Bride-to-be Blogger Kristy: Our (Designed-By-Me) Invitations Have Arrived!
How good of a job did Kristy do on her wedding invites?
Like a kid on Christmas morning, I sat staring at a highly anticipated present yesterday. After months of development, our invitations had arrived. I decided early on during the planning process that I would like to design our wedding invitations. I thought it would be a nice, personal touch, and since I’m proficient in Photoshop and similar programs, I wasn’t intimidated. I’m extremely happy with the results and for anyone interested in DIYing their invites, here are some guidelines and parameters for the journey ahead.
Months and months ago, I started researching; scanning wedding websites, magazines, and hoarding previous wedding invites for inspiration. I knew I wanted to continue a few themes throughout our wedding, so I looked to incorporate them in our invitations. This mostly involved our wedding colors (yellow and grey), text I had chosen for our save-the-dates, and our ‘love birds’ theme. Once I had a good vision of invite layout and all its associated pieces (RSVP card and accommodation card), I changed my focus to logistics: I researched envelopes, their sizes, proper invite language, and printer pricing. I underestimated how important this step was, because it really set the stage for the entire invitation layout. The most important factor was envelope size, because it determined the invitation size. I went with something pretty standard—a 5×7 invitation.
Then, tanks to another bride-to-be and friend, I was introduced to Paper Presentations. They have the essentials for DIYers, from every single envelope size in just about any color, to pocket invitations and personalized stickers to seal up your envelopes. You can order samples before you take the plunge of ordering 100-plus envelopes, to make sure they fit your color scheme and vision. I took full advantage of this, and ordered numerous envelope colors. Once they arrived, I tested out black ink on them to see how they would read, and if the colors were what I expected. I was heading in a direction far from the standard for invitations, but I wanted them to foreshadow the feel of the day; laid back and slightly casual, but sophisticated and harmonious. I ditched the inside envelope and decided to bundle our cards with simple grey twine. The RSVP cards were paired with bumble bee-yellow envelopes, and the entire ensemble would arrive in a dark grey envelope, addressed in calligraphy by a family friend (thank you, Carole).
Once my mind was made up, I started to review printing quotes, and received great recommendations and pricing from a local printer in New Jersey, Express It Printing. They provided printed proofs for review, which was really important to me, since I was looking for the colors to print as vibrantly as they appeared on my computer screen. I highly suggest asking for this service, because not only was I able to view the prints, but make sure they easily fit within our envelopes.
Once I gave them the thumbs up, I had prints in just a few days, our grey twine purchased from Etsy, and a return address stamp I had made through Vistaprint arrived within the same week. Everything has seemed to seamlessly fall into place (as I try to vanish the memories of late night after late night perfecting the invitation!), and now, we just have to rally the troops for an assembling party! I couldn’t have been happier with the results, but if you go this route, scheduling your time appropriately—and giving yourself tons of it is a must! Best of luck!
What did you DIY for your wedding? Did you learn anything from it that could help other DIYers?
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