Hive, I know I drug this out. I know, I teased you about the invitations in several posts. But the wait is over! I would like to invite you to, not only view our invites, but see just how they came to be (bee?)!
[Note, if you want to skip all the romance and get right to the main event, the invite pictures are at the bottom]
First things first, I would like to give a big shout out to paper source, staples, and vista print. These were the tree main vendors we used to put together our invitation suite. All of the unprinted on paper came from papersource. I found their quality nice, their prices reasonable, and their colors fantastic. The little beige inserts came from staples. They were were fast, cheap and easy. I would not recommend them if you are a stickler for perfection, but if you are a stickler for getting it done adequately I would say go for it! And last but not least, I tweaked our Save the date design to make our RSVP and had them printed "for free" at vista print..
I used illustrator to lay out all of the text onto 8.5X11 paper in a way that it could be cut into 4 with each text block making a square. I really wish I had Miss Eagle's tutorial before hand but after a lot of trial and error I managed to get it pretty square. I then sent the files off to Staples to be printed and cut into fours. The fact that they cut was nice because it saved me some time but not that much because each one had to be trimmed to square afterwords.
Knowing that a square has equal height and width, I used the height of the cards to mark where the extra width needed to be trimmed off.
Rinse and repeat with both the "Invite" card (that said, "hey come to our wedding"*) and the "Info" card (that said, "go to our wedding website for more deets"*)
After everything was squared away we corner punched. Mr. Aardvark was a champ and did this part at record speed. (We are still finding little paper bits all over the house from this activity). The cutting and punching was BY FAR the most tedious part of the whole ordeal. And of course, we had to re-do this part after hotel one crapped out on us. However, in the big scheme of things, this was a little blip on the planning radar and it could have had a lot high cost/PIA factor than it did.
Once we had the informative sections ready to go, it was time to enclose them. I decided early on that I was in love with the petal envelop.
They are just so much fun. Fun to look at, fun to open, and even a little fun to put together.
I felt like they would make it clear that what was inside was very special. However I could not very well have all the other bits of the invite skating around in the envelope willy-nilly. (Actually, I could, but I really wanted our invitations to be highly interactive so I decided to add another step.)
After carefully folding all of the petal envelopes, the mister and I glued them into bi-fold cards. We glued them on the left side which seemed a bit odd at first (considering it was the top when the card was closed) but we did it this way so the invitation would be the first thing read once open.
Our very fancy work station above.
Once all of the bi-fold and petal envelopes were assembled, we went about glue the invitation card and info card into them. As you can see below, our fur-baby was very helpful throughout the process.
Below you will see roughly what someone opening our invite would see. Note the upper left corner of the picture. A belly band and wax seal to be are waiting....
And with the petal envelope open:
Back tracking a bit, we decided on some pretty traditional, but not too formal, wording for our invites:
If you can't read the tiny picture it says:
"Miss and Mr. Aardvark, together with their families, ask you to share and celebrate their wedding. After which is, date, time, location, reception to follow bla bla bla."
On the info card we gave the name of the hotel (this is one of the old info cards with the bad hotel. Luckily we did not glue them in until after that whole mess) where we had blocked off rooms, along with our wedding website and e-mail.
The RSVP card (yes we went with post cards) simply said:
"We look forward to celebrating with you! Kindly reply by March 24th 2012. Name_____
Number of attendees_____. And the choice of A) Will be there (with bells on) or B) Will not be attending (too many bells)"
I thought this was cutesy with out being too hard to understand.
We also numbered our RSVP cards and guest lists in case someone forgets to put their name on the card we can figure out who it is from.
After all of the pieces were assembled, glued, folded and dried it was time to bundle everything together. I had purchased quite a few sheets of this pink/burgundy and copper paper and had it in my head they would make beautiful belly bands. Of course that involve LOTS of cutting into 1/2 inch strips. Ladies, this was the second most tedious part of the whole process. (And only a little less tedious than the first!)
I used my ice skate box as a work surface while watching TV. Mr. Aardvark was a rock star at this too. You can totally tell which ones he cut because they are much more evenly sized.
Progress, slow progress....
However, it was all worth it in the end because the could be wrapped around the cards like this:
This was very easily the third most tedious part. I had it in my head that we should wrap them all before sealing them closed. Of course, once wrapped there would be no way of knowing what number RSVP card was inside and thus what address to send it to. I stressed about this, and put off wrapping them for a few days before realizing that I could put post-it notes with the numbers on the outside. Duh!
Once they were all wrapped it was time for my favorite part of the whole deal! The part where I get to play with fire! The tricky part was getting the paper strips to stay in place. Crackle nail polish to the rescue!
WAY back at the beginning of our engagement I purchased a slightly flawed wax stamp. I was sure to practice using it on birthday cards and the like. Now, for you a mini tutorial on sealing wax:
Step one: Chill out. use an ice pack or regular ice to freeze your stamper. If your stamp has a top and bottom, but no way to tell which is which while stamping, tape a paperclip to the "top side" so you don't end up with a bunch of sideways stamps. (it only took me a few to figure this out)
Step two: Ready, aim, Fire: Use a long lighter to melt your wax. a short lighter will work but you will burn your fingers. Also don't light the wick if you can help it. You will end up with soot in your wax if you do.
Step three: Stamp those bad boys! (remember to put the stamp back on the ice pack after each one.) If you mess up you can re-melt and try again but, keep in mind, most of the little imperfections are what make these cool.
Step four: Try to take a cool picture and get wax all over the place. Just kidding there is no step four. You are done after you stamp. BUT I will say that should you drip, let the wax cool a bit and it should peal easily off. If you try to get it off too soo it will be sticking and too late it will just crack but still be stuck on whatever surface.
Once the invitations were fully assembled I started addressing the envelopes. I had been dreading this part the most and it wasn't even that bad. I had been practicing my cursive since, oh, May. It was by no means perfect, but with the glitter gel pen (yes I am 12) and a new callous on my left hand I was able to whip out all 93 in one Saturday.
Not too bad for a lefty huh? I did end up with glitter all over the side of my hand but that was a small price to pay.
My see-through ruler was also very valuable in the addressing process. I cannot write a straight line freehand to save my life.
Next up was more fun stuff! Embossing. Lots of people have told you all about how to emboss, so I will keep it short.
We had to test out what looked best on our envelopes....
As an after though, and not really being ready to finish this project I stamped the inside of the envelope flaps. (Ladies, can you say budget envelope liners)
Again Kitty was SOOO helpful.
Annnnnd one more little tiny stamp embossed on the corer front.
Done. Now to stuff them in the envelopes. (And be sure to take the post-its off before I do.
Whew. That was a long post. I will save the cost break down for another day. I was SO happy with how they turned out. I skimped on the fancy printing but still brought texture in, and made them interactive and fun. The reviews, have been great so far! And I would say they were well worth the effort. As long as you start EARLY, invites can be a fun, if humongous project.
Papa Aardvark called me to narrate his opening of the invite (he gets my brand of crazy). Mama Aardvark sent me some pictures to prove that the $0.84 worked and the whole package made it.
Did you DIY your invites? Was it worth it? Would you do it again?
*Not actual quotes from invitation text.
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