You're Invited...

...To check out the official mock up invitation for my wedding! I printed it off at home today and carefully cut it with my CRAPPY trimmer. I will definitely be using a stack cutter for the actual invites once everything is printed!

Those little Fiskars trimmers cut things in lines as straight as George Michael!

Try not to notice that I seriously need to vacuum my carpet - and here it is:

This is the invite closed, with the wrap that is made totally from scrap!


Here's the invite open:


And with the inserts taken out:


I used pre-made pocketfold invites from LCI Paper

The paper is Stardream brand which I had to get from two different places because only one place I could find sold the Crystal (bright white) at a decent price.

I got the Crystal Stardream at Paper Depot Inc in Minneapolis MN. They do online orders now and they ship faster then anyone I've seen before! It was very well priced at .17 each.

The Rose Quartz (pink) paper I got at Envelope Mall along with the 2 sizes of envelopes I required for this project as well. Envelope Mall has by far the best priced Star Dream products online! Both the papers I bought in the text weight, as the heavier cardstock (or cover as it's called) doens't work too well with ink jet printers.

The envelopes are in 6.5 x 6.5 for the entire invite and the 4 Bar size for the RSVP, which you can see sticking up in the open invite picture, just slightly.

The two fonts are Feel Script by Veer which is not something you can get for free, it's $99.. And the plain font is BellMT which I used in all caps.

The flourishs are from two sets of "brushes" called Hipster Plumes (number 5 and 6). You can pick up these items at www.designerdigitals.com here The kits are well priced at $3.75 each and you will need a photo shop program to use them.

Please note that all pocket folds are different, if you buy yours from LCI Paper and need dimensions I'm happy to share mine with you - if you did not buy from them or do not plan to my dimensions will not work for you and you'll just have to do the trial and error game like we did to get the right dimensions.

The world revolves around....envelopes!

All my paper goods for making invites are fianlly here. I got the last two boxes via UPS this afternoon. At first I was like, "great now where are we going to put this?" (I was having a rather tough afternoon and I had a headache..) but that soon passed.

I don't know if it was the pretty pink glimmer coming off the Rose Quartz Stardream envelope, or the thought of having an actual perfect mock up ready and in hand finally. Whatever it was, it dragged me off the couch and to my computer. After a few go's at making it prin perfectly on my 6.5 x6.5 envelopes I had a perfect specimen.

Now, as it sits amongst the mess and disarray of my desk, it emits a glow of perfectness untouched by any wedding material I've gotten so far. It looks great with the fancy pants scroll font in rich black on the front. (Thank you cousin Tyler, you da man!) and I have this sudden desire to run to the roof top and scream "I'M GETTING MARRIED!"

As if the ring, the dress, the planning, booking and saving hasn't led me to believe that. One simple pink envelope ripped me out of the business of wedding planning and threw me back into the giddy, fun-ness of it. Don't get me wrong, all those things have made me jump for joy - especially the ring....but now it's more real I think. Now I get involve my guests instead of just tracking down Alex around the house and saying "How about this...." followed by some lengthly description of a wedding idea to which he has always said "Whatever you want hunny"

Insert girlie giggle here **Eeeeeep, I'm getting married!!!**

I need to get back to staring at my envelope now.

In the Bag!

On one of my many trips 'round the internet in search of the ever elusive Wedding bargain, I came across a lovely little shop on eBay called Tina's Embroidery Shoppe and bought up GREAT bags for all my maids!

I'm still in disbelief about how fast they arrived in the mail especially since I ordered right before Christmas. The shipping cost was great and she even made a specific auction for me because I needed 9 bags in total. Her customer service was FAB!!!

I can not wait to fill these bags with goodies and treats! It's going to be a blast! I hope that the girls find them useful even after the wedding! And if not - then I'll hurt them - hahah KIDDING!

This place is some place I will be going back to for sure! And I highly recommend them! If you use her, tell her I sent you....lol maybe she'll hook me up with a deal!

Too Good to Be True....

The saddest thing ever happened today...and I will be sad about it for at least the rest of the day - the Double Decker Bus was a bust! We checked their BBB record based on a friend of mine who complained about them, and they have had 6 complaints in 36 months, only 3 of which have been resolved.

I'm so utterly disappointed it's unreal. All my beautiful pictures I was thinking about and the ability to get everyone on one rinde to the reception....gone *POOF* just like that.

I'm going to wallow in my loss, I'll be back with my next emotional swing.....lol.

