Our Wedding Invites!

Our reply cards are starting to roll in and so I'm finally giving you a peek at what they look like.

I purchased the invitation suite (Martha Stewart, Heirloom Ornament) at TJ Maxx for $7.99 for a pack of 48. I hand stamped them with a bird icon and also enclosed a custom made map by Genevieve Walker. I promise to post a blog dedicated to Genevieve later this week -- she was fabulous to work with and incorporated some of the elements from our "musically romantic" Save-the-Date!

The Invitation Suite

Our Save-the-Dates

Pingg for cool, free online invites

Recently, I've become a fan of pingg.com. It's a free online invitation and e-card service and I'm loving the modern and indie designs. Plus, you can also send the online invitation via snail mail if you like (for $1.50 each in a clear, glassine envelope). 

Their invitations and e-cards look so refreshingly cool because Pinggs asks artists, photographers, illustrators and stationery designers to submit their work so that we can choose unique designs. Now we can save a LOT of money on invitations. Yippee!

Here's an e-card I recently sent to my bridal party:

 ["Caught" by Lindsay Brackeen]

I am digging the indie vintage feel of this one by Jenean Morrison:

This is a cute one for an engagement announcement:

I really want this one for my bridal shower invitation:

Here's one that would also be fun for a girl's night out:

 ["Bows and Knickers" by Claire Cimbora]

A Visit with the Mr. and Mrs. of Aerialist Press

{Photo by Alexandra, Aerialist Press}

An August bride recently told me she was considering Aerialist Press, for affordable letterpress invitations. Affordable?! I was intrigued.

I scheduled a visit with Alexandra and Craig, the lovely couple behind Aerialist Press, in their chic studio in Emeryville (just down the street from Pixar).

As I entered their studio, to my right was a wall adorned with beautiful invitation suites and Bun, their huggable pet bunny, kept guard at the door. 

 {Bun}

As I inspected their work, they shared with me how they had been doing letterpress for only a year and a half -- basically since they had begun planning for their own "vineyard-feathers-and-twigs" wedding on a budget at Sattui Winery. Alexandra had taken letterpress classes in college and she fell in love with the art. She and Craig share artistic license and Craig handles the heavy machinery -- two presses (one's named Roxie!) dating from the early 19th century.

One of the designs they shared with me was inspired by a vintage fabric swatch their client had given them. Aerialist Press digitally rendered the floral shapes of the fabric and created the plate. The result is beautiful.

{Photo of couture invitation by the Aerialist Press}

So, there really is such a thing as affordable and beautiful letterpress thanks to Aerialist Press. Their house invitation designs start at $225 (for 50 one-color) or $325 (for 50 two-color) and up to $325 (for 250 one-color) or $425 (250 two-color). Digitally printed envelopes start at $0.75 per envelope or else $1.00 for letterpress treatment.

Visit their website to see more of their awesome work and pricing.

Inspiration #62: Handmade Invites

This past December, I met Quyen, a prospective client for my wedding coordination services. I clicked with Quyen straight-away over email and even more in person as we share a love for great design and DIY-ness.

Inspired by a 100 Layer Cake post, Quyen decided to make her own invitations using Amy Butler paper from Michael's. I'm amazed with Quyen's handiwork! She just started her blog for her April wedding, so if you'd like to learn how she designed and hand stitched her lovely invitations, be sure to visit Our Day in April.

{All photos by Quyen of Our Day in April}

Inspiration #57: Hello, The Indigo Bunting

Jack and Jill
Originally uploaded by indigobunting

Over the summer, you may have seen the whimsical work of graphic designer, Erin Jang, float around the blog world, like design*sponge, for her work on her friends' wedding at Radonich Ranch in Los Gatos, CA. (By the way, if you didn't catch this real wedding on 100 Layer Cake, check it out now!)

I find myself drawn to design that makes me smile, and I'm glad Erin Jang's work is available on Bella Figura, an eco-friendly wedding letterpress company. Granted, this is not for the $10K bride's budget, but definitely The Indigo Bunting gives me some ideas on how to possibly layout the menu cards, etc.

Budget idea: Paperless invites for pennies

{One of the design concepts by LED}

I mailed a batch of save-the-dates to out-of-town guests, relatives and our attendants last week. The locals will get theirs later this month. One big task out of the way!

Lollipop Event and Design recently posted a comprehensive start-to-finish narrative, including all the design comps of our STD design in From Inspiration to Creation here.

Our "rockin" STD's also got featured on The Wedding Chicks and Rock n' Roll Bride. Wow.

I wish we had the budget to hire Lollipop to design our invitations, but we can't afford to.  So I have been looking at inexpensive alternatives.

