new concept?

in my regular cycle of blog searching that i do each night, i checked out poppytalk and found an awesome type personality analyzer.

courtesy of poppytalk…"Spending seven years researching typefaces and personalities, twenty-three academics from Pentagram created What type are you?. A four question test that analyzes your character and recommends what type is perfect for you."

wouldn’t it be a great idea to use this type analyzer to design wedding invitations? like a combo of you and your honey’s type personalities on one invitation….

i am Pistilli Roman: “disciplined form with an emotional geometry” and my honey is Perpetua Titling Light: “if you’re a quiet old-fashioned sort of person who would secretly prefer a shoe’d stability to bare-footed liberty” – love it!

Invitations are in the mail...

Kapow! I dropped the invitations in the mail yesterday morning - cross your fingers that they're correctly postaged and addressed and people actually receive them. I keep feeling this dread that I forgot someone! I guess that's natural.

I can't believe it but I forgot to take any pictures of my invites. Gahh! I'm sorry I'm a bad blogger. I think I did share a picture of the linen invite with the paperbag-type envelope? Here's our final product, if I hadn't shared it already.

Then for inserts we just included this homemade RSVP postcard (made over at OvernightPrints.com).

And then we included a plain little notecard with hotel and travel info on one side, and then directions from the hotel to the venue on the other side. I just set it up in InDesign and printed 4 to a page on some recycled card stock I had left over from my christmas card making (I got ambitious this year, doesn't usually happen!).. Of course I don't have a big paper cutter so I just eyeballed it and they're all a tiny bit crooked! I guess that's part of the charm.

Then we took one of these babies and rounded the corners to make the directions card and the rsvp postcard a bit more official looking. We actually didn't have that exact corner rounder but I love Impress, I'm sure that one's good too!

For the addresses, we did not budget for any kind of big-time calligraphy job, and my handwriting is sorta inconsistent, so we decided to go with envelope wraps. You know something like this. Well it seemed like such a great idea and not too difficult, especially with handy templates like you can get from that site I just linked to. But it would be a heck of a lot easier if someone actually sold pre-cut labels of that size! I had planned to go to FedEx Office and have them cut down to size but then I got impatient, I wanted it done Now, so I just printed them at home and eyeballed them with plain old scissors.. Since I forgot to take pictures, I can't show you how they turned out but, yeah, croooked. Of course Mr. Fairfax insisted they were perfect and awesome and nobody would care if they even noticed anything was uneven (he's so nice to me).

In the end our invites weren't terribly fancy or well put together but I'm pleased! And soooper excited that they're out of my hands! Now we just wait for the rsvps to start rolling in..

senor boddington

ooooh! i’m so excited about our invitations! we just sent the final proof in yesterday and the whole suite should be in by the beginning of next month. just in time to send our save the dates. originally, i had planned to make our save the dates (on the purchased and used once gocco) but i just couldn’t resist mr. boddington and my discount from working at the paper store (rockpaperscissors in charlottesville).

there are so many awesome invitations out there and it was really difficult for me to choose just one. fortunately (or not so for some), we still need programs, rehearsal dinner invites, and escort cards so i can play a little more with paper options.

Invites are in!

Haha yes I jumped the gun in a big way and ordered our invites already. I was just so excited I couldn't wait. I can't recommend Artful Beginnings enough!! Kati is great to work with and the product is amazing and a nice way to do something a little different, if that's what you're looking for.

So we're below the 200 days mark, pretty crazy. My recently married friend told me the 100 days mark is pretty exciting, and then the 30-day mark is terrifying. haha.

I was reading some of my old posts and realized I have already gotten behind on my goals - I had said I wanted to have all my vendors booked by the end of August! woops. Still need a photog and a DJ, but we're sort of stalled on that. Not for lack of options, we just sort of... stopped working on it. Which is fine I think, but now I really do want to get these squared away. Mr. Fairfax and I are sitting down This Weekend to look at our options and set up appointments. It's going to happen.

