Lesson Learned: RSVP cards UPDATE!

As if you couldn't top that subject with an update....BUT I actually can. First update, I received another no name response and just a "Y" next to the home reception.




So is that "Y" for YOURSELF? Or is that Yes I'll bring my entire extended family?? It came from NJ so at least I can narrow it down to a few choices.



SECONDLY I received another different kind of response today. I'm kind of lost for words yet its a little funny at this point because every day is new adventure in the Land of Response Cards!

*personal phone*

I was utterly shocked. I realize this person is on my Mother's side (I believe her aunt) and so I quickly called her and told her the news. It went something like this:

Me: Hi. Ummm did you know Emma died last year?

Mom: Oh yeah back in March I believe. Why?

Me: Well I sent her an invite to the wedding and she responded! Well more like someone in the family did. I thought you reviewed the list before I sent the invitations out?!

Mom: I did...I must have missed that.

HA! Ya think?! I am not sure how any other response is going to top that one.

Lesson Learned: RSVP cards

I didn't listen and I ignored probably one of best pieces of advice when it comes to wedding planning: numbering your RSVP cards! I first learned about this method a couple weeks ago from Miss Hamster and I brushed it off in denial.

Nice Job Kristen!

Gotta love camera phones! *personal photo*

Luckily we aren't having a seating chart for the home reception so this doesn't cause a major issue but I have no name to put on my RSVP template I created. More on that later.

So be wise and number your RSVP cards so you can avoid trying to figure out who the mystery guest is! Anyone else encounter this problem?

Lessons Learned

I've learned a "valuable" lesson after putting together my invitations and I wanted to pass along to you so hopefully you don't make the same mistake.

I wasted stamps. Ugh.

When I went to the post office to get regular stamps for the RSVP envelopes I got a total of 120. I figured that should be enough for now and I could always buy more. I got home and put all 120 stamps on the envelopes to only find out after that we only sent out roughly 90 invitations. That leaves us with 30 extra stamped envelopes. Bummer.

Luckily I didn't do that for the outer envelopes and I'm left with two booklets of $1 and .05 stamps so I guess that makes up for it.

Valuable lesson learned!

Sticker Shock!

So the invitations were done and ready to labeled and stamped. I was extremely excited! I went to the post office with one invitation so they could weigh it and tell me which stamps to buy. Honestly, I almost just bought the wedding themed .60 stamps since I figured that's what it would be anyways but I'm glad I didn't.

All excited I walked up to the counter and mentioned I need 120 stamps for my wedding invitations and handed him the invite. He smiled and then explained that the envelope is larger and would cost more. I smiled like I was expecting that answer until he said, "it will cost $1.05 each to mail."

Whhhhhaaaaaaaat?

I started to do the math and my excitement disappeared. $126 it would cost me to mail all my invitations out. Bummer.

I mean its not a total surprise since I knew they would cost more since I do have a lot crammed into the envelope but I wasn't expecting it to be over a dollar!

So instead of lovely wedding themed stamps I was stuck with these:

source

Not a fan of the Zeus like stamp but the American Toleware one is cute.

So for those of you out there that haven't bought invitations yet and are considering pocketfold or irregular looking envelopes be aware!! Anyone else experience the sticker shock of stamps with their invitations??

Giddy on Up...Giddy on Out!

So I completed the last of DIY insert cards and now it was FINALLY time to stop procrastinating and put the invites together to send out since our RSVP date was only 45 days away! I know. Way to go slow poke!

So this past weekend I finally had nothing to do and decided to take the day to get everything together so that I could send out this week. First I had to start off the right way with a nice big cup of Joe.
I thought I'd share with you my cool cup of coffee that is appropriate for the occasion. I'm not really a 'Top Banana' since its taken me so long to sit down and complete the task but it's my favorite mug.

My entire invitation suite completed and ready to Go! Before I took this picture I had to put the clear labels Bed Bath & Beyond kindly printed for us on the registry card they gave us. That took me about 30 minutes to put on 120 cards. THEN I realized as I was gathering all that I needed that I didn't go the Post Office to get stamps for the RSVP envelopes. UGH! So I made a trip to the nearest Post Office and picked them up and returned home.

I started to rush because I was getting impatient and look where that got me...crooked stamps! Bummer.

Well 120 stamps later I was ready to assemble the set.

