Invitations - Signed, Sealed and Delivered!

A question I often get asked is how much should we spend on invitations. This is really a personal questions and depends on your budget. My invitations came to about $1.20CDN each. I was also very lucky that my aunt is an amazing artist, and she drew everything on our invitations by hand, and her friend created the digital files for the printer. Our costs probably would have doubled if did not have my aunt and her friend's help.

My friend had her invitations made in Indonesia, and it cost her $0.12 each. That's not a typo. Twelve cents! My bridesmaid's wedding invitations are laser cut, with a photo as the backing, and will cost between $3.00 - $5.00 each.

So my advice: choose a style you love, and get as many quotes as you can. You will most likely find the cheapest prices in Asia. If you have the time, and are not afraid of the potential risks, such as shipping, communication, and quality, then definitely have them done in Asia. If you're doing a small batch, and don't want to take those risks, then do them locally. But always ask around, get as many quotes as you possibly can, and NEGOTIATE!

We received our unassembled invitations from China a little while ago. While looking at the parts of the invitations was VERY daunting, it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be when I was putting everything together. I also realized I am more anal-retentive than I thought I would be.

Our invitations had a backing card, vellum page (with the actual invitation details), map, RSVP, and also an invite to our rehearsal dinner. Since we are having a destination wedding, most of our guests are from out of town, so we thought we might as well invite everyone to our rehearsal dinner.

Step 1. Punch holes in the backing card and the vellum. Luckily the printer also printed marks for where the holes should be. That saved me a LOT of time. It's a good idea to get your printer to do the same for you.

Step. 2 Cut the ribbon to the length you want. I did a test ribbon, and just cut the rest to the same length. Tip: use SHARP scissors, and cut all the ribbon first, instead of one at a time for each invitation. I also decided to dovetail the ribbon. To do that, simply fold the end in half, and cut at an angle. I wasn't too particular about have the exact same angle for each ribbon. It probably would've taken me a lot more time if I was THAT anal.

Step 3. Tie backing card to the vellum with ribbon. This part was pretty quick once you get in the zone. Pay attention about which side of the ribbon is shiny, and also how the knot is tied. I tried to make them all as similar as possible.

Step 4. Tie all the different cards together with raffia. I wanted a more rustic look, so I tied everything together with raffia. I only got one roll of raffia from the craft store, so guests who didn't give me their address in time for the first batch of invites ended up not getting raffia with their package.

Step 5. Here they are, all in their little pearlized envelopes. I also had a rubber stamp made with our names and return address. But because of the type of paper the envelope was made of, the stamp just smudged. So sadly, we didn't use our stamp.

Step 6. Labels. I used clear printer labels. I have terrible hand-writing. So why waste time writing out names and address when I can just print them with a nice font? Efficiency is key!

I assembled about 60 invitations. It took me 5 hours, and I did it on my own. It obviously would have taken less time if I had help. But I wanted everything to look the same, so I opted to do everything on my own.

My question to you, how much did you/will you be spending on your wedding invitations?

xoxo
~meesh

Invitations Decisions!!

Those close to me know I have major issues when it comes to decision making. I blame it on being a Libra. So the latest dilemma is how to do our invitations. I've been perusing Pinterest (FOLLOW ME!) for months now, and the more I look, the less I seem to be able to decide.

I originally wanted something formal, with a pocket, and staggered inserts (see original post here). But as the details of our wedding are being finalized, well, as finalized as someone with decision making issues can be, my vision for our invitations have evolved. I don't want something super formal, since our wedding will not be super formal. I've been deciding between fun vs. classic. Here are some of the concepts I've toyed with:

FUN:

nickeldesign on Etsy

100 Layer Cake - Cheerful Maine Wedding: Ruth + Ed

Lauren by The Pulp Studio

Classic:

Pinkpolka Wedding Invitation

Hydrangea Invitation by redpearldesigns on Etsy

It was and is difficult deciding what we're going to do. My MOH was so sick of hearing me flip flop between all the various options that she just flipped a coin and decided for me. I was happy with the decision, but in the end, I went back to basics. I thought about what my original inspiration for the wedding was. What inspired me to choose green as my supplementary colour?

This picture was what started it all. 

Chic & Modern Wedding in Calgary - Wedding Obsession

I decided to look for examples with baby's breath as the inspiration. After looking through maaaany maaaany images, I decided to do something similar to this invitation.

A Down Home BBQ Wedding - Ruffled Blog

In addition to baby's breath, my bridesmaid Jocelyn suggested we add some lavender to the graphic since we will be giving honey infused with our home-grown lavender as wedding favors. And of course, purple is one of our colours.

