to work on this part of our invitation suite this weekend.”
2. Sara sends Jordan links of what she’s found that she likes (”I like this overall look, but with this wording and this graphic and this font.”)
3. Jordan comes home, sits on the couch and designs away, making sure Sara doesn’t look over his shoulder until the project is near completion (it drove him nuts!).
4. Sara edits, says what she’d like changed, and Jordan makes the changes.
5. When Sara and Jordan are both satisfied with the design, they PDF the file and send it to their right-hand person to print a proof.
6. After final proof approval, the document goes to the printer, and a few days later, the final product arrives at Sara’s house.

Multiply this by 5 pieces (there are 5 items in our invitation suite), and you have approximately 24 weekends (6 months!) of design work that we spent working to complete this invitation suite. It was definitely a labor of love; there’s no other way to describe it.

A note on invitation wording

It was important to Jordan and I that we acknowledge the contributions that our parents have made to our lives and to making our wedding happen, so we included them in our invitation wording. In determining the other parts of the wording for our invitation, we spent quite a bit of time (probably two weeks) changing words and tweaking the look of the invitation.

Here’s what we ended up with:

Sara’s parents and
Jordan’s parents
Invite you to celebrate the wedding of their children
Sara Jo and
Jordan Wayne
(Ceremony Details)
(When/Where)
Dinner, Dancing & Merriment to immediately follow
at the Washington Pavilion

A note on the details

First, I spent about 8 – 10 hours of time gluing little doilies (see above picture) inside both the mailing envelopes and the RSVP envelopes (a la Holly) – what a project (!!), but I’m SO happy with how well they turned out. (Everyone thought I was nuts, but I was having a great time!)

I then stamped our return address on each of these envelopes, proceeded to freak out when the ink I used wouldn’t dry, and then our envelopes were miraculously saved by a can of hairspray. Moving on…(I just can’t talk about those darn envelopes anymore!)

Next, once everything was printed, we glued the invitation matte directly to the pocketfold, and then glued the wedding invitation on top of the matte, to create a layered look (again, see above picture).

I knew that I wanted our invitation suite to have a few components to it. While the majority of our guests are from South Dakota (and are rather localized to Sioux Falls, where the wedding will be held), I still wanted to provide guests with a map to help them navigate their way to each location. Thanks to a wonderful classmate of mine, we had a lovely hand-drawn map to showcase to our guests. We placed the map on its end in the right-side pocket of the pocketfold.

For our RSVP card, we wanted to make sure that our guests knew to expect an offbeat, relaxed wedding from the moment they received their invitation. So, we utilized the following check box system, as seen on A $2000 Wedding:

- Gladly Attend
- Regretfully Decline
- Regretfully Attend
- Enthusiastically Decline
- I’m in the wedding, so I have to come
- Other ____________________________

Since Jordan and I are coordinating the music for the wedding dance ourselves, we also wanted feedback from our guests to see what would get them out on the dance floor. Our “Request a Song” card was so much fun to design, and Jordan even made the record player graphic himself!

These two cards were tied together with the RSVP envelope using baker’s twine, which is a special type of yarn that blends two colors (our’s was yellow and white) together. This little package was then placed in the pocketfold in front of the wedding map.

A note on the construction and presentation of the invite

I owe a lot to the lovely Holly at Nothing But Bonfires for introducing us to a company without which our invitations would have lacked cohesion: Cards & Pockets. We ordered nearly everything for our DIY invites from Cards & Pockets … from the pocketfolds in which each piece of our invitation suite was placed to the envelopes that carried our invitations to their destination, we found Cards & Pockets to be the best value for our money. And the quality of the materials? Couldn’t have asked for a better product or better customer service along the way. [No, this is not a sponsored/paid post; I just love the company!]

A note on printing

Jordan and I feel extremely blessed to have had the help and support of one of my father’s business colleagues throughout the DIY invitation design and printing process. From our first initial idea to our final proof, having a person to walk us through the process, telling us what worked and what didn’t, was absolutely invaluable.

While I understand that what’s right for us might not be right for everyone, I would encourage readers who are looking to DIY their own invitations to get them printed by a professional (but local!) printing company. All we supplied was the paper (we chose a partially recycled natural ivory linen cardstock), and the printers and our right-hand person handled the printing and the cutting gratis (yes, we were extremely lucky).

