Part two of our DIY invites adventure… catch up HERE.
YAY! Our invites turned out wonderful! I am a graphic artist by trade so, naturally, I wanted to design our invites from scratch. For months I poured over tons of ready-made design ideas looking for things that I loved and things that I hated. It is totally overwhelming the sheer number of invite designs that are out there! I knew I had three criteria to start with: they had to be square (because we already bought the paper) they had to incorporate our damask theme, and they had to be blue & brown.
Originally my idea was to go simple and clean and have one big damask take up most of the invite but with the one we cut out of the front it seemed like overkill. I have to say that I might just be my own worst client! I went through tons of different ideas and concepts, and have several fully developed ideas that I just hated! Luckily, I finally found the right balance of playful and elegant! Nicole kept me grounded and helped me find my way in the design process and in the end we both totally love them! One thing that I have learned from planning our wedding is that Nicole and I are a kick-a** design team! I am so happy that we have committed ourselves to so many DIY projects because I really feel like it has helped bring us even closer together. We can look back at all the hard work we put in and be proud that we worked together as a team to make our wedding day beautiful!
One of my first jobs out of college was working as a graphic artist for a small TV station in my hometown. One of the things I did almost everyday was draw out street maps in the computer. At the time I totally hated it, and had no idea that it was a skill I would one day put to good use! So when it came to the invites I knew I wanted to draw my own map! I wound up making a fold out map with the addresses and vital information on the other side of the flap. My map-making technique is to do a screen capture of the area from an internet map site, or scan it in from a paper map and bring it into Adobe Illustrator. Once I have it in illustrator I use it as a guide to retrace the streets and then throw it out once I have the streets drawn.
On one of our trips down to Asbury I found a little shop that sold all the usual touristy items emblazoned with the Asbury park mascot, and also a bunch of my favorite things: old postcards! I love going through them and reading what people wrote on the back and imagining what their lives were like. Nicole quickly found out about this obsession as she held the box for me as I slowly flipped through reading each one… I managed to speed it up when her arm started to go numb! So I selected a few that we liked and intended to turn them into reply cards for the invites. They were all so cool we had a hard time deciding which ones to use so we picked three that we loved and had them made into reply cards. That way not everyone gets the same postcard!
Here is how it all laid out… I still love the cutout on the front and how the blue shows through and acts as a base for the invite. The map tucks in perfectly behind the diagonal pocket with a single damask peeking out. Not shown in this photo the reply card nestles inside the folded map. For the envelope we made a wrap address label with our return adress on the back. I used some of the aqua paper we got at Paper Source and printed the labels. Then I made them into stickers by running it though our Xyron machine. Then we cut them and rounded the edges with a punch. If I had to go back and do it again I would have flipped the address label so its a little more balanced with the stamps, which I had forgotten to plan for.
Here is the full package! We lined the envelopes with a fancy paper we picked out. Nicole and I hand cut them and pasted them into place. It was a lot of work but it was totally worth it. Also in this photo are 1″ damask buttons which I designed and ordered from my favorite shop Busy Beaver we got 100 buttons (50 of each design) for just $35!! We are using these on our escort cards… stay tuned for the tutorial!
People often ask me if it was cheaper to make my own invites, which is why I suppose most people decide to do them themselves. For me I wanted to make them myself because its a part of who I am. I am a designer, and I love to create! So for those of you wondering, here is the breakdown:
All the paper you see here: Paper Source – $200
Printing and cutting of the invites and maps: Repro Graphics (in-house at work) – $70 *digital printing (not offset) which is cheaper
Postcard reply cards: Overnight Prints – $30 (they have tons of sales on postcard printing!)
Manual labor provided by my fiancee… priceless!
So for 70 invites it cost $300 making it $4.30 each… to me it was totally worth it.
Other things we used to make these invites:
Pazzles machine – bought used from Craigslist for $200
Nelly Script Font – $39 available HERE
Xyron 900 – bought on sale $80 available HERE
Stunning!
I cannot get over these invitations–my jaw just hits the floor!!!
3 things:
- Are you really going to send the invite to Obama? Cause I think you should… (this could totally be an SYE campaign!!)
- Yay buttons!!!
- SERIOUS envy over your postcards…. I so want those!!
These are just stunning. LOVE the buttons too.. so cute! Everything came out beautifully.
Wow! Your invitation are so amazing and so perfect.
Thank you guys so much for your comments!
Erica – Yes, I did send my invite to President Obama. I didn’t even know you could invite the President! Then I read in one of the bridal magazines that if you send an invite to him that you get a nice letter of congrats back. So we decided to send ours because it would be awesome if he came (he won’t) and to increase exposure. I would love to have a SYE campaign to all send invites to the President! How fun!
The postcards were great… you can find lots of vintage postcards on ebay if anyone wants to use this idea!
Rock on Sar! Those are incredible. And, I’m totally loving the Obama tradition. I’m in!! Let us know when you get the response letter from his office.