invitation reveal

Well, this post has been a long time coming, but I've finally had a chance to sit down and type up our Wedding Invite blog post! I apologise for the photos, as they aren't the greatest, but our wonderful photographer will be taking photos of our invites on the big day and I'm sure they will do them better justice. But for now...here is a look at the invites that I put blood, sweat and tears into...(well, not really...but we all feel like they are almost our babies by the time we let them go, don't we?!)

First up, the outside of the invites. This is what everyone saw when they pulled the invite out of the envelopes. I was so worried about how this twine would travel through the post - but everyone said they arrived perfectly, in fact, most people were reluctant to open them! My mum refused to for 24 hours (she had already seen inside though) and when she finally caved to show some friends at work (yep, she did that!) she then came home and made me re-tie it...

You can see our little personalised wooden hearts, which I ordered from etsy and absolutely LOVE. We are carrying the wooden theme throughout the wedding, we also ordered some gorgeous little "Bride" and "Groom" hearts to tie on our toasting glasses and we have some of the little hearts left from our invitations that we will be using to wrap around candles throughout the reception room!

I tried so hard to incorporate that "bundle of love letters" look that I loved so much in all my inspiration pictures. It was something I found very difficult and I hit a roadblock with it and just had no idea where to go for a while! Do you think it was eventually pulled off?

Next up, the inside! First of all, here is the "Dinner and Dancing" Reception Card that was tucked inside every invite.

Then (and this is where the photos get particularly bad, sorry!) each invite had a different RSVP post card tucked inside as well! There were 7 different images that we used on the back of the postcards, from our engagement shoot with Sandra Henri Photography. We had an online RSVP option on our wedding website, in case our guests choose to keep their postcards (which a number have!)

They were all then slipped into silver envelopes, along with a little card (which I don't have a photo of) with our wedding website address listed, for further information. And while I realised I have a photo of the front of the envelopes, I don't seem to have one of the back!

The back of the envelopes were sealed with little gold seals with hearts stamped into them. I read a tip early on in my planning which recommended that you make your seals separately on baking paper, then used double sided tape to adhere them to your envelopes.

Let me tell you - this is the greatest tip I could encourage when using wax seals! Not only will it take you a while to get a hang of how much wax you need to use, but not every seal will be perfect and this will a) limit any stuffed up envelopes and b) allow you to pick out the better seals and use them. It almost means that your guests (if they are sentimental like me and care about these things when opening/keeping their invites) can open their envelopes without actually breaking the seal and can reseal it using the double sided tape.

A few other tips I thought I would share for anyone making their invites from scratch like we did (and I'm not going to go through all the basic ones like, double check your spelling, check your envelope size, print out samples, etc. I'm just going to add some extra things I found!) are these:

- If you are using a cutting tool (which we did) over and over again, stop every now and again and run some aluminum through your cutter. Just grab a sheet, and cut it into small strips. It sharpens your blade and will create a cleaner line!

- Even if your blade is new and shiny and sharp, go over every straight edge you cut with your scissors lightly. Yes, I realise this sounds like you are double handling things - "Why not just cut it in the first place then?". I don't mean "re-cut" it, just lightly skip your scissors over the edge. It takes any "fluff" off the edge and makes it sharper and more professional looking. Trust me, it might seem like a waste of time but when you see the difference it makes, you will never go back. I did this for everything and I loved how much more professional our invites looked. It's one of those things you just won't get until you try it!

- Invest in a good corner rounded. Sometimes things just look better with a rounded corner, to give it that little bit more "omph". Just don't over do it! ;)

- Lastly, give yourself time! I spaced out our invites over weeks. I printed off all the actual "invite" panels one day, and watched TV while I cut the corners. The next week, I spent an evening watching "Don't Tell the Bride" and stuck them all inside the cardstock. A few days later, I had a "Mad Men" marathon and stuck all the "script" card stock on the front (PS - the script is actually lyrics from Jason Mraz's "I won't give up"!). Same goes for the doilies...I broke it all down into manageable steps and went through many movies and TV shows getting it all done. And because I gave myself so much time, it meant I could do it when I felt like it and *gasp* I actually enjoyed every second of it. (Well, once the design was set. The design, it drove me nuts...mostly because of that block I hit!!) If you have fun with it, it makes it a really memorable experience!

Step by step

So! Those are our invites. We got a lot of compliments, everyone seemed to enjoy them and a lot of people have had fun accessing our wedding website and leaving us notes in our online Guestbook - so I'm glad that I choose to use one!

But now...What do you guys think? I would love to hear from the blogging community, who have much more of a concept of these things! (I have to admit, I didn't know how some family in particular were going to react to the slightly different look of our invites!)