Wedding dreams have gotten worse! Still the same theme for the most part, preparations not done before the day - but a recent one featured my dad showing up in white and yellow polka-dotted pants! No idea where that came from.

RSVPs and the Internation Postage Update

I finally purchased the "International Reply Coupon" I mentioned a few posts back. I think that since DC is such a great mix of people from all over the US and the world, I bet there are some of you (I know one nearlywed blogger for sure!) who are sending invites overseas.

So, since some countries don't sell stamps that you can just attach to the RSVP postcard or envelopes (ex: the UK. The postage they sell online has an expiration date!), you can purchase for $2.15 the "International Reply Coupon." Essentially, so long as the country you are mailing the invitation to is part of the Universal Postal Union, the recipient of your invitation can take the international reply coupon to their post office and exchange it for the minimum postage needed to send the RSVP back. It's a lot of work, but unfortunately for me and my guests, this was my only option since I didn't want my guests to have to pay for their own postage to send my RSVPs back.

Here is what they look like (they were originally $1.85 so they had to add additional stamps to make it $2.15)

Here is my dog approving:

So I am sending instructions in the invitations for our overseas guests. I hope it works!

Miss Glen Echo: It's $1.40 to send a postcard/greeting card from Australia. You can get info and stamps here! Good luck!

Another option that I didn't think about is sending the invitations un-sealed to someone in that country and have them purchase the postage, stamp the RSVP, and then mail it out to the guests in that country. Still sounds like too much work !

But speaking of RSVPs, I got my first one in the mail this afternoon!

I think now the worse part will be waiting! What projects did you work on while waiting on RSVPs?

Sigh of relief!

I dropped my invitations in the mail yesterday. That was an incredible relief! I must say the folks at the Arlington post office were super nice and made sure that I had the correct postage and everything.

Sepaking of correct postage, there was another bride with me in the post office who had a really unfortunate incident. She bought the wrong postage and had already stamped her 200 invitations just to get to the window to be told her size envelopes needed more postage. I felt so bad for her and ended up helping her re-stamp her invitations in the post office so she could get them out in time.

I did run into a little snag--I am sending invitations to England. I am still waiting on stamps from England to put on the RSVPs. This was due to poor planning on my part. Here I am assembling a million little pieces of paper not even realizing that I had no return stamps from the countries I was sending invitaions to! So now I am waiting to get my UK stamps so I can send out a few more invitations.

So be sure to get the right postage! Bring one invitation to the post office to have them weigh it before you splurge on postage!

And if you're sending invitations overseas and you plan on paying for the return postage, get postage from that country:-) It's taken about a week and a half since I purchased the UK stamps. This puts me a little under 7 weeks to get the invites out to my overseas guests.

Hope everyone's planning is going well!

back from the beach

aahhhh just got back from a few days in Rehoboth with Mr. Fairfax's parents, feeling refreshed and excited to start thinking about the wedding again! I really tried to not think about work or wedding planning (except when it came up a couple times with the future-in-laws). Now that the break's over I'm somehow ten times more excited about getting married than I was just last week. I sort of flit between wanting to focus on the little details vs. the big picture vs. the Ever After vs. etcetera. I'm just feeling happy in love today.

I don't even have much to report right now, but I was thrilled to come back to see 17 NearlyWed posts waiting in my Google reader - everyone's been chatty this week! I'm excited to see that I'm not the only one contemplating just taking up caligraphy. I'm still not 100% on that idea but I've definitely toyed with it. Our envelopes are going to be brown (like a paper bag - see photo, courtesy of Artful Beginnings, the brilliant etsy seller who's doing my invites) so I'm still figuring out the best way to work with those. Will black ink stand out well enough against it? Or should I get labels? I've seen the wrap-around kind where the addressee is on the front and the label wraps around to the back and that's where the return address is.. Here's an example of what I mean (and a free template if you're interested!) but I would do something non-damask..