Paperless Post is a beta site I came across that offers users to:

• Design custom online invitations and announcements
• Deliver personalized envelopes to your guests' inboxes
• Monitor as guests receive your invitations, and track their replies 
• Manage invitations you have received 

The way it works is that upon sign up, you get 25 free virtual stamps. Since we have about 130 guests to invite, we'd only need to pay $10.00 to email 150 guests. Pricing can be found here. They seem to have credible fans: The New York Times, W Magazine, Lucky Magazine, to name a few. Can't wait to try it out (in fact, just signed up for an account).

Another alternative we've considered is printing our invites on postcards with instructions directing our guests to RSVP on our website. Over the weekend, I won 100 custom postcards on bride blogger @QueButtons' (aka Katie Olsen) terrific blog, Random Thoughts of a Perfectionist! She had partnered with UPrinting.comhttp://www.uprinting.com/, an online print and brochure design service that lets users easily create or upload designs for fast printing at an affordable price. Visit Katie's website for more adventures in planning a wedding!

Would you consider going budget and green for your invitations?

{Photo from Lucky Magazine online}

Drumroll Please: Musically Romantic Save-the-dates Debut!

Design by: Vanessa Wieren at Alchemy Fine Events & Invitations, Encinitas, CA

For: Vera D. and Guitar Fred

Custom guitar pick - see how here

Kraft envelopes - see how here

 

DIY envelopes for our save-the-dates

To save $200 on envelopes for our save-the-dates, we designed our own. Our materials included: 100 kraft envelopes ($19, envelopemall.com), a bird motif acrylic rubber stamp ($3.49, Target) and "Love" motif wood-rubber stamp ($1, Michael's), teal embossing ink powder ($3.49, Michael's), silver embossing ink pad ($3.99, Michael's) and an embossing fan ($24.99, Michael's).

This comes to about $0.56 per finished and designed envelope.

Here are the steps I took:

Inspiration #47: Design your pick

If you've been following my blog for a while, you probably know we're having a music inspired wedding. This past Cyber Monday, we took advantage of Steve Clayton's 15% off and free shipping deal for custom guitar picks. So with tax included, we bought 100 custom delrin picks for $36 or $0.36 per pick!

We're not going to the reveal the actual design until we get them in the mail and pair them up with the guitar-themed save-the-dates that Lollipop Events and Design is sending next week. But if you'd like to try it out, here's the easy-to-design interface. Fun, right?

Breaking news! iDIY contest

Paper's been on my mind today. I just got our kraft paper envelopes for our Save-the-dates from envelopemall.com, and I'm meeting up with Judith of Paper Sweet later tonight. And just 30 minutes ago, I got an email from an old colleague, Bethany, congratulating me on winning the iDIY Letterpress Combo Giveaway. Whoa. What? There were 1,560 entries and I won? Crazy.

My friend, Evan, teased me that I'm the girl who's going to win her whole life. I guess I better buy some lotto tickets. Apparently, My $10,000 Wedding could potentially turn into my $10,000,000 wedding with my strange luck.

Thanks iDIY.com! 
{{Doing the happy dance}}

My Guest Post on Lollipop Events & Design

Woo-hoo! The gals at Lollipop Events & Design asked me to write about the design process for the save-the-dates they designed for us. Click here to read it!

And stay tuned, we're getting the STD's in the mail next week. Can't wait to share the entire package! It's going to be AWESOME!

Here's the post on kraft paper ideas for the envelopes we'll be mailing them in.

Martha Stewart Craft Night: Recap

Tonight, Becca of Birthday Girl Blog, Judith of Paper Sweet and my friend, Alice, came over to play with the crafty things I got in the mail from House Party last week.

After viewing a tutorial on how to use the paper punches to make birthday cards, we set to work. And here's how we did (and we didn't follow Martha's instructions to a tee) -- we were pretty pleased with our results:

{Applying metallic foil to transfer with boning knife}

 {Judith's awesome card above, and a box I made}

 

{All of our creations! Check out Alice's fabric & paper gift box in the foreground.}

Inspiration #38: Font Play

I am a typography nerd. Yes, I admit it. I subscribe to "i love typography" and this page from a new design book published by Chronicle Books caught my eye. Can you imagine playing with the dates of your wedding in this fashion? Totally fun.

{from alphabeasties as seen on GrainEdit}

Going Stamp-Crazy

{Visit Craft Pudding on Etsy.com}

This week marks the 12-month countdown. I started planning like crazy and even booked our venue within 3 weeks of our engagement last April, so I've been on cruise control. Now, I'm starting to realize that things will only pick up faster from here on out!

