Ok, I’ll just put it out there….I LOVE MY INVITATIONS!!!!!! And obviously, am so excited about them! A friend of mine did a stellar job designing them. She is insanely talented. Now, I have friends/family who read these so I don’t want to put everything out there but here is a little sample of the great work that she has done. My vision was that I wanted it to look like it was hand-painted on there. I want lots of flowers and color—and she did exactly that! Here is a sneak peak:

A sneak peak of our invitations! Aren't they pretty?!

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Oh man, doesn’t it stink when you find a gem and it’s the only one?  Well, I was at my local TJMaxx looking for some thank you cards to send to the gals who came out to my bridal shower/bachelorette.  I looked and looked and at the last minute found the cutest cards from Graphique.  It’s these two birds sitting on a lovely tree branch so it almost looks like two love birds.  But of course, I only found ten of them.  I wish I could use these through out the wedding process because the cards are just too cute.

As you also remember, I was half struggling with the stamp issue.  Do I buy fancy pants stamps or just get the forever stamp?  So I went to the post office and told the postman that I am looking for ten stamps, I’ll take anything he’s got, it can even be ten random ones.  To my luck, there are forever stamps that look like this:

Boy am I excited!  I may even go out and buy a bunch for the invites!  In case you are wondering, these are called, “The garden of love!”

One of the first things my friends and family would say to me (after congratulations, of course) after Olive Dude and I got engaged was something along the lines of “OMG! I can’t wait to see your Save The Dates/Invites/insert any other printed product or DIY project here.” While this is extremely flattering and I know it was meant as complimentary…it stressed me out. Being a professional graphic designer who has designed collateral for a bunch of friend’s weddings has put me in the spotlight and, therefore, made me nervous that some people might be overly critical of the things I design for my own wedding. Can I admit that ALL of the above might be in my own head? Absolutely. BUT – my Save The Dates are done and I couldn’t be happier with them so I wanted to share my process.

I started by getting inspired. I searched etsy.com’s invites and save the dates and marked down what I liked and didn’t like about each. I picked out 5 “favorites” and sent them over to Olive Dude. In a miraculous moment (lol), we both agreed that we liked the same layout for our magnets. So, my design inspiration was (mostly) found here.

So – I started designing. I always find that the hardest part of ANY design project I’m working on is picking the right font. A font speaks to whether a project is fun, cutesy, girly, uber-professional, etc. I have about 300 fonts saved on my computer. How the heck was I supposed to pick my favorite? I started by going to my favorite site www.dafont.com and entered in the following (using our names, of course) “OLIVE olive DUDE dude AND and &” (Side note – dafont’s fonts are free and I highly recommend trying them out before you embark on making your own save the dates or invites. Even if you aren’t making them yourself – it’s a good basis to get a feel of what you want and most places like etsy or any print shop will download a specific font if you ask them to).

I did this because I figured our names were the focal point of the Save The Date – and once I had those figured out, the rest would fall into place. It’s important to note that when looking at fonts you should look at all uppercase, sentence case, and lowercase. Sometimes things just look better a certain way!

Now, this probably isn’t the norm, but definitely speaks to me being a designer. There are NINE total fonts in our save the dates!

our actual wedding website was in there

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The stamp seems to feel like the finishing touch to any good invitation.  However, I find myself in a predicament.  Whenever I have received invites in the past I think one of two things when I look at the stamp.

1. Geeze, did they really go out and look for these fancy stamps?  What a waste of time.

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A friend of mine introduced me to www.agiftfulheart.com and I’ve been in love ever since! From the beginning, Apricot Dude and I knew we wanted to do save the date magnets and as soon as I came across this website, I knew where we would order them from! Personally, I’ve found that they are the most affordable that I’ve seen. They run just $105 for 100 of them, which isn’t bad at all. As an added bonus- this price includes envelopes! Oh, and as another added bonus, they are running a special right now to upgrade your basic white or cream envelopes they come with to color, shimmer envelopes for FREE! (The upgrade is normally $.15 each.) Check out the coral envelopes I’m going to get:

Pretty coral envelopes from agiftfulheart.com

Not only are these a good deal, you can literally customize everything about them. They have a ton of designs to choose from. Once you pick your design, then you can customize the background color, text, font, text color, arrangement of pictures and more. They even have heart shaped magnets too!

