Invitations: Cost

Anyone want to take a guess as to how much our invitations cost? Lower. Lower. Still lower. You'll never guess.

Design: $0.00
 - Designed it ourselves
 - I can't even begin to guess how much it would cost for a graphic designer.

Labor: $0.00
 - Did it ourselves myself, mostly
 - You don't even want to know how many hours have gone into printing, cutting, punch, gluing, etc. went into this. I would be rich if I even charged myself minimum wage.

Postage: $107.55 (rsvp - $0.44/each, domestic - $0.88/each, 3 international, 5 sent in one package to be hand delivered to family, 4 hand delivered locally, and one for a keepsake)
 - I already knew that because of the shape (square), our invites would be slightly more. But I was crossing my fingers in hopes that they didn't tip the scales. Thank god they didn't!

Reusable materials: approximately $100 (after discounts and taxes, but not rolling this into the final cost)
 - White gel pen used for the "please recycle" message
 - Stamps of our graphic (Purchased from Paper Source. We have both the large and the small one (two for whatever reason my bridal brain came up with back in December of 2009!)
 - ColorBox Pigment Stamp pads in black and scarlett
 - VersaMarkStamp pad
 - Clear embossing powder
 - Paper punches (border and corner)
 - Embossing heat gun
 - PVA glue (left over from lord only knows what project)
 - Printer and ink. I got this printer at 50% off waaaaay back when.
 - Font

Raw Materials: $76.11!!!!
 - This amount does not include shipping as other paper products were also ordered at this time. All paper was ordered from Paper and More. I highly reccommend them!
 - 12x12 100# cardstock in black for the enclosure
 - 8.5x11 100# cardstock in cherry red for the invitation and name card backing
 - 8.5x11 80# cardstock in bright white for the invitation, information card, rsvp card, and name card
 - 4 bar envelopes in bright white
 - 6x6 square envelopes in bright white
 - 96.75 yards of twine. Barely made a dent in my giant spool of twine.

Grand total: $183.66
 - Each invitation suite cost just over $0.88!!! $0.885 to be exact!!!
 - $2.20 including all postage for invites shipped within the USA. Can you believe that?!?!  The postage was the bulk of it!
 - Paula told me that our invites could have easily run $1300 if we had a real staionary vendor do them.


45 days.

Ring-a-ding-a-ling

Having my ring in my grubby hands is a bad, bad idea. I should have just had my maid of honor keep my ring until she flew in for the wedding.

We started ring shopping almost a year ago. I knew exactly what I wanted, but was having trouble finding it. 6 months later, we returned to Oregon. We tried visiting the original ring that I had identified as a potential, but was dissappointed. It's a good thing we double checked!. However, we did find it on this trip.

Enough jabber.

My precious! Not an eternity band.

2.6 mm band, just like I wanted.

Don't they look fabulous together?

Ignore my outgrown/chipping polish.

Low profile as to not rub against the prongs of the e-ring.

Look, the back of the bands match!

Jake's ring has a different story. His idea for what he wanted changed quite a bit from start to finish. At first, he wanted a plain band with a shiny finish. But in the end he wanted a band with a brushed finish (matte). In addition, Jake wanted it engraved with my Chinese last name.

Around Christmas, I decided to get him his own engagement ring. My reasoning was that it took me a year to become used to wearing mine (inconsistently). I thought he might want to practice wearing a ring. I purchased a tungsten ring from Overstock.

When it came time look for his ring, he knew what he wanted, but couldn't find it. A brushed finished would "dull" and begin to look like a worn polished finish over time. I can see this occuring if you do lots of manual labor with your hands, but it's probably a non-issue with Jake. While white gold and platinum rings are engravable, none of them came in a plain brushed finished. There was always extra embellishments, like a polished edge. Tungsten was the only type of ring that came in the right finish we wanted, but it's not engravable. 

Rather than face dissappointment and having to make decisions (he hates make decisions, especially when pressured), he chose to keep is practice band as his wedding band. We discussed upgrading his ring in a couple of years.

Close up shot, the brushed finish was hard to capture.

Even with the brushed finish, the surface is highly reflective.

47 days. 2 posts in one day...guess I'm trying to make up for the past couple of days.

*all photos by me!*

Accessories: Flower girl

Did you get your fill of cuteness after seeing our flower girl's ensemble? Well, make some more room! Here is her basket:

It's hard to believe that it started off purple. Sorry, bad blogger, I completely forgot to take "before" photo. Jake's mom gave us cute Easter baskets two Easter's ago. I decided to hang on to them. Good thing, one of them came in handy.

I painted the basket white, hand wrapped the handle with satin ribbon, lined it with a layer of tulle, and added a re-engineered silk peony. Note to DIYers. DO NOT FOLLOW IN MY FOOTSTEPS. JUST GO AND BUY A WHITE BASKET.

I spent entirely way too much time on this basket. First I started off with the wrong paint. I wanted a slightly shiny tinge to the paint, so I bought glossy acrylic paint. Glossy acrylic does not stick to basket material very well. After two coats of the gloss, I finally went with a coat of regular acrylic. Finally the purple was gone. However, now I was left with a coarse texture, so another coat of the gloss. 4, maybe 5 coats of paint later, I had a white basket.

I got lazy with the paint job, so I tried to hide the imperfections with a couple layers of tulle on the inside of the basket. Hot glue + tulle = ouch.

Also, ribbon wrapping a curved handle is not an easy task. After awhile I had to tell myself "screw it, no one will notice, just get it done."