Speaking of addressing envelopes - just in case people aren't reading all the comments, I wanted to echo tealengthtulle (who commented on Miss Chevy Chase's question about etiquette) with the suggestion that you check out A Practical Wedding for a great post about this. Even if you don't identify yourself as a feminist, I think you will like it. Personally I would rather take advice about this kind of thing from a fellow bride than a person who makes a living off of very formal invitations.. Yes she is experienced and knows what she's talking about (and she has a point; I'm sure people appreciate formality and feeling special) - but at the same time, it is in her best interest to convince you that your invitations are so incredibly sacred that you need to pay her to letter them. Sooo I tend to be wary of that kind of thing. But I'm probably too cynical.

In other news.. I booked my day-of coordinator! woop woop. Well nothing's been signed yet but after a little negotiation, I said "we're in!" Anyone else getting some day-of help? I was a bit worried about having to deal with this stuff myself on my wedding day, or asking a guest to help coordinate and clean up. Now I can rest easy knowing that someone else will be there to think of everything.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

So I made my invitations. Start to finish. Every inch of them? My work. I used other invites as inspiration but...the work? Mine.

I designed them in word and printed them first. There were 3 layers all pasted together - the navy A9 back, the slightly smaller middle layer and the A2 scalloped edge white paper with the actual wording on them. Let me tell you - all that gluing? Not fun.




Next, we lined the envelopes with green polka dot paper. I addressed the invites - I'm still not AS pleased with the "calligraphy" but I didn't have the time to get it professionally done nor did I have the money so it is what it is.


I had the hardest time figuring out the wording for the RSVP cards - given that we need to know how many people are ordering what, there was a bunch of debate on whether just saying "chicken" and "fish" was appropriate. We opted, finally, for "chicken" or "striped bass" guiding them to our website for details on the menu (which I suppose I should put up since the invitations are in the mail!)

The final product?


So today, I trekked over to Arlington to mail them out - you see, we have a beef with the DC Postal Service. The Friday before Father's Day, Fiance sent out his father's day card to his dad from the Post Office at 4:55pm. He gave it to them because we were out stamps. Paid the 44 cents and was on his way.

His father still has not received the card.

A week or two later, we sent his mother her mothers day card (yes, a month and a half belated), I dropped it in a mailbox near our apartment on my way to the gym one day, and last weekend when we were in Connecticut, she informed us that she had indeed received the card.

!!!!

Additionally - FMIL has told us that an anonymous person has sent us a wedding card. However, the wedding card in question was sent a week and a half ago and still has not yet been received. Sooo...DC Mail? You're on notice.



I digress, we have a groomsman in Japan so yesterday after getting my hair did, I popped into Longworth HOB to the post office there. Had them weigh it, bought the stamps (all 85 of them) and then sent his with the appropriate postage - all $1.82 of it.

Last night as we were stamping the envelopes, I found that 5 of my stamps were MIA (they have since been found) and so I was going to buy 5 more. But they didn't have my stamps (which are super cute by the way!). The man, bless his heart, suggested lovely wedding rings stamps with....goats. Goats?!?! Seriously?!?!

Ladies, I was about to have a bridal freakout all over the Eads Street Station Post Office. No lie.

Alas, I decided to hang onto the envelopes and decided that I'd find the stamps. They had to be at home. But then, the guy tries to tell me that my envelopes - which are all stamped with 61 cent lovely wedding cake stamps - cost 81 cents. I told him, no, no. Clearly he was mistaken. They weighed them yesterday and I was told by the USPS in Longworth that they were 61 cents.

Bless his heart (again) because he believed me and let it go. Let's just hope and pray they don't all get sent back to me because lawd there will be hell. to. pay.

After all that, my invitations are sent out. Before our July 12 deadline. Tomorrow? We head up to Connecticut for my bridal shower...expect a full report on Monday!

Did you have any snafu's with your invitations? Did you DIY or buy them?