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I had heard of this site from a friend and thought I would share it! You have the chance to design your very own postage stamp! You can make it match your wedding colors- have the theme of you wedding reflected or just have it monogrammed! You can also pick from many of the great pre-made stamps. They are having a 15% off sale right now as well! www.perfectpostage.com

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As a disclaimer: I’m not a HUGE DIY’er but I do try! Like the bridesmaid wine bottles…that was fun! So I came across an idea I just might have to try for my second wedding DIY project. I’m not 100% sure I’m going to do it but it’s too cute to pass up!

We have recently met with a few people about invitations (see upcoming post for details about this). Bottom line is I want our invites to be colorful with lots of flowers on them, just like our reception place will be. I found this idea and thought it would be super cute to try.

Floral invite accent (Photo Courtsey of etsy.com)

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Designing my own wedding invites was something that I always planned on doing. And I truly enjoyed doing it! I sort of new what I was looking for before I ever started, which in some ways made it easier (like choosing fonts) but in others more difficult (like finding the perfect decorative element). Here’s the finished product…

After doing the invitations I was on a roll, so I continued with the theme of western fonts and the same decorative element and created a whole wedding stationery including response cards, direction/accommodation cards, wrap around address labels,  thank you notes, rehearsal invites, reserved tables…the list goes on! (Ceremony programs are still to come)

When it came time to print everything I decided to do my research. At the local print shop I asked them about my paper choices – they could special order the type of paper I wanted (recycled brown kraft paper) and envelopes and do the the printing for $$$. I also asked for a quote if they just did the printing and it came out to $$.  I had already looked and priced paper online and knew it was much cheaper that the paper the printer was proposing we use. So being the frugal bride that I am I went ahead and ordered the paper and envelopes online and dropped them off at the printer’s when they arrived. By doing this I saved $200 and got exactly what I was looking for!

I’d love to hear from the Garden…did you DIY your invitations? Are you pleased with the results?

After I got my Epics DVD in the mail, I instantly started working away at my Save the Date’s! We are using the website MagnetStreet.com to design and order our Save the Dates, they had a design that I really liked (they have a TON of options). The template was so incredibly easy to use and it all came together in about an hour, most of that was trying to decide on which photo’s to use!

The next hurdle was trying to decide on Magnets vs. Postcards – I loved the idea of the Magnet and giving our invited a guests a little keepsake to place on their fridge, filing cabinets, etc. But Mr. Honey was against it from the start, so after much deliberation, I gave in and agreed to the postcards! I think they will be a hit, I am just afraid someone is going to receive it jumbled up in their mail mess and think it is junk mail and accidentally throw it away!

All along, I wanted something bright with our wedding colors (Turquoise and Key Lime Green) with lots of pictures of us to send to our guests! With a destination wedding, I was told to mail them out about 8-6 months out. Right now I am at the 8 month mark so I think it’s a good idea to order them and get them mailed out!

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Going DIY with our invites was the only option on the table. But, I have to admit, I didn’t really DIY. I had others DIY for me.

I decided that those print-your-own invite kits, just weren’t my thing. They were boring and generic. Not to mention that my printer has since crapped out on me. It couldn’t handle a simple document let alone 100 pieces of card stock.

I gave my graphically inclined maid of honor, who is also my sister, a task to design our invitations and RSVP cards. I gave her a monogram I got for free from the Wedding Chicks, the color scheme and the wording. The rest was up to her.

When she was done and I printed out the file, I was so thrilled with it, I cried.

I sent the file off to FedEx Kinkos for a test print. I wanted to check up on their workmanship before giving them my money. A few hours later, I got a call from Adam who informed me that the test print before the test print had come out very blurry. Turned out, the file was set to 72 dpi. Oh…you mean that’s not high enough? Neither my sister or I knew that {See the tips below for more info}. She redid the invite and it was resent to FedEx.

Despite FedEx being slightly more expensive than Staples, I decided to give them my business based solely on the customer service that I received. It would have been really easy for Adam to print me out a card, have me drive down to the store and then charge me  $1.25 for the blurry print. Instead he worked with me. And, when I finally did the test print, he didn’t charge me for it.

My only problem was when I was stuffing the envelopes, I found two completely blank pieces of cardstock, which I’m assuming got stuck in the printer somehow. Since I was smart enough to order more than I needed, this wasn’t an issue. And I’m not bitchy enough to complain about it.  Since I still have Italian wedding announcements to get printed I might mention it just so they can be on the lookout for a potential problem, but there won’t be any ranting or raving from this customer.

And, without further ado, here are our wedding invitations.