...the invitations...

Well here they are...our pride and joy...we are so pleased with the way these turned out. We spent about nothing... the cost of: 2 yards of my favorite amy butler fabric, some green thread for sewing three of the layers of invitation together, some fun swiss dot paper in green and turquoise, kraft brown paper and envelopes, vintage stamps, twine, white linen card stock, and ink for our printer at home. It was fun, we made 80 invitations which was a pretty reasonable number. Matt helped with cutting each piece of fabric to size, starching them, stamping each envelope and RSVP postcard, the layout/wording, assembly...and LOTS of love and encouragement. 

It was a blast to come up with something unique and it felt like us and the wedding weekend we would be having. We found a picture online of a pine tree we loved and tweaked it to be our own and made a "matt tree" and a "lindsey tree" and then chose some fonts that were whimsical and rustic to us. Then I wanted to have the front backed by amy butler fabric. I fell in love with these fabrics and her use of turquoise and green- it felt like the summer wedding feeling I want...and I love fabric and sewing- so voila! In our wedding invite it goes!!

Our wedding will be informal, but nice. So we had to work hard to convey that in our wording on the invitation. We are getting married in a corral, having a BBQ with ribs, handmade cotton wedding dress, and without any words of god in the ceremony- just the love of our friends and family to unify us... so... we wanted to make sure everyone came prepared for what they were going to experience. 

We chose to splurge with vintage stamps. This is getting popular- I saw it popping up in some wedding blogs that I love and we decided to go for it. In town there was an antique store that carried a bunch of vintage un-used stamps that we could choose from. It took us three hours to find green, turquoise, brown, and yellow stamps that would add up to 61 cents...but we did it, and we are so pleased with the way it looked. We also wanted to use 29 cent LOVE stamps for the RSVP postcards. We have a little vintage flair in our wedding, we love it...and we are doing our wedding ourselves-just like back in our parent's day...so it works. 

We have loved the feedback from our friends and family. And we didn't realize that getting the RSVP postcards back in the mail would be so much fun. Everyday we run out to our mailbox hoping for another one...we just can't wait to see all of our very special people in June to help us celebrate something soo incredibly special to us....our wedding.

the invites are out!!

Well... it was a lot of super fun work...but they are on their way...we can't wait to show you our process!!

bridesmaids cards

Here are my bridesmaids cards that I sent out to my 4 four bridesmaids (best friends) and 1 maid of honor (sister). I saw the idea on once wed, and decided to tackle it. Remember paper doll chains in 2nd grade?! Yeah, its even harder than I remembered. Did I ever sand each little arm and leg back then? I think not.... but for some reason I found it important this time around. Let me tell you.... this was a HUGE project. Not only did I spend a whole week on it and question even completing it more than once... I then took it to the post office and it was $1.22 to send each card! Just fine for 5 cards....but it made me wonder about wedding invites. What if I spend all my time and put lots of love into each and every wedding invite and the postage is so outrageous that I might as well have chosen to do letterpress invites?! Huge questions I will have to answer later...
So I chose to put each girl's information on the back of their paper doll, and then the wedding info also. That way even though everyone knows each other...they have each other's email and phone number for quick easy access for any plans that need to be made. Each girl also has their own green dress and flower in their hair, which is how I picture them at my wedding. They have the freedom to choose any shade/style of green summer dress that they'd like and I will be giving them a cute little white flower for their hair. Nice and simple. The part about this diy project that I loved the best was getting the phone calls after my friends/sister received them. They were so excited for the wedding, and loved that it really felt like me asking them to be in my very special and unique wedding and how much it clearly meant to me that they were there. It was fantastic. And I would do it again in a second. However....for 50 wedding invites...we shall see what we come up with...