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.

RSVPs Are Fun!

This is not my reply card. I chose to save the trees and stamps and invite everyone to reply online. My website is linked to my guest list and my seating plan. If I had one though I would have definitely included options like "enthusiastically decline".

To prevent confusion on how far to take my Midsummer Night's Dream theme I wrote "no costumes" underneath "semi-formal" on the back of our map. So, Mike's Aunt and Uncle wrote a this note:

We feel terrible about this, but we lost our tenant in Tennessee and need to inspect the premises, and due to scheduling (including (Mike's Aunt) starting her professorship) our first opportunity to go will be the week of March 19. We will toast you with Jack Daniels on your special day. Great invite, but (Mike's Uncle) is major bummed about the costume interdiction, so it's probably for the best.

I'm still laughing about the last line. Here are some funny ones other bride’s have received:

The ____ family will be attending your wedding. (the new baby) will bring poop, (their toddler) will too if your lucky, the bride changes those right?
Another one of her guests wrote this quote on theirs: Rodney Dangerfield - "I haven't spoken to my wife in years. I didn't want to interrupt her."

I've read about guests bedazzling the response card or including confetti or rice in the envelope. I love the enthusiasm! Another March bride told me her relative:
Drew a little picture of herself holding a champagne glass then wrote "With bells on!" underneath.

I read about people adding adverbs to the accept or decline lines. "I happily accept" etc. I've even heard of people editing their meal choices. A friend told me that since her wedding was on a boat it said "I get seasick, respectfully decline" to which her guest responded:
I don't actually get sea sick, I just can't make it.

Some helpful people even added extra postage to the reply envelopes even though the bride had already added sufficient postage. I think it would've been fun to get responses in the mail, but there's a lot to be said for the instant gratification of electronic response. I've been refreshing the guest list and website hits like a crazy person since the day after invitations went out. I had a whole bunch come in quickly and now it's been nothing for a whole day...

Ok, married folks do you remember any witty response or confused ones? Did it seem like days with response took twice as long as the ones when you got at least one RSVP?

Ready, Set, Mail!

Last night Mike picked up our maps. So this afternoon I sat and stuffed maps. Then I licked envelopes. It was funny because when I put all the postage on the other day I thought "Thank God, I don't have to lick all these stamps!" I totally forgot about envelopes!

After I had mapped and sealed the envelopes I used my trusty leaf stamp to pretty them up.

After I got done I had a mini breakdown. There were supposed to be 44 invitations (45 households including us). I counted when I was done and got 43. I was worried that in all the stages of the process I'd lost someone. I pulled up the guest list and checked that I had everyone. I did and there were supposed to be 44. I counted again and got 43. At that point I asked Mike to count. He determined that everyone was accounted for and that I had miscounted. There were in fact 44. Phew!

They'll get mailed in the morning, finally. Darn printer related delays, grumble. Hurray!! Giant check off the to do list.

Postage!

I knew months ago thanks to another March bride on theknot.com that the postage rate was going up January 22. That was Sunday. Sigh...I had the invitations in the envelopes and the envelopes addressed on Saturday night. The problem is that I thought I was being super smart and got two sheets of the King and Queen of Hearts stamps I liked when I mailed the save the dates in August. Oh yeah. Face palm!

Luckily, I used one sheet and change to mail Christmas cards so I only had 17 useless stamps. I had a fleeting moment of hope and checked the stamps to see if they were forever or 44c. Guess which they were? You got it. Darn it. I clutched desperately to the new hope that there would be a cute 1c option. Hopes were dashed again. There is but one option, uno. A Tiffany lamp for Pete's sake. Groan.

I decided to go to the post office and see if there were other options. There were not. I came home with 16 (sticking tongue out) Tiffany lamp and a sheet of bonsai trees. (Did anyone catch that I was one lamp stamp short of using all my 44c stamps). Here's the results:

My hodgepodge of stamps. Grumble

Queen of Hearts is now Queen of expensive lamps. Seriously, it couldn't have been a flower or a bird or something?!?

Some guests will see a pretty little tree and some will get the king/queen of lamp.

The assortment...

All whining aside, I'm so relieved we worked it out. I can't wait to send them out into the world. I long for RSVPs and song requests and wedsite hits, it'll make everything real. I'm so relieved this part of the process is almost over.

We Showed The Printers Who's Boss!