London, in Minnesota?

I was going back and forth through my space with a friend of mine today when she mentioned that she had a vintage double decker London bus as her wedding transportation. Although her experience wasn't that great (bus broke down, got stuck at a creepy bus stop....) I'm still determined to have one.

This poses a problem as I've already booked my limo for that day, but I'm really hoping that since I haven't sent in the signed contract that I may be able to get out of it with out a fee.

The double decker bus would be so much cooler for pictures, and come on - how many people do you know who've left their wedding via the London bus.....while in Minnesota?

On top of all that the bus holds 62 people - and that would certainly solve the "Will we fit the whole wedding party in the limo" issue. I was going to have to leave behind a personal attendant and the junior brides maid and groomsmen just to use the 14 passenger SUV limo I was planning to book. How sad for the Jr BM and GM, all the work none of the fun.

I think that even if we we have to pay a small fee to cancel the other limo service we will still go with the bus - I mean just look at it.... it's so cool!

I keep thinking about another gal I knew who had a vintage fire truck at her wedding, because he husband was fireman - and the pictures we're soo cool!!!

I think the photographer in me is really coming out more and more with this one. Everyone has limo pictures - no one I know has London Double Decker Bus pictures :-) Yippie! I can't wait to talk to the bus company tomorrow!!!

The new and imporoved "The One" Invite

My beautiful invite, which I declared "The One" has been modified and bumped off the top of the list...LOL. I just couldn't stop tweaking it and making it better!

The general lay out is the same, I just changed the pocketfold inserts to all white and made the flourish on the right connect, so it looks like one fluid photo no matter if all or 1 of the cards in in it's place. I also, with the help of my awesome cousin tracked down a font I REALLY had to have, and changed that a bit.

NOW - it's "The One" - in it's "mock" version, as I'm waiting on the Stardream paper to arrive as well as all the envelopes. And as my printer has a hissy fit every 10 minutes (not unlike me) the print job looks a little crappy - but you get the idea!

Suddenly Stationary

I've been designing our stationary for the past few days. It's been a lot of fun, and much cheaper then ordering it from high priced catalogs!

I started by searching for fun, thank you cards and found nothing I liked. Well, nothing I liked that I would shell out $45 a set for! Sheesh!

So I started up my trusty Photo Shop CS2 and started creating. A bit later I had the card to the left.

It matches our invites, and every other aspect of the wedding and it's both simple and elegant!

I am ordering 2 sets of 10 from Vista Print to see if I like the matte or linen finish better. I can get 100 of them for under $100 which, from what I found price wise - is a steal!

I also took advantage of their free return address lables, designed up some to match and ordered away! I probably won't use them for the invites, but Alex and I don't have any return address labels, so for the low, low price of FREE - why not?! Check it out:



Lastly, I've run into the issue of getting the return address on to the wedding invite envelope. My printer has a temper and I don't like dealing with it. Envelopes come out with the printing not straight and sometimes with streaks and such. And since I'm planning to use Stardream brand metallic envelopes - I am not going to even attempt it more then likely. My issue was that I wanted the font to match the invite and custom rubber stamps with script fonts on them can be tricky and hard to read.

To help solve the problem I created this label and ordered 250 for $24 from www.uprinting.com, if it doesn't look right, then I have some more great post wedding address labels!! I have a feeling it will be more then fine however.

These particular labels are 2x2 inches. They do all custom
shapes and sizes and their prices are unbelievable!

Now my last issue is getting the address on the front of the envelope with out using my printer. Looks like I'll be either buying a new printer (not an option! LOL) or spending a lot of time at my step dad's office and my future MIL's house running things off!

And lastly I'll show off my RSVP card I am IN LOVE with. I can't take all the credit for it though, Mrs Lemon on Wedding Bee was the original creator and I used her layout and made it work for me. THANK YOU MRS LEMON!

We had some issues to cover with the RSVP, I needed to know specific names and what food choice they were having because our hall requires us to label the place setting for the waiters sanity! However I also needed to make sure that I didn't get back those "I'll be bringing my entire extended family" response. So, thankfully Mrs Lemon spent a lot of time studying the success rate of questionnaires based on how easy they were to understand and follow. She had a good success rate with her version of this and I hope to as well.
Of course the food choices are not complete yet as we've not done the tasting, but this give the idea. And now when I do have the final menu items all I have to do is input them and I'll be done with the design process!!!