Not long after we started planning our wedding, I became smitten with hair flowers. I wanted a big one in my hair, a statement piece if you will. I went out and purchased a silk peony, feathers, and a hair clip. That material sat around for months and months. About a year later, I completely scrapped the idea, but couldn't return the flower as I had already tore it apart (oops).

I proceeded to re-engineer the flower. Layers of tulle were hot glued in to create a fuller flower. The flower was then hot glued to layers of felt to create a base. I wanted the flower to be usable for multiple things, not just a basket. I added two ways to thread ribbon through the base.

Maybe M will want to wear the flower as a belt after the ceremony. Although, this flower is probably as big as her head!

The ends of the ribbon were sealed over a candle flame to keep them from fraying.

I'm contemplating getting her a floral headband...

via Pretty Little Things

47 days.

*personal photos unless noted*

Invitations: The guts

Every day after work, I rush into the apartment hoping to find more RSVPs waiting for me. It's like having mini presents to open everyday. Well kind of. It's exciting regardless.

We got 5 RSVPs in one day! This was the third day in a
row that we had them in the mailbox. No stalkers please.

Now that I think everyone has received their invites, I think it's time to share them with the internet. You ready for the reveal? First up, the envelopes. They are kind of plain on the outside, but it's what's on the inside that counts right? I had grand plans to embellish the envelopes but got lazy. Names and addresses were printed on my Epson R1900. The font is Monterey BT.

We didn't print, stamp, or use wrap-around labels for the return address. Instead, we used our handy-dandy address embosser. I was a little bit afraid that if an invitation had to be returned, it would get lost in the mail. But, so far so good.

You ready to tear into the envelope yet? Guests were greeted with a red and white polka dot liner. Want to know a secret? That liner is wrapping paper that I cut up and glued in. Our invitations were strategically placed so that the backside was facing up. I did this for two reasons. 1) The envelopes were kind of thin. I didn't want the embellishments potentially causing a tear. 2) So that the "please recycle" message was received.

Turn the invitation around and you get, personalization. Each invited guest had their name printed on the invite. The embellishment I mentioned above is the baker's twine that I used in lieu of a pocketfold. The goal was to minimize paper and weight of the total invitation package.  

Let's take a closer look at the details, shall we?



 

The names are in Kon Tiki Enchanted. See the faint outline behind the names? That is actually an embossed stamp of the graphic we picked for the wedding. You can kind of see that the twine is flush with the edge of the cardstock in the photo below. A edge paper punch was used to make just enough of a notch to keep the twine in place.

Now for the real guts of the invites: the actual invitation, the information card, and the rsvp card. Sorry for not posting a close up of the invitation card itself. Not much to see after bluring out our names and dates. Our names are in Kon Tiki Enchanted and everything else is in Century Gothic.

More embossed craziness.

The information card. Since most of our guests are from out of state, we chose to make our wedding a weekend affair and invite everyone to all the events. We are hoping that this will give us more time to catch up with folks rather than trying to squeeze it all in the day of. Headers and website are in Kon Tiki enchanted and details are in Century Gothic.

RSVP cards and return envelope. Since it was just coming back to us, I decided not to add embellishments.

The card is folded card. I have never been a fan of traditional rsvp card verbiage for names. I also tend to think that people get confused by M__________. So I changed it. It's pretty straight to the point if you ask me. Let me tell you, printing this card so that the graphics bled to the edge of the paper was a big pain in my backside. I fiddled with my printer settings for a good two hours before it came out right. Let's not count how many test sheets of paper I had to use.

The entire suite together.

Everything you see here was handmade from blank cardstock, with the exception of the envelopes.

Next up, the cost breakdown. I'm curious to see how much it actually cost me us.

50 days.

Bowls

This is one of the BIGGEST/BADDEST rage in the wedding biz: Paloma's Nest ring bowls. They were first introduced in 2007 and have been tugging at the heart strings of brides ever since. Bride's have been using them as ring pillows during the wedding and then reusing them as a place to keep their rings post wedding.

via Palmoa's Nest



They are beautiful, but they aren't "us". Why am I talking about this when I already have my ring pillow? Well, I am kind of a bad fiancé. I do not wear my ring regularly. GASP!

I wear it mostly just in public. Altho, I have been known to run errands and have show up at family functions without it. WOOPSIE! I do a lot of things with my hands. Baking. Cleaning. Dishes. Assembling furniture. Disassembling furniture. Rearranging furniture. You get the picture. When we moved into our place, I was assembling lamps (with my ring on). Let's say, metal and metal is not good. My ring lost. Since then, I am super careful not to have it on. 

When am not wearing it, my ring ends up in all sorts of places. It does have a "home" in my bathroom (yes, we have separate baths). Sometimes, it just doesn't make it there. Other times, it is there and I just have a panick attack because I don't remember placing it there.

Anyways, for the last year or so, I have been trying to come up with cool, but safe things I can use as a ring holder. Here is one (genius) idea from Weddingbee blogger Mrs. Hot Wings:

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Mrs. Hot Wing's rings reside in a soy sauce dish (via Weddingbee)


Awesome. BUT. I don't like the idea or sound of metal on ceramic. I want something softer than my ring. If I am going to do damage, I want it on the holder, not my ring. At some point in time, I booked marked this find:
 

via The New England Trading Co.

They are mini wooden pinch bowls. You know, the kind normally used for salt, pepper, and other spices? I also found these colorful pinch bowls by Le Creuset:
 

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via discount cooking



Who says you can't use them for other things? Since I saw them in person at Sur La Table, snatched them up. The red one is in Jake's office since he loves red. The green one is in the kitchen; I'm on some sort of green kick. The yellow one is in my bathroom matching my yellow and blue duck theme. And the blue one sits on my desk at work. Perfect.

53 days.