You're Invited!

Now that our invitations are finally out and I think almost everyone has gotten theirs I wanted to share them with you guys!

A month or so ago I shared some of our favorite designs from a few different websites. Turns out, we chose none of those designs. We ended up going an almost completely different direction.

Wanna see?

When we first got engaged, I had pinned a bunch of watercolor themed invitations. But when I got serious about our invitations, I couldn't find any that I liked that much or were not in our price range. Then I stumbled on this design from Minted! I was in love and so was B. We thought the design was simple and classic enough, but with a little personal touch that works perfectly for our water-side wedding.

We kept the wording simple. Since B and I are paying for most of the wedding with ourselves, we decided not to go with the traditional "Mr. and Mrs. Bralla invite you to attend the marriage of their daughter...." So I looked up some alternative wording that would fit for our situation.

I also had to edit the RSVP multiple times. The original template just had a line for the name and accept or decline. I added in the first line "we have reserved..." to avoid some of the akwardness of people inviting a guest when we did not give them one. Yes we are that couple that did not give everyone a guest.

I Googled tons of images of RSVPs to figure out the best way to word the RSVP. Since we are having a sit down dinner, we had to know what people want to eat beforehand. And not just a count, who wants what. So I stole the line about initialing the meal option. Guess what, NO ONE IS INITALING! At least in the RSVPs that we have gotten so far. So if the couple puts 1 steak and 1 chicken, I am giving the girl the chicken and the guy the steak. They can always switch, but that is what people get for not following directions!!

And these are the dreaded envelopes that caused us some much grief. Yes, the look nice and I am happy with them, but it was NOT worth it to have that pretty font printed on each one. People are just going to throw them away, anyway. Minted offered to print the addresses on the envelopes for FREE (albeit, in Times New Roman) and I said, "No, I want the envelopes to look pretty!". You know what, I want go to back in time and slap myself in the face.

Also, since some of the characters are so fancy, we had 4 invitations get returned to us because the post office couldn't read them. Times New Roman never has that problem. >facepalm<

Okay, so you might be able to tell that the invitations have driven me a little crazy. I think it's just the wedding in general, but the invitations did not help. I can laugh at myself now for entertaining the thought of doing the invites myself. Yes, we went a little over budget, but I didn't have to do a thing with them. I just typed in what I wanted, paid, and they showed up at my door.

So for your brides to be out there, here are some invitation DOs and DONTs:

DO weigh a completed envelope before sending it out. You will probably be over the normal envelope weight and will need to get extra postage.

DONT try to print on the envelopes yourselves or bring them to Kinkos.

DO research calligraphers well in advance if you want pretty font on your envelopes.

DONT try designing and making your invitations yourselves unless you have a ton of time on your hands or are super creative. 

DO wait to buy your invitations until a really good coupon code comes up for the website you are ordering them from.

DONT just drop off your invitations at any post office box. Do everything short of BEG to have them hand canceled. Take then to a smaller post office at the least busy time of day. Take them in batches if you have to. They will only hand cancel them if "they have time". I didn't insist hard enough and this is what happened to two invitations that were sent to me (yes, I had two invitations sent to me, not returned. The machine printed on the wrong side and they were sorted to be sent back to our apt. Ugh!).

 

I hope you can learn a few lessons from my mishaps and experiences! And just remember, it will probably end up in the trash anyways, so don't sweat it if it's not perfect (I have to keep reminding myself this daily!).