Invitations - Lessons Learned

Our invitations are here! It has been a stressful couple of weeks as we didn't know when our invitations would arrive. We decided to get them from Peculiar Pear Press and worked with Dandelion Patch in Vienna in picking them out and ordering. If possible, I definitely recommend going there on an "off" day, which I would consider only the week days. Stationery stores are super packed on the weekends. I checked out Paper Source in Georgeotown, Papyrus in Pentagon City, Rock Paper Scissors in Charlottesville, and The Paper Store in Clarendon, as well as Smashing Cards (we didn't really think any of their semi-custom made were "us"), and finally D*Lish Design based in California. The invitations we eventually picked out my mother and I had initially seen in Charlottesville at Rock Paper Scissors, but it was a little early in early March and I hadn't seen enough invites yet. We would have gone with them, but Signor Keswick needed to see them and we certainly couldn't drive back to Charlottesville just to see the invitations. Luckily, I found them again at Dandelion Patch, which was my last hope (mainly because they're in Vienna and we're in Arlington, but I'd heard wonderful things about them). We were initially in love with invitations by D*Lish Design, but when we received the samples, we were a little underwhelmed. They looked great in the magazine and beautiful online, but they didn't really cut it in person. Lesson #1: see invitations first hand!

I did like working with Dandelion Patch, Wendy and Debbie there were wonderful. It was Peculiar Pear Press that was a little difficult - as far as I could tell, as they wouldn't return Dandelion Patch's phone calls as to what ink colors were available or when they expected to ship the invitations. This resulted in a much longer process than we had anticipated in the proofing process. Lesson #2: Research in advance what you want your wording to be. It was difficult for us to find wording we were happy with because it's a Catholic ceremony, requiring us to use the terms "holy sacrament" and because it's a sacrament that we administer to ourselves, we can't say "to" (as in at the "marriage of their daughter X to Y").

Then, once we saw it in print, it didn't look right the way the words were spaced out, so we had to enlarge our parents' names and separate them with an "and", etc., etc. Be sure to pay attention to ink colors AND have several people look at the proofs. My mother caught different ink colors being used when I didn't. Lesson #3: Allow for plenty of time for the proofing process. Ours took THREE WEEKS. Part of it was because I didn't know Dandelion Patch still needed information from us in the very beginning of the process (I had actually already discussed this when we were there in person, but they may have misplaced the notes from the meeting), resulting in a delay of a week and a half.

Finally, now that we have the invitations in hand, the ink is still a little different from the colors we saw in the proofs, but it's a digital proof, and you have to expect that. I thought ours were going to be a little more pinkish-berryish, but they turned out more purple/grape. In the end, I'm okay with it because they look less girly and I haven't emasculated my fiance with our invitations, but still not what I expected. Lesson #4: Digital proofs are not the same as printed proofs.

On the positive side, we sent our final approval to Dandelion Patch on May 14 (sooo late according to my timeline) and they shipped the invitations One-Day via UPS on June 8. So we basically received our order of 100 LETTERPRESS invitations in THREE WEEKS instead of the usual five to six weeks. Perhaps it was because there were fewer (they actually gave us 115 instead of 100), so that's awesome. So, even though the proofing process took a bit, their production time was awesome. Maybe because I was a pest. Who knows, but I'm super grateful. Lesson #5: Miracles can happen.

I'll share pictures of the invitations in the next week or so once we have them calligraphed, assembled, and stamped. PS - I looooove the new wedding stamps! Way better than the Celtic looking hearts. No offense, they just didn't do it for me.

Don't Forget!

Don't forget about the upcoming postage increase on May 11, 2009! The price for regular ol' stamps will rise to 44 cents. If you're sending out your invitations soon and your response date is after May 11, be sure you've got the right amount of postage on your response envelopes.

Forever Stamps can be purchased NOW for the current postage rate of 42 cents and will be good...forever! Maybe it's not the prettiest stamp on the block (sorry Liberty Bell) but I know for me it would be worth the piece of mind to know I had the right amount of postage no matter what!