Or so I thought until my cat Josie decided to sniff around and make it be known she wasn't happy with me taking up most of the living room space (note: I live in small basement apartment and had 3 ft x 3 ft space to work with).

My entire invitation suite: Invitation, Reply Card, RSVP envelope, Registry card, Accommodation card, and Direction card. Wow! Talk about stuffed! I used glue dots (not pictured sorry!) to attached the invite onto the pocketfold so that people could easily take it off if they wanted to put up on the refrigerator.

My other cat, Ziggy, thought this was boring and decided to pass out on our logo stickers. How convenient!

To be honest I couldn't be happier with the way the logo sticker looks with the pocketfold. I was nervous when I ordered them but it made the invitation extra special and personal to me.

I can't help but smile when I saw the box filling up with completed invitations. That feeling of accomplishment came over me. Although it did take me over 5 hours get everything ready and complete 66 invitations. I continued on Sunday to put together the remaining amount.

Wasn't it a sigh of relief when you finished your invitations? How long did it take you?

Do I Really Have To??

If there was one part of wedding planning that I procrastinated on it would be putting our invitations together. I received the package at the end of March and they lived in my car for 3 weeks. I just was not looking forward to putting them together.

I finally got my butt in gear this past weekend but first I had to make my own "Accommodation" and "Direction" insert cards since they didn't come with the invitation set. So I went online to one of my favorite paper companies Paper and More and ordered 100 sheets of card stock 80# and it was delivered within 48 hours of my purchase. I absolutely LOVE this company. If you remember I used them for my DIY centerpieces with vellum paper and loved how fast I received my order.

At work we have a template for our shipping labels and it fits 4 per sheet. I thought the size was perfect so I decided to play around in Word and I added a black border which would match our invitation set and voila!

I then decided to see if I could add the design logo to the bottom of the card so that it will look just like the set. Bingo! It wasn't AS clear but it worked just fine and I was happy with the results. Don't ask me why I didn't put it on the direction card because I don't have an answer for you. For some reason I totally forgot and already printed the cards. Oh well not a big deal.

Once I proofed both cards I printed them and cut them at work using the paper cutter and I was on to the next task.....actually putting everything together.

Did you have to add onto your invitation set? If so, were dreading the process as well?

Doodle this!

My FI loves to doodle and most of his notebooks for school are filled with them. So it was no surprise that he doodled one day a symbol of our love. Or so he tells me. I came home one night and he showed me what he drew and how it reminded him of our love. I nodded and said, "that's nice babe" and didn't think anything of it. What? Might sound a little mean but its true.

When we decided on our invitations and purchased them he asked if we could incorporate the symbol somehow into the wedding. I knew that our pocketfolds would need a seal to close it and what better way than to custom make them and use his drawing?!!! It will be the first thing our guests see when they open the invitations. He was thrilled with the idea and said he would draw it out on plain white paper for me.

That was 3 weeks ago. And I'm still waiting. I remind him almost every day and I keep getting, "no problem love, I'll do it today!" Yea. Ok. The invitations have arrived and we can't wait much longer!

FINALLY he came through with his promise and drew it today. He met me at work and this is what I get: What the heck is that??? For some reason I thought it was more detailed. I looked at him and said, "this is it?" and he replied, "yeah not sure why you bugged me about it ha ha." ::ugh:: I am not very artsy or creative and I could have drawn this!! So I took to PowerPoint to try and recreate it since I wasn't satisfied with his drawing.

It was pretty easy to recreate but I wanted it to be thicker and more bold.

Once I made it a bit thicker it was time to upload it to Zazzle so we could customize our stickers. This website absolute rocks and it was super easy to navigate and create the circular stickers.

The problem though is that they look so plain! I tried adding circular dots, initials, our names, the date but it just didn't look right. I couldn't find the right font. Then I questioned if I even wanted circular stickers since our envelopes are square. Back to the drawing board and stalking google search for someone who can do this for me in square stickers instead. To no avail but a company called Online Labels has the 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 square labels I'm looking for. The only downside is that 150 labels would cost $52! That's just whack!

So I sucked it up and decided to stick with the ones I created on Zazzle for $37.

This is one of those details I'm going to have to compromise and let the FI take credit for. I may not be entirely sold on this idea BUT I'm OK with it and not dead set against it.