It took some doing (it was a late night), but we were able to print our envelopes last night. Thank God I had extras! We used a font called Heather that we downloaded from fontfreak.com in the standard dark green. Mike added a little lizard wrapping around the address just for fun. Now they just need maps and stamps.

The stack!

Mike's decorative contribution

Gulp! 61 days?!?!?

Given the printer's temperment I hand wrote one for my special guests.

Addressing the Envelopes

First, we had to have a committee meeting about which font to use. Michael is super picky about fonts, we got complaints about the the save the dates being hard to read and I wanted something girly. Color was easy because the envelopes are brown so we went with green. After that I exported my guest list into a spreadsheet. Mike and I butted heads over how formal we should be. He was big on just writing first names and last names. I didn't want to be super formal, but I thought titles classed it up a bit. I won on that one (more or less). Then it took me hours and generous Googling to remember my Mail Merging skills.

It was at this point that, armed with 44 envelopes worth of documents, I enlisted Mike's help to test printing. For those of you who don't remember I would like to remind you now that I bought a new printer over the summer when we had issues with another wedding related project. It's not even 6mo old yet. He said "Ok, print the first one" (after checking all the settings). What followed were some very disturbing clunking noises akin to the Dad's battle with the furnace in A Christmas Story.

My heart sank, as there's no replacing the printer now and on principle it irritates me that it would be having issues so soon. Grrrr! Mike worked on it for hours and when it started acting normal again the alignment was all wrong so we gave up for a while. I'm worried I'll be hand addressing them again. When I tried to print a regular document the clunking started again.

If it was just an alignment issue we'd just switch to clear labels to move the printing along, but with the printer being so erratic who knows?

When I search DIY hand address wedding invitations every single hit says print the address lightly on the envelope and then trace it by hand. Nice, guys. If I could print I wouldn't be addressing by hand.

It's The Map!

Here's the inspiration Lara found for the custom map her mother (my soon to be mother-in-law) designed to go with her invitation. Cute idea, right? Here's Lara's map:

Front

Back

I have no idea where I put it since we moved, but I loved that map so much I still have it over 2yrs later. She made in 8x10ish so the bride and groom could make it whatever size they wanted. It also means they have a framed keepsake from the wedding. After my almost sister-in-law's wedding a mutual friend of ours got married and she asked for a map too.

I am so excited that it's my turn! I gave her an invitation so she could try to match the color scheme and feel in the map. I came in with a list of ideas I'd gleaned from internet research. Most of them were impractical or would have been confusing. It starts out 8x10, but has to be readable at 4x6 and a functional map. So, adding the Tardis as an Easter Egg for our fellow nerds was out. We may use some fictional places in it as long as they're not confusing to our guests. I also like just married banner on the car in Lara's map. I'd want ours to say Honeymoon or Bust. I saw it on some maps on Etsy and it's totally how I feel.

It's so exciting. One more piece of the puzzle is underway. I'm getting to the point where I wish the wedding would hurry up, but mostly I'm still overwhelmed by how much is left to do. Having the invitations and map makes it feel so official.

Invitations Have Arrived!

They came today!! So exciting. We started the process August 28th if you count the research-y phase and September 19th if you start from design. We completed the design on October 3rd and ten days later we had them. We choose an Etsy store called WoodChickStudios. We started with a design she already had called curly willow:

Six proofs and a lot of messages back and forth later we had this:

Do you love it? It's pretty much exactly what I had in my head which is a small miracle given how inarticulate I was about "my vision" at times. Shirlene was very patient with me. She was always very quick to make changes and answer any questions during the design process. I don't think I ever waited more than 12hrs for anything. Usually, I receive a proof in the morning. I think it over during the day and reply in the evening. I'd receive her response in the morning or early afternoon. I'm so happy with the final product. They're so whimsical and girly.

I even love the presentation and the little personal note she included.

They were very reasonably priced for wooden invitations and came with our choice of ivory or brown envelopes. She also offered envelope printing for an extra fee, but we skipped that. I also liked that I could order them in any amount. A lot vendors required you ordered in groups of 25 or even 100.

