The invite's in the mail. No, really.

Whew! The invites are officially in the mail and on their way as of yesterday.

A special shoutout to my little brother for the incredible design and his magic work with getting the printer to work when no one else could (it might have something to do with the dinosaur noises, but who knows?) and to his girlfriend, for staying up until one in the morning with me, sorting, stuffing and stamping away.

Here is our little assembly line:


And the stamps on the RSVP envelope turned out great:

I always see "invite cost breakdowns" on other wedding sites, so I just thought I would recap the total cost per invite ...

Invites - 40 per box at $25/box =
$0.62 per invite (outer envelope, invite, invite sleeve, RSVP card and RSVP envelope)

+

Printing - free, although after a lot of stress and dinosaur noises (don't ask)

+

Postage - $0.42 for the outer envelope + $0.44 for the RSVP envelope =
$0.86 (that means that my postage expense was more the the actual invitations themselves...)

=

Total per invite: $1.48
(!!!!!!!!!)

Invitation Postage

My stamps have arrived! Yes, it's the little things that keep me excited around here.

You probably already know, but just a word of advice for all of you early summer brides out there: the cost of sending a first class envelope will go up two cents (from 0.42 to 0.44) on May 11. Learn more about it here.

Since May 11 is a good two weeks before my RSVP deadline and I can't bear the thought of using the "forever" stamp (c'mon Post Office, if you wanted us to use a stamp for forever, you should have made it more attractive!), I've decided to put two stamps (totaling 0.44) on my RSVP envelopes. That will cover anyone who decides to mail their RSVP back after May 11, while also still looking pretty.

These:

with

I think the flowers with the coffeepot (I actually thought it was a teapot when I was purchasing them, but whatever) is really going to look cute against the bright green of our envelopes.

And I'll be using these on our outer envelope (I didn't care for the standard wedding stamp that they have right now - a little too flowery for my taste):
The blurb on the USPS website says: "Entitled All Heart, the design focuses on a large, bright red heart that is transporting its owner to an unseen beloved who will be gifted with this heart full of love."

Awwwww. Who can resist that?

Fun with ink and paper

Remember my amazing, deal-of-the-century invites? Well, I decided to snazz them up a little (*note to self: is snazz an actual word?) with a custom made address stamp from the aptly named Love To Create Stamps on Etsy.

I'm a tad afraid that our invitations will be the most confusing wedding invitations ever because the return address on the outer envelope is our new Arizona address (which is also technically going against etiquette, I believe, but I decided I don't care and I want people to have our new address) but the RSVP return address will be my current L.A. address. And our wedding is in neither of those places.

But, I digress. Here is the stamp:


Obviously not all of it but you get the idea. I was really pleased with how they turned out. The owner of the shop where I got it was most helpful with ink advice. He recommended an ink brand called StazOn and boy did it ever.

I was worried because the envelopes are a mottled sort of paper and it was hard to even find a pen that would work for addressing them (I used a Sharpie, or rather a Sharpie-esque marker from Target that was waaaay cheaper than the actual Sharpie).

But they turned out great and are currently sitting, alphabetized, in a box on my kitchen table. Just waiting for their guts to be printed so everything can be stuffed and sent.

I just got invite proofs from my insanely talented little brother yesterday and I can't wait to show them off!!


*For the curious among you...
snazzy: "stylish, flashy," 1932, U.S. colloquial, perhaps a blend of snappy and jazzy.
(Sadly, it is not a verb.)

Problem Solved: Invitations

One thing I was determined to DIY was our wedding invitations. I'm no Martha Stewart, but invites seemed like a good project to tackle. But then I started looking at paper and custom stamps and cool envelopes and special pens and free cool fonts and well, it was all a little overwhelming.

Then I made things even worse by sending away for tons of invitation catalogs and drooling over specialty letterpress websites and fantasized about having tons of money to spend on gorgeous invites.

And then, I found a compromise.


Thank you, Michaels! Their partnership with BRIDES Magazine has resulted in an entire line of DIY invitation kits that are seriously gorgeous.

A box of 40 invitations (containing outer envelopes, invitations, invitation "sleeves", RSVP cards and RSVP envelopes) cost me $25. The regular price was $40/box but if you can't find a Michael's 40% coupon online, you aren't trying hard enough.

I loved this design and miraculously the FH did, too. (He has strong opinions about surprising things). This particular invitation set definitely evoke the casual yet elegant garden wedding theme I seem to have going on.

Each box comes with information on downloading templates for printing and a little booklet about wording choices and invite etiquette. I did some printing tests yesterday and I'm really happy with how they turned out. Now I just have to finish printing (with input on font selection from my fabulously talented little brother) and send them out!