Even though our invitations don't go out until August, and we'll be free and clear of the increase rate, I plan to purchase enough Forever stamps before the increase to use on our response envelopes. Hey, it might only save me 3cents per envelope, but with 58 response envelopes, that's $11 I can spend on something else!

Have you thought about your postage situation? What's your plan?

Responses

So the invitations are out, and the responses are rolling in. We invited about 165, but are hoping to confirm less than 120. We love opening our RSVP cards, and we always open them together. As much as we want a smaller guest count, it still makes us a little sad when a loved one cannot attend. So far we've confirmed close to 100 guests, coming from Jamaica, Canada, England, as well as all over the East Coast and Central States of the US. We're so excited to see everyone . . . 45 days left!

Onward!

We finalized the guest list this weekend - we're just short of 150. And finished the save the dates - all 61 of them. And have a better idea about our budget - all $15,000 of it.

Now that the save the dates are done, my mother has been pressuring me to get started on researching my invitations which she thinks I should make to save costs. Knowing me, and knowing how much of a procrastinator I am, even though they don't need to go out until July for our September wedding, she's already on my butt about them. Just because your mother lives 12 hours away does not mean she will not nag - but bless her heart, I know she's bugging me only because she's not around to help more, so this is her way of ensuring I do what I need to do.

See she knows I should probably get started now rather than later because I started my save the dates in...October? They just barely got finished Sunday night. They still need to be labeled and stamped though. They WILL go out by the end of this week. Hopefully tomorrow and God willing, I won't need any extra postage.

So today to appease my dearest mother, I did a little bit of research. In the past few weeks I've become an etsy fiend.

The invitations I'm really loving?

These. Sage and Navy and Pink are our colors - so obviously they wouldn't be exactly like these. But I do love the ribbon (which I'd make pink) and the layers. [via decadentdesigns]

I also really liked these:

via [Your Style Invitations]

I'm pretty sure I could make something similar to these fairly easily, especially with the wonders of the Paper Source which I'm a HUGE fan of. Last time I was in there, I noticed that in the coming weeks, they're having a couple of wedding invitation workshops.

At one of these they say they:

"We'll look at several examples to determine what style you prefer, then learn how to design and produce your own invitations. You'll experiment with several different papers and designs to create the invitation of your dreams."

They have one coming up on the 25th of February at their Georgetown location on M Street, NW where you can register and learn the above for $55. Register [here]

They also have one where you:

"Sip sparkling champagne and enjoy chocolate dipped strawberries while you create a full suite of wedding samples — including a select group of letterpress invitations, escort cards, favors and table accents. "

The Georgetown one is currently sold out however on March 5th there's one at the Old Town Alexandria location. This one is $35 and does still have seats left. Register [here]

I'm sure eventually I might hit one of these up - for now I'm going to peruse my options and come up with a plan to make my own. I'll just do what I did with my save the dates! Find inspiration and adjust to be my own with my own creativity skills.

What are you doing for YOUR invitations? Etsy? Making your own? Or are you going all out and buying them?

DIY Invitations

All of my tireless research and labor (FI helped, too. Lol!) have resulted in these gorgeous invitations! . . . . Ta-da!

We are so happy with how our DIY invitations came out. The pocketfolds, backing layer, and printed layer are Envelopments products, which we purchased from EnvelopMe.com. Envelopments has very high quality papers, and although I researched several retailers, EnvelopMe had the best prices for the products we wanted, including our 4 x 9 pocketfold, which was not easy to find. The invitation envelope, RSVP card paper, backing layer and envelope are all from Paper Source. A new one opened in Annapolis, not far from Annapolis Mall. I designed the shape and text of the printed layer and RSVP card in PrintShop.

I learned how to assemble the invite by watching a tutorial video on the Paper Source website, and I figured 'I can do that!' FI and I have been hard at work for weeks, but we are both pretty pleased with the results, and I have discovered that my soon-to-be-husband is fairly crafty. Bonus! At first, we thought that by assembling our own invitations, we'd save money, but once we purchased all of the elements and supplies to make them, it pretty much equalled the cost of having them custom made. However, we don't regret making them ourselves, because we got exactly what we wanted. We had a project that allowed us to spend alot of quality time, and we're quite pleased with our work.

