Invitations!

Did you get yours?!

It's been almost two weeks since we sent them out and the RSVPs are pouring in, so I think it's safe to post this now. Designing and putting the invites together was a taxing yet fulfilling task. It's so amazing when you dream something up and it turns out even better than you thought it would! 

As you can probably guess by now, I've developed a recent obsession for dandelions. It all started with the Kate Spade Dandy Lane China pattern featured above that I fell in love with when we registered at Bed Bath and Beyond. Way too expensive for us, but the pattern has lingered in my mind ever since and is probably what drew me to these invitations. I purchased a jpeg file of the invitations and matching RSVP cards from KateKellyDesigns on etsy. Kate was very helpful and extremely enthusiastic, which is very refreshing when dealing with wedding vendors! Even though I chose to print the invitation myself instead of having her print and ship them to me, she still answered my emails very quickly when I was having problems printing them. Long story short, either my printer or my computer refused to cooperate with the pdf file, but Sarah's printer ended up saving the day. I think they ended up slightly crooked, but after all the drama I had already gone through I just didn't care anymore. They were still exactly what I wanted!

Here they are printed on cream card stock with curry envelopes, and the matching RSVP cards with peacock return envelopes, all purchased at Paper Source. 

Now that this is all over with, my advice to anyone doing any huge DIY project like this is to pick one or two big things that are most important to you, try not to sweat the rest, and be able to let it go if it's just not meant to be! While the invitations turned out amazing, they are still very different from what I pictured when I started the process. 

The gorgeous matching RSVP cards!

For me, the thing I love most about invitations in general are envelope liners!! I'm obsessed with them and they were probably the thing I was most picky about. After weeks of searching online and in person, I was lucky enough to stumble across some burlap photo scrapbooking paper at Michael's. When I first started planning the wedding I was in love with burlap and wanted to use it everywhere, but once it came time to start making decisions I was getting a little sick of it! I still want to feature it here and there by finding new small ways to incorporate it and using burlap liners was perfect. They didn't take away from the dandelions and were just neutral enough to work with all the colors of the invites. I found several tutorials online that helped me make them, but I definitely had to improvise in some ways. I'm planning on posting a blog about how I did everything later. 

Here they are, all ready to send out!

The main part where plan A fell through but plan B ended up amazing was the address labels. I really wanted them to be handwritten but definitely didn't have the budget to hire a calligrapher! I stumbled across a few blogs that suggested printing out the calligraphy and then going over them by hand, but it was so hard to find the perfect pen for the job! This one was too thin, this one was too thick and bled all over the envelopes. Then my wonderful friend Martha Stewart pointed out that it was ok to forgo the handwritten addresses if the printing was in calligraphy, so I decided not to be so hard on myself. However, my printer left horrible marks all over the envelopes so I knew I couldn't print them on directly, I needed labels! Again, I couldn't find ones I liked or that fit our budget, so I had to make those too. They will also be featured in a later blog.

Hand stamped by yours truly at the post office.

I had also read online somewhere that you can request the envelopes to be hand stamped instead of being put through their machines to reduce the ugly black marks that end up all over the envelopes. The lady at the post office handed me the stamp and told me I had to do it myself. She seemed annoyed and almost like she was trying to discourage me, but she obviously didn't know who she was talking to. It was fun and so worth it, it really added to the vintage effect I was going for!

My little helpers!

Of course, this post would not be complete without acknowledging my amazing helpers Matthew and JR! Well, one of them helped, the other one just sat there and kept bugging me to take cuddle breaks. Can you guess who did what? I am so blessed to have an amazing fiance who has let me do pretty much whatever I've wanted so far (design-wise) and has even offered to help me with some of my time-consuming DIY craziness! 

I just realized that it is September 3, which means we are officially two months away from the wedding! I'm in more of an excited phase than a freak out phase right now, which is good. Checking the mail every day when I get home is getting fun, there are always some RSVP cards in the mailbox or a package on the doorstep! We got our rings last week and will have our menu tasting next week! Things are moving along quite nicely and we are getting so excited to see a lot of people that we usually only get to see around the holidays and we feel so honored that our wedding is reason for their visits! 

As for those RSVP cards, keep sending them in. They need to be in by September 22 people!!

Cheers, 

Kelly (Soon to be Smallcombe!)