Developing our Invitations

Last time I gave you guys a sneak peak into our invitations, now I can say that everyone (well, almost everyone- it takes a long time to get to Norway) has received our invites and despite one mishap* the results are all positive!!

Since I've already talked about my bridal blunder in ordering the invites, let's jump straight into the wording. The one request from Mama Peep was that we include their names on the invite, but since the in-laws are also contributing- we thought it'd be best to include them as well. They aren't married any longer, so we had to get crafty, which worked well for us since tradition isn't really our thing. And if I do say so myself- I think it sounds great: (Peep Toe= Last Name)

Papa and Mama Peep Toe
Along with MIL Peep Toe and FIL Peep Toe
Joyfully invite you to celebrate the marriage of

Miss Peep
& Mr. Peep

Saturday, May XX
Two Thousand Nine**
At half past xxxx in the afternoon

The Outdoor Terrace***
Hotel Vitale
San Francisco, California

Reception Immediately Following

**thanks to Mrs. Cupcake's advice we removed the 'and'
***Mama Peep thought it was important for people to know it's outside

We also had to make a BIG decision on the RSVP card. We'll be having a sit down dinner and our guests need to choose between two entrees. Papa Peep made some grumbling about avoiding chicken, so even though we haven't (as in- to this day) had a tasting, we decided to throw caution to the wind and serve Beef and Fish. We incorporated a little line on the RSVP card and asked people to initial their choice. Out of the few RSVPs we've gotten NO ONE has actually initialed their choice- X's yes, but initial- no. So word to the wise- make the initial line big enough to actual initial. DOH!!

Back to the invites: once we had the wording picked out, we started developing the design a bit more. We really wanted to take advantage of incorporating a handwritten feel to our invitations. Aren't these invitations divine?


In order to reduce the calligraphy costs of our invites, we decided to only use hand calligraphy for our names, which in turn helped make our invitations look modern with a touch of classic. Here's an up close of our names and a bit of the invite:


At this point in the process, we needed to add a bit of something to make the invite stand out. These invites from Bella Figura helped get our inspiration flowing.

We'll admit to loving the small modern heart so much that we had to incorporate something like it- it just felt like us.**** And it fit right in with the rest of our design. We also decided it was worth the extra few cents in postage to use square paper to finish off our design. After a few iterations, we finally had a whole invitation:

Going with green writing was a last minute decision made by Mr. Peep and I couldn't be happier. As for the details, they were letterpressed onto Crane Lettra 110lb. card stock. And we love them!!

Up next, I'll talk about our impossible envelopes and our small (but informative) insert.

So did you have to be a bit crafty on your invitation wording??

*I accidentally sent our Best Man's invitation to his old address- aka his ex-girlfriend's house. BIG Opps. I hope he'll forgive me before the wedding.
****Now that I know a bit more about design, I know that copying an invitation design is a big no no, but in this case we based our design on the hand lettering and just used the heart to help inspire.

Putting the Eco into Invitations

Having eco-friendly invitations might be the easiest way to go green for your wedding.

I think the most luxe example of an eco-friendly invitation company is Bella Figura - you can check them out on Weddingbee Pro!! They are totally dedicated to all things green and their invites are to die for:

Source.
If letterpress isn't in your budget check out the following vendors:
A lot of the invites on Wedding Paper Divas are now available with eco-friendly paper:


We just ordered these invites for our home town reception:


We used Baron Cards for our Save the Dates and they were awesome to work with, we loved them, and we got a lot of compliments from our guests. They were actually RSVP cards that we turned into STDs. They print using vegetable-based inks and on 100% FSC Pure Paper. Score!!


I also think these are fabulous:



And for you DIY brides, Paper Source provides an eco-friendly paper option. I picked up a bunch of their 100% recycled, 30% post consumer waste, eco-white paper for our programs, menus and welcome bags back when they were 50% off! Whoo hoo!!

For you letter press brides, you might be green and not even know it!! A lot of letter press invites are printed out on Crane Lettra, which is made from cotton and therefore, tree free!! This is the route that we decided to go.

And don't forget to use recycled envelopes. I found some on the web here and here. This has been the one eco-friendly option that cost us more money (but I have to think it was worth it). We had an unusual size and wanted brown envelopes. And since I promised a sneak peek into our invites. Here are our envelopes:

The front with my very best hand writing:


The back with a Paper Source 2.5 inch round label:

I'll tell ya all about them next time.

