our little birds have left the nest

Or rather, I booted them out and celebrated once they were gone.



Now you know where I've been for the past few weeks! I've been having anxiety over the fact that these should have gone out weeks ago, but April 1 is still pretty reasonable - especially since our save the dates went out so long ago. Oh, and good thing we took that photo before I went in to the post office! For some reason, I thought the PO didn't close until 3 on Saturdays, so imagine my surprise when I walked in at 2 to see everything all locked up. I was not happy. The future mister saved the day when he went back in to check their hours for Monday and discovered that there was another post office open until 3! We were greeted by a very unhappy postal worker who gave us a hard time (about wanting stamps that added up to $0.81 and the fact that we had something bulky-a wax seal-in our envelopes), but we were able get everything stamped and shoved on their merry way right as she was closing up. What a huge weight off my shoulders!

If I ever again plan a huge party and want to make 130 invitations by hand, by myself, someone please remind me what a stupid idea it is. (They do look pretty, though!)

Keep your eyes out for the big reveal sometime next week!

rsvp help

I need some help y'all. I've been neck deep in invitations for the past few weeks and am just about ready to start printing my RSVP cards. I thought I had it all figured out, but now I'm second guessing myself.

Here's the original wording:

We have reserved ___ seats in your honor

Name(s): ______________________

___ Wouldn't miss it for the world!

___ Will toast you from afar


My concern is that if we invite Mr. and Mrs. Joe Blow, indicating on their RSVP that we have reserved 2 seats for them, and only Mrs. Blow intends to come will they know that they are only supposed to write Mrs. Blow's name on the name line? Or what if Mrs. Blow thinks that since 2 seats are reserved for them and Mr. Blow can't come, that it's okay to bring Katie Blow who isn't invited to the wedding? Or am I just being crazy?

I did some research and discussed it with the future mister and here are the two other options that we are now considering.

Option 1:

We have reserved ___ seats in your honor

Name(s): ______________________

___ Wouldn't miss it for the world!
___ Number attending

___ Will toast you from afar


Option 2:

Name(s): ______________________

___ Wouldn't miss it for the world!
___ out of ___ attending

___ Will toast you from afar

Thoughts? Suggestions? Your help is much appreciated!

bride-to-be's little helper

It's just about time for the invitations to go out and I have more work than my two little hands can handle. At the same time, though, I'm too much of a perfectionist-control-freak to let anyone help me because the thought of relinquishing my control gives me more anxiety than actually doing it myself. Wow, I think I just made myself sound quite insane.

Anyway...

Yesterday I was convinced by a very willing future mister to let him help. And help he did. While I traced, he cut out about one hundred or so envelope liners.



Unfortunately, he's not all that comfortable helping me with the remaining invitation tasks (due to their skill level). But every little bit helps!

Did your fiance lend a hand with any wedding crafts?

what is this I see?

I spy, with my little eye....

beautiful handwriting courtesy of FSIL/bridesmaid Katie

the cutest return label

and a gorgeous shower invite!

This is for our couples' shower at the end of April in North Carolina. I'm so excited! The future mister is too, even if he did roll his eyes at me when I insisted on taking a million pictures before actually opening the invitation. Hey, this wedding stuff is only going to happen once, so I intend to document every last detail!

in the garden of love

(usps via hello! lucky)

I spotted these beautiful new forever stamps over on hello! Lucky's blog this morning. I am so very sad that they won't be available until May 19. Way too late for our invitations, but just in time for all of those thank you cards, perhaps?

how I spent my christmas vacation

Instead of cleaning up the craft room/guest bedroom like I SHOULD be doing (it's still a disaster area from our STDs which went out over a month ago - eek!), I decided to crack open some of my Christmas gifts and practice calligraphy. It's not really procrastination if I'm doing something wedding related, right??