Have you had to compromise and let you FI take the reigns for a bit on the wedding planning? Were you thrilled with his ideas or did you just nod and smile?

*all photos are from personal camera

Happy Friday!!!

Happy Friday Ladies!! Another week closer to our weddings! I met up with a couple of NYC Weddingbee's last night for a couple cocktails and some yummy tapas at Le Fonda del Sol. It was great to get out and be able to talk everything and anything about weddings. Although it low turnout (only 3 of us) it was still great to pick their brains about ideas and also show them my invitations.

Wait, you got your invitations??? Yes! A lovely UPS man delivered them yesterday and I'll show you a sneak peak.

OK I know my camera phone sucks but it's the best I could do for right now. Not sure if you can tell but the actual invites didn't come attached to the pocketfold like the sample I ordered. Boo! So that means I'll be attaching them myself. ::sigh::

I couldn't be more happier with the invitations and the gold font turned out to be a great choice after all! I PROMISE I'll have pictures soon but for now this will have to hold you over. :)

Any fun plans for the weekend?? I am in a wedding a month prior to ours and have a "fitting party" tomorrow and I'm excited yet also nervous to get measured since I'm not exactly the size I want to be right now! ::biting my nails:: Wish me luck!!

Paper Goods: The Final Frontier

I am happy to report that our invitations have been ordered and they should arrive any day now! Yay!!!! Such a relief to know that this part is half way done. Wait, only half way done? Oh right, I still need to send these bad boys out yet. Bummer! Oh well, for now I'm dancing in my seat with excitement while I wait for them to arrive!!!

I received the proofs the other day and wanted to show them off to you. I worked with my boss;who is an avid party planner herself, to proof the document and make sure the wording is suitable and flows evenly throughout.

We decided to shorten the home reception (HR) info at the bottom of the invite to say "The Celebration continue Saturday, September 25th..." instead of "For those unable to attend our wedding please join us celebrate our marriage Saturday, September 25th...." And I'm happy with the changes.

I was really happy to have a second, third, and fourth pair of eyes proof my wedding invitation because I'm not one to catch a mistake all the time and could just see myself spelling something wrong!

Ever watch WETV Bridezillas? I tend to switch the channel when it comes on because I can't stand these crazy brides but one day I was preoccupied with something else and just let the program run. I watched a bride spell her own name wrong on the invites even after she approved the proof. She went nuts! I laughed of course but that was exactly why I had a couple people proof my invite prior.

I cannot wait to share with you the final product...FINALLY! Oh wait, we still need to make our own accommodation and direction cards still. Stay tuned!

The Paper Goods: You coming or what?!

Source

So how does one word an RSVP when she has two different receptions??? Since we finally decided on which invites to purchase; we now had to figure out how the heck to word them.

Most RSVP cards look like this:

(and maybe a entree option, source)

I wish it was that easy but it's not. So I played around for a while and came up with this:

Sorry it's a tad blurry! It just looked like it had way too much information and clutter PLUS I spelled home wrong. So it was back to square one. Thanks to my Mom though she came up with this simplified version:






Bing, Bang, BOOM! Done. Completely made me feel more relaxed knowing that it was settled. I literally spent weeks trying to come up with how to make it look nice but most importantly understandable, and my Mom solves the problem in two seconds. Duh Kristen!

Have you obsessed over the wording of your invites for days on end and find no resolution?

Paper Goods: The Saga Continues

I've been going crazy trying to figure out what to do for our invitations and this past weekend I exhausted all my energy into making a final decision. We are going to stick the original plan and print the accommodations and direction insert cards ourselves. A semi kind of DIY project. There are just so many gorgeous invitations out there but for our budget this seems to be the best option for us. I understand that these invites will set the style of our wedding but also people will throw them out eventually and I just can't justify spending $1000 on them.

So the next step was to decide the color font we wanted. These were our options below:

Remember our colors are steel blue so we didn't have an exact match but I did like the marine color. Unfortunately the FI nixed that idea and so he took the reigns for once (shocker!) and he came up with almond. Umm what?! Yes. Almond. See below.