We will print the invitation on vellum, and back it on a piece of linen textured purple card. There will be one piece for the actual invitation, and one for the map. We are going to use our app as our  RSVP tool, so it's still up in the air as to whether we will have a RSVP card directing guests to our app.

That's my decision for this week anyway. I may change my mind in a few weeks, and rethink all of this. LOL

xoxo

~meesh

Engagement Party!

We had our engagement party about a month ago. We kept it small, only close friends and immediate family. We wanted to keep the cost low, so I opted to make the invites myself. My inspiration is from Pinterest/Etsy. Here is the finished product:

I created the text on Photoshop, and had them printed at Kinko's. The total cost for printing 30 invites was about $9.00. The envelopes actually cost me more at $15.00!! If you plan on making your own invites, definitely invest in a corner punch. I think the rounded corners definitely make them look more professional.

We had our engagement party in our backyard to keep the cost down, and to keep it low key. We bought paper lanterns from China's version of eBay, TaoBao. The total for 30 lanterns, came to about $5.00CDN. They're the same colour as our colours for the wedding, green and purple.

Here is a picture of the lanterns strung up. We had them strung up around 3 sides of our backyard.

We bought most of our food from Costco. Here is our charcuterie plate. We also had some cheese, various salads, steak and chicken wings.

Our most expensive item, was definitely our cake. It was well worth it!! It was delicious!! Chris and I have a thing with poo talk, I know, it's weird. The topper was made of fondant, and the cake was chocolate with hazelnut filling.

Here are the lanterns at the end of the night. We're definitely going to reuse these for our reception.

 

It was a great party. Our families got to know each other better, and we our friends got to know each other better too. It was simple, and most importantly, we all had fun!

I want to thank everyone who helped with the party. Particularly my mom, Vanessa, my maid of honour, and Jon. They made sure the party went smoothly and I was stress free! 

xoxo

~meesh

Getting ahead of myself...as usual

So I had been mulling over the location for the whole for a few weeks now. Cal and I decided to host the wedding in Penticton, so I've been tasked with finding a venue for the reception. I thought that since Penticton is the Napa of British Columbia that it would be easy finding a venue for 100 people at a winery. Was I ever in for a surprise. Fact: there are a lot of wineries in Penticton and Naramata. BUT, there aren't many that have the space to host a reception. I even considered taking the reception out to the surround towns such as Oliver, Okanagan Falls, and even as far as Osoyoos. Hosting the reception in these towns brings its own set of challenges. Our ceremony will be a church wedding, and that is to be held in Penticton. So if we were to have the wedding elsewhere, we would need to provide a shuttle from Penticton to the reception. But this means that our guests will have to arrive and leave at a specified time, or we have to provide multiple bus times. Anyway, to distract myself from finding a venue, I started looking at invitations.

I'm definitely leaning towards DIY suites instead of getting ones custom made. This would save us a ton of money. In an ideal world, I would loooove to have something like this:

But at over $7.00 each, I think it's a way too much for us to spend on invitations. I've been playing around with the free DIY templates from Wedding Chicks and it's been pretty fun! I think right now my favourite so far is this style:

I can choose multiple colours, and obviously the customize all the wording. This suite also includes Save the Date, RSVP and the program. The only thing missing in this suite for me is the menu card. I don't plan on having one menu for each guest, since that seems like a waste, so probably just 1 or 2 menus per table depending on the size and shape of our tables.

There are so many options for online DIY invitations. It's definitely going to be a challenge to find a template with the design we like, and also the right price. Hopefully Wedding Chicks will come out with one that's a winery theme! (hint hint).

I've also considered using seed paper instead of traditional card stock. Seed paper is paper that is embedded with seeds. They paper is supposed to sprout when you plant it. I like this idea because it's eco-friendly, but also because Cal loves gardening. Those close to us will understand the personal thought that went into the paper. I found Botanical Paperworks through some googling, and discovered that they do custom invitations, or you can buy DIY kits and print them yourself!

Botanical Paperworks also provides a free template if you want to print them yourself. You don't need a special printer or ink for the paper, so if you have a small wedding, you can totally print them off you ink-jet printer at home.

If we decide to go with seed paper, the company also has place cards, favours, menu cards...the options seem endless. I love these a favours:

They're $138 for 100 pieces, which is completely reasonable. However, with many of our guests coming from abroad, I'm not sure if it's worthwhile since they will not be able to bring it home with them.

So much to think about!!!

xoxo
-Meesh