Invitation Suite

I am putting the finishing touches on our invitation suite. I was torn. I really wanted to diy our invitations, but I really wanted letterpress. So to save money and compromise…. I ordered our main invitation and envelope in letterpress. You have seen them.

Then, I made our hotel and area information sheet, the RSVP, the RSVP instruction card, the photo upload information card, our rehearsal dinner invitation, and finally our after party invitation.

It’s taken me months and I’m still not done. Everything is done but the RSVP which is taking forever since they each have to be hand typed. Our RSVP mimics out Save the Dates.

I have had a blast doing them, but I seriously want to warn brides. If you do not have the time or patience to print, design, cut, and man handle all your invitation pieces…. get the set.

Sorry for the horrible quality of the picture. I’m waiting to let Nikki get the best picture of all of this madness.

Calligraphy

I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was working on my calligraphy. I started working on them over the long weekend. It’s a process. I have horrible handwriting anyway. I like them, but I also think that it still looks like a child wrote these. Jonathon and my mother (who love me and are biased) ay that they look amazing.

It’s a process. Jonathon draws a straight line in light pencil for me. Then, I address them practicing each word at a time. Then, going with it. I think I’ll get faster the more I do. Since it’s taking an hour to do each one.

Our envelope with the stamps.  

My practice notebook. I don’t want to violate privacy sorry, no addresses!

YAY

We finished addressing our invitations this weekend!!!!

I feel incredible, because one time consuming task is out of the way. I had fun. Jonathon helped me keep all the lines straight and we worked our way through our whole list. It probably took about 40 hours this weekend, but it’s done!!

I’ll upload pictures sometime in the near future. I already have a week of blogs lined up for you. A ton of good wedding things happened this weekend. So, be prepared!

I’ve got a secret…

Shh. Come closer and I’ll tell you.

*looks around* I’ve been practicing calligraphy for my invitations.

Yes, me I have been. Me with the horrible chicken scratch writing. People have told me I’d make a great doctor based on my handwriting. So why am I practicing calligraphy? See, it started one night while I was laying awake listening to my boy sawing down an entire rainforest. I often find myself thinking about how to do wedding things different, cheaper, better, still look expensive. This was after I had received my lovely invitations from Peculiar Pair Press and I knew that a label would be a disaster on those stunning envelopes. So, I was pondering how to get the calligraphy part without paying the price.

And it hit me! Okay it was actually Jonathon’s arm sailing into my face at warp speed, but I really did have a great idea. I could pawn it off on my family. I loved this idea for many days. But then again, laying awake listening to the melodious rapture of buzz saws that this probably wouldn’t work considering my family is 2 hours away and the times I am with my family we are always doing stuff. And it hit me (again, yes it was Jonathon’s leg this time… he is a tough person to sleep with) that I should do it.

I thought about much I suck at handwriting, but over many more forests died and limbs flew I thought I would pick a script that I really liked and thought over time I could at least start to make look similar. I chose the freebooter script. (It’s also the script in my header.)

I started practicing with a regular pen. It wasn’t hard really. Jonathon was surprised that I made it so similar. I finally found an orange calligraphy marker tip pen. I bought 3. (They were $2 each!) I got them yesterday and I started practicing. I love it. I don’t think I could ever do and charge, but I would encourage other brides to try it.

I’ll show you a sample after I print out my first invitation.