Danielle & Kyle Showcase the City of Nashville with DIY Invitations, Welcome Bags (Part 3)
Monday, April 14, 2014
With weddings, it's all about knowing when to save versus when to splurge. It doesn't matter if your budget is $5,000 or $30,000, you simply can't have it all. Something's got to give.
We featured Danielle and Kyle's wedding on Friday. It was beautiful and a great celebration of Nashville. She splurged by hiring a professional wedding planner, a videographer and offering convenient transportation for her guests. All great investments!
Where did she save? Danielle says, "We saved on the invitations and programs. They just weren’t as important to us as other aspects of our wedding so we decided to have them printed from Vistaprint. Our wedding planner helped design our invitations and programs. Then Kyle and I, along with our families, made the outer invitation pockets and sleeves."
Before you determine if DIY wedding invitations are right for you, keep reading more about Danielle's experience.
Are you a graphic designer?
No, I am not a graphic designer.
What pieces were in your invitation paper suite?
We included the invitation, a response postcard and a card with our reception information on it. The card with our reception information on it included a map to War Memorial on the back. We also used black card stock for our sleeve and grey card stock for the wrapper to go around the black sleeve.
What made you decide to DIY your paper goods?
I know how much invitations can cost and I couldn't seem to find any that really went with the theme of our wedding. I didn't want to spend that much money on something I wasn't completely happy with or something I knew would probably just be thrown away after our wedding.
Our wedding planner, Sarah Willard of Music City Events, was nice enough to help design an invitation. In the package we purchased from her, she designs a "custom image" so she used the same font and image. She was a master at Microsoft Publisher.
When they came from Vistaprint though, they just seemed so boring. I knew I wanted to add something more and would have to DIY, so I scoured the internet until I found some ideas I liked. I combined all of those ideas to create our invitation. I knew it had to be simple because I'm not a crafty person. My craft knowledge didn't go beyond the crafts I did with my 2nd graders. Luckily, my mom had some scrapbooking tools so we used her paper cutter to cut the paper to the correct size and then we used the bone folder to make crisp creases. It definitely took some trial and error to make sure the invitations fit inside the black paper and the entire set fit inside the envelope. We did the same thing with the grey card stock to make the wrappers. We ordered a custom embosser from WGPress on Etsy. I was able to send her our monogram custom image from Sarah and she did a great job of making it work with the embosser. We definitely had a long assembly line going of cutting, folding, embossing, and stuffing, but it made for a fun family event that included our grandparents, parents and each other.
What was your inspiration - theme, colors, fonts, etc.?
Since I couldn't find anything that fit within our "Nashville" theme, we just used the same fonts and images we used on our custom image. Our wedding colors were grey, orange, and purple and we didn't really want a "loud" invitation so we decided to stick with classic black and white. It made it easy on us when choosing our card stock colors. We incorporated grey when we made our embossed wrappers.
Is this a DIY project that you recommend to other Nashville brides?
After all was said and done, I would definitely recommend it. When it came to the wedding, I really tried to get things done with plenty of time to spare so we weren't in a crunch to get the invitations made and sent. I was able to do some research and find something I liked and from there we just did it. Had I been a craftier person, I'm sure I could have envisioned something without doing a ton of googling and pinterest-ing. We spent about two-thirds less on the invitations than we would have if we bought the ones we just kind of liked.
What did you love about this DIY project?
I really loved that we were able to make them our own. The invitations set the stage for the wedding, but that doesn't mean you have to spend a ton of money. I think they still turned out really nice and they were what we wanted. They were simple, yet classic, and they went with our theme perfectly since we incorporated the Nashville skyline. We also used the same skyline on our water bottle labels, door hangers and koozies to tie it all together.
What did you like the least?
I'm a perfectionist so I didn't really like the trial and error part of the process. I had the vision in my head and it was frustrating when it didn't come out that way at first. We had a bit of a celebration once we figured out the correct measurements for everything to fit in the sleeve with the wrapper around it AND it all fit inside the envelope (albeit a tight fit). Patience is not my strong suit so I want things to work perfectly the first time. After we got everything to fit, we had it down to a science and the assembly line started.
Photos: Amelia J. Moore Photography
About the Author:
Ashley King
Hey - I'm Ashley! I started AshleysBrideGuide.com to give Nashville brides, or folks planning a Nashville wedding, a local resource for inspiration and resources. Hope to see you at a bridal show soon! Until then, Find me on Google+.
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Posted on April 14, 2014 |
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