A few of key points:

1. If you ever consider tackling a DIY project for your wedding, give it a shot, as long as you have the time to dedicate to it. You'll probably be very pleased with the results.
   
2. Letterpress and thermographic printing are gorgeous, but home printing can be just as beautiful as long as you're printing on quality invitation materials.


3. Before ordering invitation materials, be sure to request samples, which are almost always free, just to make sure the colors and weights are exactly what you want them to be.

Happy Planning!

Mountaincow

FI and I have been looking for invitations. We've looked high and low. We've gone to printers and looked through zillions of massive binders of invites. We looked all over the web for designs that we'd like which will be in our moderate price range, but that will also incorporate the features we've learned that we like. We like tea length invitations (4"x9"), preferably horizontal. We also like pocketfolds, but not with too many pockets, because with our wedding, reception, and guest accommodations being at the same place, we just don't have much information to put in all those pockets. We also like invitations that have our wedding colors of yellow, pink and platinum, or even just a few of the colors. It has been so tough to find invites that incorporate all of these elements. We only need 90, and we'd like to keep the cost under $300.

This is an example of the structure, I'd like our invitations to have. It's not actually a wedding invitation, but you get the idea.

I've been to all the wedding websites, the designer invitation websites and sources, and the things I liked that were customizable to include out colors, were outside of our budget. In my research, on the Paper Source website, I noticed that they had video demonstrations on how to create/assemble your own pocketfold invitation. Being a fairly ambitious DIY bride, I figure 'I can do that!', and I started looking at where I can purchase the elements from. That's when I stumbled upon Mountaincow.com. They sell all the pocketfolds, cardstocks, and special papers one could want when creating an invitation. They even carry the Envelopments line, which I love! Hopefully, my creation will be a masterpiece.

Invitation Timeline

For our April 10 wedding, we've got lots of international guests. FI is American from Queens, NY, and his family would be coming from NY, NC, TX, and TN. My family is Jamaican, and family members would be travelling from Jamaica, Canada, England, NY, NJ, and FL. We expect to send out our save-the-dates in November and the invitations in December. My dear mother is stressing me about sending out invitations much earlier, so people can make their international travel arrangements, but I think sending invitations in December still allows plenty of time for people to make their travel arrangements. Plus, they'll have received their save-the-dates a full month before that, allowing 5 months for travel planning. My question is: Should invitations be sent out earlier to accommodate international guests? If so, how early should they be sent?

Going to The Chapel...

...because my friends J & S are getting married! Yay! I got their invitation in the mail today for their August 8th wedding in Rhode Island. It's a very unique invitation, so I wanted to share it with you. S originally thought she'd like "Paper Source It" as I like to call it, but when time and budget got down to the wire she opted to go to a printer. J & S went to The Write Place in Chantilly and worked with Jill Boddie, the owner, to create their invitations. S is supposed to give me a few more details about the design process, which I'll share when she e-mails me again...apparently she was working today, rather than wedding planning at the office. ;)

Here it is! J & S spent about 2 hours with Jill at her home studio in Chantilly to come up with the design. The Write Place has a great reputation for personal and attentive service and S seemed to be pretty pleased with this aspect of the invitation process.

The invite is actually a tri-fold (see below), which I love because it's quite original. The design, as well as the wording inside is very J & S, warm and inviting! It's a truly personal invitation.




Here's a good view of the tri-fold. The extra "page" in the invite allowed them to skip the reception card and simply add the reception information directly to the invite. What a great idea!

My sister also had her wedding invitation done at The Write Place (I might have passed along the sis's recommendation to S...). My sister and her now husband went for a much more traditional invitation. I like seeing the two invitations together though because it really shows the range of options available.

Do you plan to go the DIY route on invitations or work with a printer? I think since I have a lot of time I may investigate making my own, but I'm still day-dreaming on that, I'll let you know when I decide!

