Wedding Goodies
This is a post that has been on the To Do List since 2003 – not long after we got married in fact. So here we are 5 years later and I’ve finally got around to taking some photos.
Going sequentially through the wedding process is probably the best way to tackle this so firstly:
The Invitations
The invite is A6 in size made from a stiff dark blue card with a glittery effect. The decoration on the front was a rubber stamp of a wedding cake that we embossed using clear ink and gold embossing powder. The embossing powder was melted by holding the card over the toaster – two shots would do a card :P
The inside is a creamy pearlised paper with a shimmer cut down in size so the cover acts as a border. The inner sheet was affixed to the outer card by running a glue stick down the spine of the inner only on the back. The ribbon acted as a bit of reinforcing so it was tied quite tightly. That bow wasn’t actually tied by me – I can tell cause my bows were quite compact and were neater – my inner perfectionist coming through.
We included with the invitation an A6 RSVP card, pre-stamped which was a godsend. It was made from a heavier weight card in the same style as the creamy paper mentioned earlier.
The envelope, as you can see is made from the same creamy paper mentioned earlier and I designed it using a deconstructed envelope. It’s a nice design as it only required a small amount of cutting from A4 size. No trimming down to size required and it didn’t take long to do. The envelopes were constructed around the Invite and RSVP using stick glue and reinforcing using the seal shown. The invites stood up well in the mail.
The next step was sending out Information Packs to people who’d requested them on their RSVPs. I don’t have a photo of the insides unfortunately, as the last paper copy is sealed in the envelope shown below! We included a Welcome page expressing our delight that they were coming and also mentioning tidbits of info relating to the wedding, an overview of Palmerston North with ideas for things to do if they arrived a day or so early or stayed later, a hand-drawn Map showing the way to get from the centre of Palmerston North to the Church and the reception, and also showed where the Motel most out of towners stayed at was. And finally a page on the Motel and it’s amenities. So not much, but the feedback was great. These were made in the ubitquitous creamy paper again and were A6 in size.
We opted for sending them out in some premade envelopes in Metallic Blue (not quite the same as the Blue card used elsewhere but close enough to not be obvious.
Ceremony Booklet
We provided each of the guests with a Ceremony Booklet when they arrived at the church. It was A5 in size made from the blue card with creamy pages and tied with the ribbon as an anchor. I can’t remember doing this but looking at them we must have used the glue trick as well. The cream pages weren’t cut down to size to save time but each page had a border on it which helped hide that. I guess making sure every page was straight also helped a bit :P.
The first page reminded you why you were there, the other side was blank, then the facing page had the details of the ceremony (ie How long you would be sitting on a wooden pew for :P ), the other side of that page had the scripture reading (so you could see it was quite short), then the words to the hymn, and then on the back of the hymn page was the names of the wedding party etc. Followed by a blank page.
The Reception
Coming into the marquee there was a set of mini easels on a table each with a printed seating table list. And on each table we had a matching number. These were quite fun to make. We used a embossing ink pen and a stencil for the table numbers and embossed it using the gold embossing powder and the toaster :P. The cream card they were done on was then mounted onto three-sided … things. Well you can see for yourself in the photos. Then at each place we had placecards which were handwritten by my sister using the embossing ink pen, gold embossing powder and the poor abused toaster. We also put a stack of blue and cream cards with a set of glitter gel pens at each table, which though I’m not sure it ever got explained by someone in charge everyone caught on and we have some great mementos from the day. This was what we settled on instead of a guestbook and it also served the purpose of filling in time (if there was time that required filling). The napkins were a really quick thing to do to turn basic blue paper napkins into something special. All I did was use a cheap rubber stamp and some gold stamping ink – no toaster involved! I should mention that these were in addition to the white linen napkins provided to the guests, and the catering staff placed them inside the champagne flutes which worked quite well.
Thank Yous
These happened quite a while after the wedding, but I at least had them all planned out in advance. I made an odd shaped card for these and to be honest, I don’t know what I was thinking! The toaster was put back to use as the blue card cover is a Thankyou stamped using invisible embossing ink and gold embossing powder. Once again a slightly trimmed creamy paper was the innards held together using the glue trick and ribbon. The envelopes were custom made in the same style as the invite envelope and using the cream paper held together using glue and a seal. I know that one of these fell apart in transit but the staff who looked after it managed to keep it together and have it arrive at the destination which was wonderful! Not shown is a small square of paper we included with details of how to visit a gallery of all the photos available of the wedding. We left the inside blank and I suspect the size of the card had a lot to do with not having to write as much!
We got the printing onto card done at the local printshop where we purchased the paper, card, envelopes and seals, and the rest was done on our b&w laser. The total for everything mentioned above starting from scratch was around $450 (and I ended up with some stamping stuff out of that total). I should probably mention this was for a wedding where 70 people were invited (I think this was about 50 invites all up?).
Only a couple of things left to mention I think. I made some New Zealand Beeswax Pillar candles in Natural colour for the centerpieces for each table at the reception. They were put into blue glass bowls my mum came across and she added flowers and foliage to the bowls on the day to make everything come together better. They looked great but I don’t have any decent photos of them.
These are the bouquets the Maid of Honor and myself had:
They’re made of rubber and if they’re looking a bit tatty, a mouse has had a jolly good nibble at them (care of storing our wedding stuff in an outside shed that wasn’t vermin secure). The “handles” are made from left over material from my wedding dress and ribbon used in the stationery. They were put together the night before the wedding so if the seams are crooked, blame it on lastminuteitis!
And finally – the wedding book. This was put together once we started planning the wedding and most of the bulk is the process taken to get to the final stationery and not pretty pictures of hairdo’s and frocks! There’s also stuff like the menus we got quotes for, checklists, reception and wedding venues, checklists, addresses, checklists, suit hire stuff etc etc
Something else I’ve forgotten to mention mainly because I don’t have any photos with them in, is the favours. I got my slaves to help me make 5 chocolates per person invited which were wrapped in blue netting and tied with the ribbon seen everywhere throughout this post. They went like hotcakes and I’m not sure everyone realised they were handmade. One had a white chocolate stripe on the top, One was dark chocolate and quite boxy shaped, there were two hearts, one had a strawberry center and the other didn’t and I think they might have been done with one in dark chocolate and the other in milk but I can’t remember :). I know my sister and maid of honor were delighted when they were finally finished and I think it’s put them both of chocolate making for life!
Tags: Candles, Chocolates, Stationery, Wedding