(Handmade Weddings)

(Calligraphy Kit from Emilie Friday)

One serious hand cramp later and not much to show for it:


I had fun though! I'm still undecided about whether I want to tackle hand calligraphing our invitation envelopes. I would need to put in a lot of practice time, not to mention all the time it will take to hand address each envelope. Although....printing our envelopes for our save the dates didn't exactly save me much time.

Would you or have you considered DIY calligraphy?

invitation inspiration

Now that the save the dates are over and done with (believe it or not, I still haven't fully cleaned up the craft explosion they left behind), it's time to start looking at invitation inspiration! With my track record, I'll probably pick something overly ambitious, so I better get started soon. Like our save the dates, we would like our invites to have a vintage feel to them. I also want to include a wax seal - per the future mister's request and maybe some fabric details. Right now, I'm practically overflowing with ideas, so it might be hard to narrow them down.

Ice Cream Social via Elizabeth Anne Designs

Linda & Harriet via Style Me Pretty

Mrs. Gloss on Weddingbee

Two Brunettes via mint

100 Layer Cake

String Calligraphy - Bella Figura

Florentine - Minted

Love Letter Inspired Invitations - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Vintage Airmail Inspired Invites - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Vellum Invites - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Which do you like best? Where did you go to look for invitation inspiration?

for your tears of joy: stds part 4 (one more detail)

One last detail that was a pain in my butt were these home reception tags that I put only on the stds being sent to my side of the family and those local to the Pennsylvania/New Jersey area.


It was one problem after another with these things. I decided to get a circle cutter rather than a circle punch so that I would be able to cut different sized circles with just one tool. Well, if you're thinking about buying the Fiskars circle cutter (because it is the best rated) - don't do it. It has issues (or maybe I'm the one with issues) cutting circles under 2 inches in diameter. No matter how hard I tried, it gave my circles rat tails.



I ended up returning it for the Martha Stewart circle cutter and the Fiskars 2 inch squeeze punch, which is what I ended up using. Even though I told myself that I would return the Martha Stewart cutter if I didn't use it, I kept it anyway. It's a Michael's/craft store curse, I tell you. Anything I ever buy with the intent to return it if it's not used never happens because I tell myself that there will always be another craft project. Luckily, I already have some ideas.


So after purchasing my circle cutters, I made a quick stop at the office supply store to see if they had any circle labels. My original plan was to use the circle cutter to cut a 2 inch circle out of craft paper and then a 1.5 inch circle out of the full page label paper I already have. Circle labels sounded much easier, though. And what do you know? The only size they had was the exact size I needed. I went home, downloaded the template, made my design and pressed print. And this happened.


After fussing with it for an hour or so and wasting a few pages of (expensive) label paper, I decided to just delete the black outline from my design. Not ideal, but doable. Again, no one would notice or care but me.


It all turned out okay in the end. And even though I have more supplies than I know what to do with, I'm sure Michael's hasn't seen the last of me.

Did you accumulate a lot of extra craft supplies during wedding planning?

Read all about our save the dates here:

Part 1 (envelopes)
Part 2 (envelope liners)
Part 3 (handkerchiefs)

for your tears of joy: stds part 3 (the full reveal)

I am so very excited to finally show you our save the dates in all their glory!





These were just a few of my favorites. And, yes, I took a photograph of every single hankie. It eased my separation anxiety. Whatever works, right?

My mom found this one in the parking lot of her doctor's office

I told you all about how I almost freaked out when my dad told me he was going to use a letter opener. Well my possessiveness didn't stop there. I was thisclose to including some sort of instructions with our stds. It would have told guests how to open the envelope, some of the things they could do with the hankie (bring to the wedding for their tears of joy, wear as a pocket square, etc.) and, most importantly, that if they didn't want to keep the hankie to give it back to me instead of throwing it away. AHH, can you even imagine?! The thought of one of these at the bottom of a landfill makes me want to cry. But, I'm a reasonable (and somewhat sane) person and I know that including something like that would have been inexcusably rude. So I didn't. But I thought about it. And now they're out there and I have no more control. The good thing, though, is that we've received some great feedback from a few of our guests!