Lollipop Events and Design just sent us the final proof of our Save-the-Dates and so I'm preparing the surprise we're enclosing with each announcement. Let's just say the packaging for this surprise is a medium weight craft paper and on the outside, I want to either stamp the outside with something that represents me and my fiance's young-at-heart spirit and title it Vera + Fred. Our STD's feature a bird motif. My search eventually evolved into a cutesy boy meets girl look -- Craft Pudding's stamps of the boy and girl are my favorite. Let me know what you think:

{lovesprouts.etsy.com}

Our Musically Romantic Wedding...a sneak peek

{Photo of She & Him as featured on listentoliliana.com}

I just got Round 2 of our save-the-date designs from Lollipop Events & Design (LED) and I'm floating on cloud nine because they are looking so darn luscious! (I won custom Save the Date design through their online contest in August). It took a couple phone consults to narrow down the look and feel (from mid-modern century to bluegrass/art noveau).

We used a snippet of a She & Him song as an intro to our event details (above is a photo from our inspiration board). Lollipop took the initiative to label the front of our Save the Dates "A Musically Romantic Wedding." Since my fiance is a classical/Spanish guitarist, the STD is going to mimic a guitar, complete with a diecut for the guitar sound hole and f-holes.

Because of the back and forth, I was happy that LED provided 4 design options for the front cover and 2 for the inside flap. Design elements I requested as must-haves included the use of the Rosewood font, orange and peacock blue colors, and an art noveau floral motif. I suggested birds as a nice-to-have. LED went a step further and included musical notes/bars as a design option. Very cute. I can't wait to share the final and printed design!

{Photo of JL Stiles}

Onward to actual music. Our wedding reception venue is STRICT on amplified music since it's situated in a residential neighborhood in the sleepy, seaside town of Sausalito. Therefore, we can only have acoustic music. Nonetheless, we're not discouraged from having a bluegrass slant to our festivities. We've just confirmed our friends, J.L. Stiles (solo guitar) and Quinn DeVeaux (with the Blue Beat Review), are going to be performing. My checklist of to-dos is shrinking fast.

A Lovely Illustrated Invite by Molly McCoy

I used to volunteer for a nonprofit arts organization and found a designer named Molly McCoy 6 years ago to create a poster for an upcoming opera performance. I fell in love with Molly's artistry immediately.

We've stayed in touch over the years, and even worked on a design for a gala invite for my previous employer. Molly just wrapped up this design. As you can see, pictures are worth a thousand words. All of the illustrations are drawn from things at the wedding site. The invitations were offset printed in dark gray and she hand-painted accents with inks and water colors. What a memorable invitation!

Click here to see the full-size version>>

What's Sweeter than Honey? Lollipop Event & Designs!

Wow, today is a day full of surprises! This morning, Diablo Magazine announced they had chosen my photo of a silhouette at the Yelp Elite Fire Arts Preview as their Flickr Pic of the Day. And just now, I received Lolliblog's announcement that I won their Save-the-date design contest through random selection. I cannot wait, as Lollipop Event & Design is by far my most favorite event design dream team ever! They've certainly got enough eye candy to whet your appetite (check out my posts on the Mad Hatter Tea Party and Baby Shower Bee theme) and chic style. Thank you Cortnie, Jen & Vanessa! You rock and I can't wait to work with you on our STD's! xoxo

Throwing a Budget Mad Hatter's Bridal Shower

[Photo from Lollipop Events & Design]

Decor
You can ask members of the bridal party to volunteer their china; going for variety of sizes, patterns and colors of plates adds to the party's whimsy and charm. Stack teacups as part of the tablescape (ack, I'm using Sandra Lee terms!) or use teapots for floral arrangements. Keep the colors bold and vibrant, such as fuchsia, teal, lime green or lemon yellow. Shop at Salvation Army or flea markets for vintage print tablecloths.

Invitations
Skip the custom-made invitations and instead find free DIY templates (see Pash Weddings.com) and print from home. If you'd rather not print at all, you can easily use evite.com. Don't forget to tell guests to wear the most chic or wildest hats to the party!

Location
See if someone is willing to host the bridal shower at their home/backyard garden. You can also leverage personal/business connections to a restaurant, art gallery, etc.

Food & Beverages
Enroll the bridesmaids to get together the day before to make tea sandwiches, salad, and cupcakes/cookies. Here's a few recipes from epicurious.com to get you started:

• Goat Cheese and Watercress Tea Sandwich
• Smoked Turkey Tea Sandwich with Arugula Mayo
• Smoked Salmon Wasabi Tea Sandwich

[Photo from the Happy Wonderer]

Inspiration #23: DIY Wedding Moo Cards

[Gary and Luzel's Advice Cards]

I'm a Pro Flickr user and my first splurge with Flickr was the Moo card. I selected my best photos and within a week I received a darling little package from the UK with 100 of my signature photos on the front and personal contact information on the back. So handy for networking, right?

Moo cards are also a splendid customized and budget friendly accessory for weddings. $19.99 gets you a box of 100 mini photos. Order 'em here>>

Here are some fun ways Flickr-ettes incorporated the Moo in their weddings:

[Moo Magnets by DJD]

[Save the Date by Elisabeth85]
[Save the Date by Kelly & Terrell]
[Favor Tags by a-chan]