I'm so excited to begin the process of getting these invitations out. As promised, expect a post about invitation wording soon. Next step is to give one to Mike's mom who will make our custom map. It'll be something like this, but better. It'll look more theme appropriate, but still have a scene of fun. She's an artist and she made maps for my future sister-in-law and cousin-in-law. I'm super excited for my turn to get one. I think we may print our map on parchment paper, but I'm not sure yet. After those (our only "insert") are done we'll be addressing and decorating the envelopes. After the holidays they'll hit the mail. YAY!!

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.

The Journey Of A Thousand Miles...

Begins with finally agreeing to and designing invitations! Mike and I nearly called off the wedding over our invitations. Ok, I'm being over dramatic but not by an incredible amount. Yes, it matters to us. I'm sorry to be shallow. We're event planner kind of people who want everything to be just so,we just are. It boiled down to this he wanted the engraved (aka more masculine and expensive ones) and I wanted painted ones (aka more girly and less expensive).

I originally budgeted $70 for "simple handmade invitations". I thought I'd take an afternoon,some card stock and one of Mike's drawings and make something. They're only invitations, people just throw them away afterward (with few exceptions). The problem was I couldn't find inspiration for the project. Then I found (and Mike and I agreed on) wooden invitations. Thus, killing the DIY notion.

Here's what we started with sample-wise:

Earlier on I reported slow response to messages, but that only applies to the pre-ordering period. She has been very quick to respond to messages and make changes to the design. She's been great to work with and it's alot less stressful to boss around a stranger than to try to get my groom to finish a project. We're on our third proof and it keeps getting better and better. It's very exciting.

I don't want to give too much away, but I will say we've cut down our verbose wording and added some more color. We also added fairies of course. It's been really fun watching them evolve. I think when they're done I'll do a slide show of all the proofs. Yay, invitations are happening!

The Next Big Decision: Invitations

Remember the whole warehouse vs boutique discussion? Well it turns out the "boutique" (Wood Chick Studios on Etsy) who took longer because they insisted on using our wording mailed the sample and didn't tell me because it came yesterday. In a pretty envelope with our names in fancy emerald font on the front as opposed to the ziploc bag inside a FedEx envelope the others came in.

Here's how the laser engraved alder invites shipped.

And here is how the other one shipped.

It's another silly girl thing I suppose, but having the birch sample arrive just as it would for the guests was exciting. I know the other place couldn't ship that way because they sent me three samples. I am also aware that volunteering to use our exact wording was a manipulation. Of course I'm drawn to the one with my name on it. Beyond all that are the practical things, however.

Alder in a custom size (7.5 x 5.5)

Alder in small size (5.8 x 4.1)

Alder in standard size (6.7 x 4.8)

The birch only comes in a size comparable to the standard from the other company.

So, there they are. You can't get the full experience looking and the picture (I'm so glad we ordered samples). They are a very different sensory experience than a paper invitation.

Alder(From Lazerdesigns)

The Yays!

1. They are laser engraved.
2. They have a richer wood color. (not veneers)
3. They smell amazing, like the woods.
4. They were very prompt replying to all communications.
5. They did not charge me for samples.
6. They will completely customize them to our design and size.

The Boos

1. They do not provide envelopes.
2. They do not have color.
3. All that rich, durable wood has a masculine feel.
4. They only accept orders in groups of 25. So we'd have to order 50 and keep the extras.
5. They are more expensive. (because they use higher quality materials)

The Birch

The Yays

1. It's in full color.
2. It mailed in a regular envelope
3. I've already seen it with our wording
4. It's a lighter wood (more feminine and easily mailable)
5. They send me the sample for free
6. I can order any number of invitations I choose.
7. They're less expensive
8. They include envelopes (although Mike insisted they're not good enough and we'd buy our own anyway).

The Boos

1. They are very slow to reply (or they don't communicate at all).
2. The ink is flush as opposed to the texture of the engraving.
3. They will take longer to produce.
4. They smell like a tongue depressor as opposed to the woods.

No matter which place we choice Mike will be drawing an image to use so it wouldn't be either of the trees you see in the samples. I do like the "curly willow" with our initials in it. Diabolical as those darn Disney World commercials. Alright, blog fans what do you think? Leave me your impressions and feedback in the comments.

Don't Judge A Vendor By Their Website

So, I try to be open minded and avoid the aesthetic manipulations of corporate America, but darn it I'm just such a girl sometimes. Of course I know that just because it's not a "wedding" vendor doesn't mean someone isn't the best choice. I also know quality of product and customer service are huge factors. Bigger factors than a pretty website.