Yummy Texture from Papel Vivo

I was trying to clean up my list of "Favorites," when I rediscovered, Papel Vivo. I know that letterpress is all the rage, but for a different type of texture, I love what Papel Vivo is doing with embossing. Don't you want to just run your fingers over it? And a bonus feature is that all of their paper is handmade. It just adds to the textury goodness. Most of their invitation sets are around $6.50 each which I think is incredibly reasonable.

Handmade by Allison

If any of you frequent the Maryland knot.com board then you are probably already familiar with the work of Handmade by Allison. During her own wedding Allison handmade practically every part of her wedding and now she does the same for other brides. Save-the-dates, invitations, aisle runners, calligraphy....you name it, Allison does it. All I ever see are raves about how much brides love her work and how reasonably priced she is.

Allison has also started a blog and she's featuring some of the items she's created for brides. If your sick of DIY, don't have the budget for a high end designer, and really just want someone else to do it for you then check her out.

All work below credited to Handmade by Allison

Invitations: Signed, Sealed, Delivered

All the invitations are in the mail and most have arrived to their destinations. Our grand total was around 140 invitations. I know you're thinking..."wait, aren't you the one with the tiny chapel that only seats 85 and a reception place that only seats 100?" Yep, that's me.

Crazy? Well, Fiance and I are expecting a much higher then average "No" rate because a large amount of our friends live overseas and we know they love us but not $3,000 a person plane ticket love us. We had invitations that went to Japan, Korea, Scotland, Belgium, Senegal, Hong Kong, Turkey, Germany and even Iraq. We also had a lot of courtesy invitations to extended family that we knew weren't going to be able to make it but we still needed to include. So far we have 46 "yes" responses and 21 "no" responses

Here is the final product-


^ The outside envelope. The envelope paper is is Aspire Petallics in Beargrass, size A7, 80lb stationery weight. The wrap around labels are from The Bella Bella Co. Couture Correspondence Etsy Shop. The font is Liffey Script SF. The stamps are from the U.S. Post Office and I'm thrilled the green stems of the flowers matched our green/white colors cause I really didn't want to have to pay extra to get "personalized" stamps.



^Here is the back of the wraparound labels with our pre-printed return address on them.




^The inside envelopes are also Aspire Petallics in Beargrass size A6. The font is LainieDaySH.



^The invitation. Not sure of the paper as my sister printed them, but it's a similar light shimmery white like the Beargrass envelopes. Most of the text font is Copperplate Gothic (this comes standard on most word processing programs), the cursive names are in CygnetRound, and the flourish design at the bottom is WMDesigns1 small letter "d".




^Here are the RSVP envelopes. We used clear sick on labels from Office Depot and the font is Liffey Script SF. Yes, the Liberty Bell "Forever" stamps are ugly, but our RSVP date falls close to the date when stamp prices go up, and I'm sure we will have a few stragglers who send their RSVPs late and I didn't want them to be returned to sender. There aren't any 42 cent stamps available yet so the Liberty Bell it is!

We also had an insert for the reception and an actual RSVP card but they just follow the general look of the invitation.

Whewww...glad that's done!

Skylines from Favors You Keep

I was trying to find something completely unrelated (but also for the wedding) when I ran across the site Favors You Keep. They have the typical array of wedding favors but they also have a whole line of wedding things that you can customize with a city skyline.
I know you're thinking "yeah they probably just have New York City," but they have over 25 different cities...including some more obscure ones like Kansas City and Cleveland. And of course they have D.C. and Baltimore!

They also have about 25 colors to chose from, 30 different ink colors, and a number of fonts so you can really customize your Skyline items to fit your wedding.


^You can get favor bags and customize them with the D.C. skyline


^ Check out the above Save-the-Date with the Skyline of Baltimore



^ You can also do a magnet Save-The-Date (this one has the D.C. skyline)



^You can also get welcome bags made up to welcome your guests to your wedding city