So, have I convinced you yet to incorporate eco-friendly paper into your big day??

And they are off...

Our invitations that is!!

I just got back from the post office. I asked if I could hand cancel the envelopes and the women looked at me like I was a bit crazy. She said the machine will do that, so I just decided to leave it as is and I handed them over.

Here's a sneak peak of all the invites stacked up:


While our invites weighed less than an ounce, they were square. But I thought the stamp was pretty cute:

And I got to use my favorite stamp on the return address cards:

Overall, I was in and out in less than FIVE minutes. It was so short and sweet. Now I feel nervous, Mr. Peep and I are the only ones who have seen the finished product. I hope they are a hit!? Anyone else get a little nervous after putting their invites in the mail?

More on the invites to come in a few days!! Gotta make sure my peeps get them first!

My Bridal Blunder

Like many a bee before me, I have hit a few bumps in the road in wedding planning. About a month ago we hit a serious snag that made me seriously over wedding planning. While I obviously haven't called off our wedding, it has taken me this long to get perspective and realize I should share my blunder with the hive.

Let's rewind to September 2008, Mr. PT and I started one of the most exciting parts of wedding planning- INVITATIONS!! Like Miss Piglet I had compiled a ton of inspirational wedding invites; unlike Miss Piglet, I knew that I didn't have the design aesthetic or the patience to DIY our invites. So I showed Mr. Peep the invites I liked unsure who and where we'd get our invites done. The good news was- we were on the same page on what we liked design wise and we both knew we wanted eco-friendly invites. The bad news- Mr. Peep really really wanted letter pressed invites. I nearly laughed in his face. Letter pressed invites were SO NOT in our budget. Once again, our Champagne tastes creeping through on our bud light budget (isn't this trend getting annoying??).

Mr. PT was a bit persistent, so I told him I'd humor him by spending a day looking for an affordable letter pressed invites, and then move on to invites that we could actually afford.

I sent out at least a dozen emails to both Etsy and Professional Designers alike. Most of the responses were exactly what I expected- WAY over budget. Then I got an email from an Etsy designer who seemed open to helping me design invites as she was just expanding her invitation business and she had a great deal with a letter pressed printer. It seemed too good to be true.

We traded a bunch of emails; a few of which I reconfirmed the prices she was offering. She was even offering eco-friendly invites- Crane Lettra made of cotton- totally tree free!! I finally told Mr. PT that I had done the impossible- I had found some letter pressed invites we could afford!! She even mailed us a beautiful sample. We were sold and put down a small deposit.

Come January, we were finally ready to design our invites. Again, our Etsy designer was fantastic to work with. In order to avoid a blunder and stay on the same page- I asked her for an invoice before we got to far ahead of ourselves. Her response- I'll get you one soon.

Finally, we had approved a final proof!! We were both super excited.

This is where the blunder comes in. She finally sent an invoice- it was well over double what we thought the price would be. I was irrational and irate and sent an email (that could have been nicer) confronting her on the discrepancy. There was a huge discrepancy in both the design cost and the printing cost. The good news for me- I still had all of our emails discussing price, so I forwarded them to her. I'd love to say that was the end of it, but for a few days I seriously thought that we'd have to leave our beautifully designed invites on the table and forgo the small deposit. It took almost a dozen emails (most of which were under the watchful and rational eye of Mr. PT), but we finally came to a consensus on the price.

While the invites were being printed I still felt like the transaction had left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, but last week we received this in the mail:


They are beautiful and we couldn't be happier.*

BUT I'll always know that these invites caused a few days of drama and tears. So here's my long way of saying to everyone out there- it's not just enough to confirm the price. Make sure that you have a signed contract before you even begin work. We had waited a few months from our first email to when we started designing, so the price of printing the invites had increased. Plus, I was unaware of all the design costs. These were the hidden costs that I tried so hard to figure out (her bad), yet I got so wrapped up into designing the invites I forgot to finalize the cost (my bad).

And just in case you are nervous that you are going to run into my Etsy designer- I've never seen her name mentioned on Weddingbee and I think she learned a lesson too on this project.

Anyone else have a bridal blunder that you felt like you could have avoided? What's your biggest blunder to date?

*I am such a tease- I won't show you them until they are in the mail next month!!