Did you become possessive of (or obsessed with) any of your wedding projects?

Read all about our save the dates here:

Part 1 (envelopes)
Part 2 (envelope liners)
Part 4 (reception tags)

for your tears of joy: stds part 2

See part 1 here. I think just about everyone should have received their save the dates by this point. Except for my uncle, so I guess that one got lost in the mail somewhere? Anywho. This is the view that most of our guests saw once they opened up their stds:


I say most because, unfortunately, Michael's didn't have enough paper doilies for me to make liners for all 100+ envelopes. Which brings me back to tip #1 - Figure out your entire project before mass producing! If I would have done this, I would have had plenty of time to gather all of my materials and order anything, if necessary.

After casually looking through the scrapbook paper at Michael's and Hobby Lobby early on and not seeing anything that would work as a liner, I resigned myself to not having them. Then inspiration struck in the decoupage aisle the weekend before my "due date" and I found these square paper doilies that fit perfectly in my envelopes! It was fate, I tell you. Not to mention, another thing added on to my list of last-second-things-to-accomplish-before-getting-these-in-the-mail. Luckily they were pretty easy and I got it done the Friday night before while hanging out with my good friends Stacy and Clinton.








These liners really ended up being that extra little something that our stds needed. And, of course, it made me hate sending out the "naked" envelopes - even though I know our guests wouldn't miss what they didn't know anything about. Then, when my dad told me that he almost opened theirs with a letter opener....aaak! I freaked out a tiny, little bit. I need to work on not being such a control freak/perfectionist.

Are you a follower of tip #1 when working on projects? Or do you just create and gather supplies as you go along?

Read all about our save the dates here:

Part 1 (envelopes)
Part 3 (handkerchiefs)
Part 4 (reception tags)

for your tears of joy: stds part 1

Our guests are starting to receive our save the dates!! I'm kind of impressed with the postal service - they were sent out Thursday afternoon and by Saturday they had already reached people in North Carolina, Florida and West Virginia. BUT. Not everyone has theirs yet, so I still can't do a full recap. However, I can start with the envelope since that won't reveal too much (and they aren't much of a surprise anyway due to this post). I'll work my way in from there, once they've all been received.


Our envelopes were Kraft paper, which I purchased from Paper Presentation. As much as I love Paper-Source, I'm not a fan of their Kraft paper and their prices were much higher. The Love sticker was a last second addition once I started sealing the envelopes and realized that some of them wouldn't stay closed. This was even after I started using my super-duper strength glue stick to seal them instead of just a damp sponge. I was worried that some would come open while making their way through the mail, and I already had sticker paper, so it was an easy fix.

This brings me to tip #1: Figure out your ENTIRE suite before you begin mass producing. It will save you time and possible frustration. If I had done this, I would have known far enough in advance that the envelopes didn't seal very well (not because of the actual envelopes, but because our stds were "puffy"). I would have been able to get my extra supplies far enough in advance, as well as the extra design work completed, instead of running around like a crazy person the weekend before I wanted to get them in the mail.

tip #2: Some mistakes are more expensive than others. For our Love labels, I downloaded a 2 inch round label template for the design and printed them on full sticker paper. When I went to cut them out with my 2 inch circle punch I noticed that I wasn't able to get a cut without part of the gray outline showing. So I hopped back on my computer, fixed the problem and printed out 5 copies for our 100 stds. Well, do you know what happens when you're cocky and confident that you fixed the problem and print 5 copies instead of only 1 to test your work? You waste 5 copies (and $$ - label paper is expensive!). So do as I say, not as I do and TEST YOUR WORK. Even if you are absolutely, positively sure that you did everything correctly - TEST YOUR WORK.

Did you learn any useful tips while working on your save the dates and/or invitations?

Read all about our save the dates here:

Part 2 (envelope liners)
Part 3 (handkerchiefs)
Part 4 (reception tags)