Friday, August 5, 2011

Our DIY Wedding Invites - Sneak Preview!

As I've mentioned before, our wedding will primarily be DIY-ed. Partly because we fail to understand the reasoning behind spending a fortune on a wedding, partly because I'm a DIY enthusiast and mostly because we want this wedding to feel like us. Our vision is for every part of our big day to say something about who we are, what our relationship is like and what we love.

As you probably realize, once you have your venue booked, date & time set, and other details nailed down, it's time to think about who you will be inviting...and how you will invite them.

For this part, I decided to try my hand at designing our invitations. I'm so in love with our story and how God intertwined our journeys together, so incorporating it was a must. I'm also a sucker for anything and everything typographic. I am SO visual.

From here, my oh-so-talented mother enters the picture. Her and a friend of hers make & sell cards as a side business--and they're stinkin' good at it. Think beautiful layered card stock, stamps, die-cuts, embellishments, blind press, embossing. So, add my graphic design portion to her ability to put a beautiful card together and you have our wedding invitations. Since invites won't go out for another six or seven weeks, I don't want to spoil too much of the surprise, so you get only a peek for now! (By the way, the above photos are of a mock-up version, not the final product.) :)

When I was doing my research on custom wedding invitations (remember...I wanted the invitation to include our story), everything I came across was $1,000+...before postage. To sum this up, by doing the invitations ourselves, postage will nearly be the most expensive part! I estimate we're saving an easy $850.

A big thanks to my mom, who is not only spending the time to put them together by hand (she's nearly two states away...otherwise, I would be helping!), but she's graciously offered to pay for the materials she needs. What would the world be like without moms?

Has anyone else DIY-ed wedding invites (or found other budget-friendly options)?

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2 comments:

  1. LauraAugust 5, 2011 at 9:16 AM

    I designed my own wedding invitations, too! They are not as cool as yours, and were much more simple, but they did the job for probably less than $200, which I couldn't find ANYWHERE. I designed it all on Publisher, then had them printed on nice cardstock paper. I used a borrowed paper cutter to cut everything to size: the invitations, the RSVP postcards, and a little wedding weekend info card. It worked really well and they turned out great! Good job on yours - they look adorable and I bet you're so excited!

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  2. BrouillettesAugust 6, 2011 at 1:46 PM

    Did it all ourselves! Found a GREAT deal on 8 for 100 clearance invitations at walmart...grabbed a few boxes, put our own picture in there, printed our own, and strung the ribbon through! Also, the programs as well...I believe we did take them to kinkos to have them printed, to save on our computer ink, but handled the assembly of those as well (well, some wonderful friends did!).

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