A note on the materials used

Materials:

From Cards & Pockets:

- Perfetto pocketfolds in “Smoke” (We ordered a sample of one, loved it, and then ordered 90 for our invitations)
- 5.75 inch square invitation mattes in “Lemonade” (Again, we ordered a color swatch, then ordered 90 mattes for our invitations)
- 90 6.5 inch square envelopes in “Lemonade” (to hold the invitation; we scrapped the inner envelope, because I think it’s wasteful and frivolous (no offense))
- 90 RSVP envelopes in “Lemonade” (while we initally thought about designing postcards, I loved these little envelopes, so we went with them)

From Etsy:

- Customized stickers from Maxim Creative Invites on Etsy (we ordered two different designs of stickers, one which we used to close the pocketfold and the other which we used to close the envelope)
- Yellow baker’s twine from Whisker Graphics on Etsy (we used this adorable twine to tie a bow around our RSVP package)
- Return address stamp from Love to Create Stamps on Etsy (we used this stamp as a return address and as the “deliver to” address on our RSVP envelopes)

From around town:

- Partially recycled natural ivory linen cardstock (we printed everything on this stock; we probably utilized 250-300 sheets for invitations for our entire guest list)
- Doilies + glue sticks + glue lines + ink pads from Michael’s craft store
- $0.61 cent wedding cake stamp, plus 2 $0.10 cent clock/nautical stamps, per invite, purchased at our local post office (I really wanted stamps with one of our engagement photos on it, but I couldn’t justify the cost)
- $0.44 cent “Love” stamp for our RSVP cards; we chose the stamp with the King and Queen on it!

A note on final cost

After calculating cost for everything ordered, including postage, it seems that the cost for each invitation suite was $3.74.

Here’s the breakdown:

Pocketfolds: $0.98 per invitation
Invitation Mattes: $0.18 per invitation
Natural Ivory Linen Cardstock: $8.00 per ream, $0.09 per invitation
Mailing Envelopes: $0.17 per invitation
RSVP Envelopes: $0.12 per invitation
Stickers: $0.47 per invitation
Address stamp: $0.08 per invitation (includes RSVP envelope)
Doilies: $0.14 per invitation (includes RSVP envelope)
Glue/Glue Lines/Double-stick Tape: $0.22 per invitation (includes all construction)
Baker’s Twine: $0.04 per invitation
Postage: $0.81 per invitation
Postage: $0.44 per RSVP card

TOTAL: $3.74 per invitation

What do you think of our DIY wedding invitations?

[All photos taken by my soon-to-be father-in-law, Steve!]

Jordan and I have spent one (seemingly endless) weekend designing the programs for our wedding ceremony. We’re really, really happy with where things are at design-wise, and while we have a (growing) list of tweaks to make, it’s time to start looking for paper to print these suckers on.

We originally wanted to go with plantable paper, but when we saw the price tag for what it would take to make 170 program booklets…we about died. SO…we started looking around the internet, and we found Eco-Paper!

We had Eco-Paper send us samples a few weeks ago, and we really liked the Lemon Paper that they had to offer. However, we wanted more of a heavier paper (i.e. cardstock), and, sadly, they happen to be out of Lemon Paper cardstock and (here’s the sucky part) they won’t have it in time for our wedding. SAD!

So, we’ve been looking around for other options. We received samples from Greener Printer awhile back, though if we go with them, we may have more overhead costs, both for the paper itself and for the printing services (we can print our programs for free if we supply the paper).

Do you have an eco-friendly paper vendor that you’ve used?
Tell us about it!

[Photo via www.wrs-uk.co.uk]

Have you ever had to wait for something? (I’m sure you have.) Nail polish to dry? Your doctor to finally enter your exam room at your check-up?

I’ve been doing A LOT of waiting this past month…waiting for one thing in particular. Waiting for ink to dry.

FOR A MONTH.

Here’s the deal: I ordered this super cute rubber stamp with our return address on it, and I used the stamp and ink* to stamp the flap of the envelopes that we’re mailing our wedding invitations in. I did said stamping about one month ago.

Yet this past weekend, THE INK WAS STILL, unbelievably, WET.

My Mom and I tried EVERYTHING from a hair dryer to a heat gun and embossing powder, and nothing was working. I was prepared to order more envelopes and chalk up the $15.00 as wasted funds. (We would have done this a lot sooner, but, well, I had spent about eight hours of my life lining the inside flap of said envelopes…and, well, the prospect of re-lining new envelopes made me want to puke.)

BUT…my Mom had the bright idea to try hair spray to see if that would dry it.

Dear readers … IT WORKED. (Thank you Herbal Essences…sometimes, it pays to purchase cheap hairspray!) The envelopes are FINALLY dry, which means A) my Mom is the hero of the week, B) my brother’s bed (which was previously the drying station for these envelopes) will actually be sleepable when he returns home from college this week, and C) NO MONEY WASTED! Yay, yay, yay.

What unexpected stressors have you encountered while planning your wedding?

*If you’re curious, I used Stampabilities Pigment Ink in silver/grey. DON’T USE THIS. Like EVER.