That's all very rational, but I'm a snob. I live with a programmer. First impressions are important. It's like walking into a concrete floored CostCo style warehouse vs a potpourri scented, velvet cushioned chairs boutique. I want to deal with the people in the pretty store based on first impression regardless of whether they actually give me the best deal or service.

I Googled "wooden invitations" and the first hit on shopping was a place called LazerDesigns. The image was an alder wood invite so I clicked and found myself in a warehouse of a website. Tiny unembellished text, pages cluttered with information and no artistry. I left after glancing out at price info. I found an Etsy store with an adorable little logo and name. Now I was in the boutique! They only do wedding invitations and they provide fancy envelopes. I talked to Mike about both places (being desparing about the first), but he got excited about alder wood versus the lighter birch.

I begrudingly agreed to order samples from both places to compare. I emailed lazerdesigns and had a response the same day. They we very friendly and accommodating. They didn't charge for the samples and had them shipped out the next day. I was floored! I was even more impressed by their quick arrival and how pretty they were. I mean, wow. They continue to be friendly and prompt answering my subsequent questions too.

In the meantime I requested a sample from the Etsy store with the cute name on 8/30. I had a response on 9/2 asking me to pick a design and give them my exact wording so I can see how it would look. That was exciting. I poured over wording and replied on the 9/5. There was a holiday weekend and they're obviously a busy shop, but I've still had no response. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to pay for the sample at a separate listing or if they already been shipped or even they've even received my info.

Mike also prefers the laser engraved design to the painted on and heat sealed ones he's seen online. I'm still pulling for the place with the cute name and I can't possibly decide until I've seen something in person. I am absolutely floored by the difference in customer service so far. I'm a little nervous about how much longer hand painting them will take if they have a week turnaround on messages and I have no idea how fast shipping will be.

While We're On the Subject

I'll never forget the first time I got a wedding invitation as an adult. I was in college. I discovered a rather heavy, ivory envelope with the bills and junk mail. My name and address on the outside so fancy, I had a moments pause about disturbing any part of this. It was a bit like not wanting to cut a pretty cake.

I opened it and too my complete bewilderment found another envelope. Huh...This one also had my name prettily printed on it. I had another moment's pause. This time when I opened the envelope I found a piece of tissue paper. Whatever was in here must be fragile if in required doubled envelopes and tissue paper. I pondered the tissue paper a while and then very carefully set it aside. I wasn't sure if I'd need it again.

I slipped the invitation out, finally. It was pretty. I ran my hand over the raised inked and then wondered if it was supposed to be touched, the tissue paper must have a purpose, right? Low and behold there was another envelope. This one was smaller. They had been increasingly smaller like nesting dolls come to think of it. This one had an address and a stamp on it. I understood that it was an Rsvp card, but I wasn't 100% how to fill it in, it seemed like there were rules I didn't know (I had no idea how right I was).

I couldn't go to that wedding or any that took place at home while I was away at college, but that first invitation is vivid in my memory. I saved it beyond moving out of the dorms. It seemed to fancy to discard. I put all the remaining pieces back even the tissue paper. Years later even after the couple was no longer married I remember struggling to throw it away as I made yet another move.

So Inviting

I said "We're going to do simple invitations. They'll be so much easier than the save the dates." Then I started looking around...The problem is I didn't have a clear picture in my head. I only knew I wanted something different that fit the theme. When the message board I belong to asked for invitation inspiration I felt like I'd come to school without my homework, not a usual feeling for me.

I suddenly felt unprepared and anxious. I knew we had a few months and it hadn't even crossed my mind. So, I started Google image searching and scouring Etsy for "inspiration". I always intended to make them myself, mind you. The first thing I kind of liked after hours of searching was this:

Something hand painted with an old tree and a fairy somewhere, maybe.

I searched beyond posting that image as my inspiration because I knew it wasn't quite right. It wasn't different or theme related enough. I searched and stumbled upon a site called Night Owl Paper Goods that had hedgehogs in their banner. They had a whole bunch of wooden invitations. Wedding invitations printed onto pieces of wood, yes!

Of course even this place didn't have exactly what I need. Like everything else for the wedding this will have to be custom. I conferred with Groomie-poo and he was just as excited by the idea. He had his own set of criteria for them so between that and our budget the options were sufficiently narrowed. Now to order samples! Yay, more packages.