You're Cordially Invited

Invitation styles played a gigantic role in the grand scheme of things in our wedding planning. We wanted every aspect of the wedding to be able to tell a story or give our guests a hint of what to expect come January 2008. Once our save the dates cards were sent out to our guests, expectations were high on what they will receive next. Since we were also had a rigid budget, we knew that DIY would be our solution to infusing our style into invitation and at the same time making them affordable. When I stumbled upon Mrs. Eggplant's post about her wedding invitations, I finally had a direction and a vision!

Typical Filipino wedding invitations includes an insert stating the entire list of your wedding party so we knew that we needed to add that to the other inserts that we have (i.e. response cards, reception cards) so a pocket folder would be our best bet yet. We started with sample pocket folders that we ordered from cardandpockets.com and another from Paper Source. We compared the two and completed several mock up pieces and finally decided on the Vertigo pocket folder from Cardsandpockets.

Once the color schemes have been decided and the materials have been ordered, we conceptualized the design and looked at different ideas that we’ve seen in the past. My MOH (who else right?) used istockphoto for ideas of graphics that we would be able to use and she came up with a design that Mr. Gardenia and I were both very excited with. We completed a mock up and took it to a local printer in Orange County for a quote and they were able to produce a proof within hours that we can approve. As soon as the proof was approved, our invitations were printed within hours.

So with the invitations printed, pocket folders, spools and spools of ribbon, stamps, crafting tools and lots and lots of double stick tape on hand, we were ready to start cranking these out.
I decided to get all of the print jobs done at the same time to make it a bit more organize and bearable.

For envelopes and response cards:

1. Print return addresses on all of the envelopes using MS Word.

2. Print all of the guests names and addresses on the envelopes using MS Word as well. Tip: I ended up using a calligraphy-style font for our names and addresses to avoid the costs of a calligrapher.

3. Print labels of return addresses on clear labels and attach them to all of the response cards that we were sending out.

4. Attach stamps on all response cards and main envelopes.

RSVPS

Since we used postcards for our response cards, we were limited in the space that we had to put the information and decided to number inconspicuously each response card to correspond with the number of the guests in our spreadsheet. So, the idea is that when response card #080 was received, we would know that guest #080 was attending the wedding. I really wanted to use the invisible ink to number each response card but after trips to Michaels, Target, Wal-Mart and several art supplies stores, I was discourage they didn’t carry any of what I was looking for. In fact, on my trip to Michaels one of the workers pointed me to the Crayola washable magic markers since she thought that’s what I wanted.

Pocket folder, Main Invitation & Inserts

6. Measure the pocket folder with a ruler to get the center of the folder where the ribbon will be attached to. Wrap the 7/8 ribbon around the pocket folder using double stick tape to attached the ribbon. I found that double stick tape works wonder with these since it’s not as noticeable unlike others that I’ve used (glue stick, fabric glue).

7. Use double stick tape and attach the hydrangea-colored matting to the top portion of the pocket folder.

8. Attach the main invite to the matting with the use of double stick tape.

9. Arrange the inserts in order and put them inside the sleeves on the bottom portion of the pocket folder.

10. Once the inserts have been put in the folder, place the pocket folder inside the corresponding envelope. Remember that response card #080 should go with envelope for guest #080. Once we got into this step, we made sure to check our list to make sure that it’s going to the appropriate guests. We wouldn’t want our guest who only needs 2 seats to have the response card for 6 guests. This was the crucial part making sure that they go to the appropriate people with the numbering system that I used. Sounds complicated but it really made life a bit less stressful for Mr. Gardenia and I.

Monogram stickers

Using the monograms that one of our groomsmen created for us, we printed the monograms on cream colored cardstock paper and matted it against the same hydrangea-colored cardstock and ran it through our Xyron machine to achieve that adhesive backing. These monogram stickers were used to seal the pocket folder flaps.

Embossed stickers

I bought a PSA embosser a while back to use for our STD cards and since they had our wedding date on the embosser, I figure we can use them again for seals for our wedding invitations to remind our guests of the wedding date.

So, readers of weddingbee, without further adieu, here are my invitations.

I will make sure to blog next about the vendors that we used and the total costs for our invites. Looking at our invites now that they’re out of the coup, I feel that we came up with a harmonious piece that tied everything together from beginning to end.