They're In The Mail!

Yes that's right, the invitations are in the mail!  Woohoo, job done!

As per earlier posts re a failed DIY project, (and my hopeful post before starting it), we were very fortunate to have a friend of Mr Mel's offer to print our invitations free, as an engagement present.

So once I'd finished fiddling with the design and layout, I emailed it off to Mr Mel's friend, a week later I received our lovely invitations by courier.

Our Invitation!

Since then I have been putting together a RSVP card and an information pack to go with the invitation.

The information pack has a double sided card which lists:

- map to venue from main street of town - directions for people staying in town and in the vineyards
- list of restaurants we recommend, in town & in the vineyards, with an idea as to cost, and their phone numbers - we have eaten at them all so safe to recommend :)
- list of accommodation we recommend, in town & in the vineyard, with phone numbers - we inspected as many as we could, and checked online for the others
- things to do and see in the area
- an invite to breakfast at our house on the Sunday morning

Map & Things To Do

Accommodation & Restaurants

So I spent the next week or so (from about 11pm - 1am most nights!) printing onto then hand cutting the cards for the RSVP, Accom & Map info, it took a hell of alot longer than I expected, but the end result was worth it I think!

I bought a box of 100% recycled brown envelopes from Officeworks, and addressed each with green pen, I also wrote everyones names on the invitations with the green pen, my penmanship isn't great, but it will do!

So they were packed, sealed, stamped and posted yesterday, yay, another thing checked off the list!  I made a minor mistake tho, on the invites I asked for RSVP by 24 June, yet on the actual RSVP card I wrote 17 June, not a biggie and if it's 1 or the other it doesn't really matter.

We also put on the RSVP card that kick-off time is 2.30pm sharp because we want to get some family photos & some of the entertainment is only available in daylight hours  :)  heehee little do they know..........

DIY Invitations - Game over!

After starting off all guns blazing in my DIY quest to make me some invitations, the first run ended in disaster.

After about an hour of painstaking cutting, and recutting to size, with a dinky little guillotene, I had all the parts ready to assemble my first test invitation.

All was going well(ish) until I attempted to adhere the vellum to the flower paper, the glue tape and liquid glue that the lady at Spotlight recommended went terribly wrong, first you could see the glue tape through the vellum, then when I tried the liquid glue you could see that, as well as it buckled and bubbled the paper.  Excellent!

Original invitation DIY goodies

As it was 2am Monday when I finally pulled the pin on it, and I had to be up for the gym at 5.45am, then work at 8am, I decided to sleep on it (after much muttering and swearing into my coffee).

Then this afternoon Mr Mel received a call from a friend, his brother-in-law is a printer, and Mr Mel's friend asked if we would like his brother-in-law to print invitations for us, as an engagement present (remember we're having a surprise wedding!).

So going well against my grain, I told Mr Mel to politely (nee desperately) accept the very generous and kind offer.

So tonight I have been designing a new invitation. Sticking with our green and cream theme, I have settled on:

New invite - partly DIY!

I'm still tweaking it, but it will be heading to Mr Mel's friends brother-in-law (yes a Ferris Bueller moment!) tomorrow for printing.

Our lovely original supplies won't go to waste though, I'm going to use them to do RSVP cards, maps, accommodation detail cards, to go with the invitations.  Not matchy matchy, but really does it matter?  Nope I don't think so :-)

DIY Invitations - I'm game!

After trawling through probably hundreds of wedding blogs and supplier sites looking at invites, I have decided to make our invitations myself, a DIY project, I'm game, I think!

We want to go with a mainly green and cream colour scheme, based mostly on my obsession with green, and the lovely cymbidium orchid we'll probably have as our flowers.

I ventured to Spotlight today and holy moly what a craft section, I've never done any sort of craft, so hadn't wandered the aisles of craft, ever, so it was a bit of info and sensory overload, sooooo many options!

So after visiting 2 Spotlight stores (50kms apart, yes I was committed to get it done today!), I ended up going with the options below:

DIY invitations in the making!

I'm thinking of using the dark green as the backer, then the flower paper with a 1cm border of dark green, then with vellum (like tracing paper), over it bar for a .5cm border, and printing on the vellum the details of the invitation.

Then I'll use the white and pale green for the RSVP cards, and the map/directions/accommodation/transport card.

Using a 100% recycled envelope, pale brown, not matchy matchy, but we like it :)

The whole stash of DIY supplies

So wish me luck, I'm sure it's probably crazy to have first crafty/DIY project as our wedding invitations, but here we go!