[Picture from www.yourbestimpression.com/blog]

When I thought about our wedding invitations, I always knew two things: 1) I wanted to include a map of locations for our guests, mostly for my own enjoyment (we don’t have many out-of-town family or friends), and 2) I wanted it to contribute to our overall vintage theme.

The result? Even better than I could have imagined.

After falling in love with the idea of a hand-drawn map, my non-artist self began the search for an artist to help me. Enter: Andrew, a friend from college.

While Andrew is CERTAINLY worth more than we could afford, he kindly spent hours and hours of his time to create a BEAUTIFUL map of the downtown Sioux Falls area for us. He drew each of the important buildings for us, and added the “legend” or “map key” idea that I so randomly threw at him. After all of the artwork was complete, Jordan and I added the text at the bottom.

We couldn’t be more pleased with the results!

A few weeks ago, I ordered a custom stamp from Love to Create Stamps on Etsy, and I couldn’t be more pleased! Love to Create Stamps is FULL of stamp templates for everything from addresses (which is what we ordered and are using for our wedding invitations) to monograms and more.

I couldn’t recommend Love to Create Stamps more; click here to view this lovely Etsy shop!

(This is not a sponsored post. Photo via Love to Create Stamps.)

When crafting our Save the Date cards, I fell in love with envelope liners. I love the fun surprise of opening an envelope to find a little loveliness hidden inside the envelope flap, so I knew that I would try to execute this technique for the majority of our wedding-related envelopes. So, this past weekend, I spent A LOT of time working on the packaging for our wedding invitations.

I’m a HUGE fan of Holly, blogger and DIY craft extraordinaire, so when I saw her AH-MAZ-ING wedding invitations (and her seriously lovely doily-lined envelopes!), I knew that doilies were in my future.

So, I bought out my local grocery store’s selection in glue sticks, hit up Michael’s for doilies (in the cake-baking aisle), and set to work.

Our lovely 6.5 square inch envelopes (purchased from the WONDERFUL Cards & Pockets) look so dressed up with the doilies!

Here’s a close-up:

Total price for this project: $0.17 cents per envelope (I ordered 90 envelopes); $20.00 for glue sticks; $2.99 per pack of doilies (24 in 1 pack) = $47.26!

Happy Thursday!

[Photos by me]

A fellow wedding blogger on Twitter introduced me to yet another source for eco-friendly paper goods – EcoPaper!

According to their web site, EcoPaper submits agricultural fiber (think: bananas, lemons, mangos, etc.) through the following process to make paper:

The mix is thrown through a sprinkling system into an endless band that acts as a sieve, letting the water pass through while keeping the pulp in suspension. Combining adequately the speed of the band and the pressure of the sprinkling system, the thickness of the paper sheet can be regulated, which in a standardized way, which can be 60g, 90g, 120g or 250g. From the endless band, the paper is threaded in a set of drums that rotate at a high temperature. Then through another endless band, made from an absorbent material, it dries as it moves along. At the end of this zigzag of rotating drums, the paper sheet will only keep 3% of water and will be rolled into a big roll.

This product then endures the following processes, again described on the EcoPaper web site:

» Rewinding: it is the process that divides a paper roll into smaller width rolls.
» Converting : The roll is cut into sheets to make paper reams.
» Paper cutting : It is a process that is usually used several times to produce an article. It can be used to make smaller pieces of paper or to clean the edges of reams or products.
» Printing press : lithography is the main method of printing used; it allows achieving finishes of one colour with text to photographic quality.
» Embossing : It is the process that allows raising a design and making it stand from the surface.
» Dies : It is a device for cutting or moulding paper into a particular shape, unlike the paper cutter that can only make straight cuts. This allows the designs to be original and alive.
» Binding : This process allows sticking the internal pages to their covers. It can be pasted with silicon for fixed pages or with water based glue to allow the pages to be pulled. There are also ring bound products, which are usually made with a double ring.
» Hand crafts : Through the skilled hands of many artisans, we achieve the details that add a touch of magic to each one of our products. The decorative on-lays on the covers, the original labels and the delicate assembly of the writing sets are all made by hand.
There are other hand-related jobs that require speed and strength like laminating a thin paper to a card board to make the covers or separate the leftovers after cutting products.
» Packing : Using strict packing standards, the products are packed to resist transport without getting damaged. We also use bar code identification which simplifies the identification in our warehouse and in our clients’ warehouses.

While J and I had our hearts set on using plantable paper for our wedding ceremony programs, EcoPaper provides another eco-friendly option for us. Plus, EcoPaper is kind to your budget, with a ream of banana paper coming in around $25.00. We’re seriously thinking about utilizing EcoPaper for our ceremony programs!

Have a great weekend!

[This is not a sponsored post.]