And honestly it's a tad on the lighter side for me. My laptop at home showed it to be brighter than here. I printed it as well and it was OK. I'm just not 100% positive about this choice. I want him to be involved and voice his opinion since thus far he's just let me take control and make the decisions. BUT this color choice isn't what I was expecting. He said it reminds him of the color of sand. Hmmmm, OK. So this morning I fooled around with more colors and I tried the gold and that was better in my eyes:

What do you think? I might now have to find an inspiration board that incorporates gold and blue. Hmmm....this should be interesting!

Has anyone's colors changed half way through planning? Part of me should just accept it but use my blue for the actual wedding day. I mean, who is going to comment that the invites didn't exactly match the colors the day of?! What are your thoughts???

*all pictures come from here

Paper Goods: Part Deux

So I narrowed down my choices to three invitations and this past weekend I showed my FI so that we could make a final decision. Honestly, I've been stressing about these invitations for a while so I was starting to feel relieved when we chose the winner:

Source

Yay! Although my FI said we could splurge on the blue tropical ones, unfortunately they weren't big enough to allow us to fill all the wording. BUMMER! Don't get me wrong I'm happy with the choice we made but now it's time to make sure we put the correct wording and information on the invitiations. Since we are having two parties and we want to invite everyone to both we had to make sure people didn't get confused. This is where i'm stressing! I was thinking of wording it this way:

(Sorry if that's hard to read and clearly I spelt 'home' wrong so disgard that)

What do you think? I wanted to make sure everyone knew that 1) there are two celebrations and 2) that they were invited to both. I just didn't like the idea of making a seperate invitation for the at home reception because then I would have limit who we invite to the wedding and that could cause some friction amoungst family and friends and honestly who wants to deal with that??

Along with those two pieces my invitations will also include an accomodations card, reception card (that will have more info on the home reception location), directions card, and our bridal registry info. Can you understand now why we chose pocketfolds? Ha! So much information!

Next up: deciding on when to send them! ::sigh::

Did you have any difficulties wording your invites?

Paper Goods

So my search for invitations started off rocky but thanks to my MOH I was able to get my invitations at 50% off. Woohoo!! So I started my search for pocketfolds and found a few that really caught my eye and one that I absolutely fell in love with....except for the price. ::sigh::

Source

I love the horizontal layout of this invite how elegant the font looks with the colors. Although when I tested it out the wording I wanted didn't exactly fit. Bummer! Maybe we can tweak it a bit.

Chloe B

Ok I'm not going to lie, but my heart melted when I gazed upon these invitations and was ready to purchase them on the spot. Then I saw it would cost about $800 for 150 invitations and I was bummed. Do I splurge on invitations that eventually will just be thrown out? Or settle for something in between?

Source

I found this invitation and thought it was pretty and easy to customize PLUS it fit all the information. It's not island themed which was a requirement but I would prefer it if I could. The price for 150 is only $250! That is way better than I was expecting although my heart still loves the more expensive beautiful blue ocean themed ones. What's a girl to do?!

Which one is your favorite? Should I splurge or just settle?

Dun Dun Dun!!!!

I hate invitations (que the suspense music). OK fine I don't exactly HATE invitations but the thought of choosing out of a bazillion designs makes me cringe and put the white flag up. I am quite particular about what I am looking for and whenever I find something that is amazing and perfect I look at the price tag and want to pass out. $1000 for 125 invites?! Are you nuts?


We have so much information to put on our invitations that a regular invitation with a reply card just won't do. I wish it was that simple but life's a b*tch and who said planning a wedding was E-A-S-Y!

Pocketfolds or envelopments are a dream come true.

Source

Aren't they beautiful?! Not only do you get an invitation but also pockets to include accommodations, reception and direction cards. I find it to be unique yet keeps things organized because I know for a fact that when someone sends me an invitation and it has other cards included I tend to lose them. The price tag though comes to over $6 per invite. ::Sigh::

I mentioned my invitation anxiety to my MOH, which happens to be my sister who got married a couple years back, and she told me that her company gets 50% off invitations from several companies. Whhhhhhhhhaaaaaaat???? Then all of sudden the choir sang in my head "hallelujah!" It was like someone was answering my prayers! I don't think of myself as a religious person but there are desperate times when I pray for something, but this wasn't one of those times yet it was like someone was listening to me.

Could my dream of having the perfect invite actually come true?!! My MOH sent me the link the next day and I stalked every page up and down for the perfect one. To be continued.....

Did you have an anxieties about invitations or with any other planning aspect? Do you think spending $1000 on invitations is worth it?