Invitation Wording

As I've had reports of invitations arriving in at least three states I think it's safe to assume they've reached their destinations. Which means I can post pictures and talk about wording!

We started with the willow tree from the sample and had our lovely invitation maker (wood chick studios) add a sleeping figure under it. She put our initials in the tree without being asked. So, sweet. Then we went through several different fairies before we landed on those two. I love that they look like they're dancing (and up to something). Then we add a bit of ivy creeping up. The graphic was tricky, but far easier than the words.

I used Martha Stewart's invitation wording guide, following the guide for when the bride and groom are paying. I normally stray from formality, but I liked the look of some of the things written out in full, since our invitation was coming from a king and queen. It's easy to get carried away when Shakespeare's your muse. Our original wording barely fit when it was just a tree. We were very verbose. We described the reception room in flowery prose and wrote out their majesties on the first line for example. Slowly, we pared down the words to what seemed necessary.

It says:
Oberon & Titania, King & Queen of the Fairies
Command Your Presence In Their Enchanted Wooded Court
At The Wedding of Two Such Foolish Mortals
Katie MIDDLE NAME LAST NAME
To
Michael MIDDLE NAME LAST NAME

Wednesday, The Twenty-First of March
Two Thousand and Twelve
TIME

Witness The Exchange of True Love's Faithful Vow
PLACE

Feasting & Merriment Will Commence Following Exchange of Vow

For More Information, Song Requests & RSVPs: Website Address

I think they turned out great. The response has been good. By response I mean the feedback on the look of the invitations. As far as RSVP responses we've only had a few so far. I'm hoping guests will jump on the website and respond this weekend.

Stimulating Semantics

When it came time to craft the words for our wedding invitation I felt a great deal of pressure. I wanted it to be creative, perhaps humorous, theme related, not to formal and convey all necessary information. I started by followed Martha's invitation wording guide I'd pulled from a magazine years ago. Then Mike and I tweaked it until it sounded less stuffy.

We were pleased with our chose until the digital proof revealed how much space our verboseness had stolen from our pretty graphic. We scaled it back repeatedly. When we were done our novella had become a manageable amount of information on a balanced invitation. It's not easy and I think that's why most people stand by tradition on this one. When you throw the flood gates of creativity wide open it can be overwhelming. I promise to share our wording once they hit the mail. I can tell you no one requested the honor of anyone's presence, though.

Our invitations are being printed and should arrive any day now, yay! It occurred to me we should have just put the lyrics to this little ditty with the date and time on it...
The power of love is a curious thing
Make a one man weep, make another man sing
Change a hawk to a little white dove
More than a feeling that's the power of love
....
You don't need money, don't take fame
Don't need no credit card to ride this train (Just an invitation!)
It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes
But it might just save your life
That's the power of love
That's the power of love
Are you coming to my wedding McFly? It's your density! I keep feeling like we didn't go nerdy enough on the wedding stuff. It'll probably shine through no matter what though.

Here some more fun invitation wording alternatives I found prowling the wedding sites:

• When we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness and call it love , true love. - Robert Fulghum
• no church, no aisle, no chairs…
  just two crazy people in a field
  vowing to each other a lifetime
  of dirty jokes and random misadventures
  please join us as we commit ourselves!
• dinner and dancing and eternity to follow

It's also entirely possible that I'm underselling the nerdiness of our own invitation (and wedding in general). Theater nerds are a legitimate subset of nerd however far down the tree we nest from Urkel. Yet, something like this:

Puts my nerd powers to shame a bit. Why didn't we do a funny youtube invite? No waste, yay Earth. Totally DIY-able (budget friendly) plus it would live on every time another nerd couple searched for inspiration. Sigh.