The invitations. Pardon me while I ramble.

{Invitation shop in Navsari, Gujarat}

Julie's wedding invitations are out!  Such.A.Relief.  I feel like all the big items are done.  Now it's just the details.  Or is it more appropriate to say, all the huge items are done and now all that is left is the big items?  Either way, I felt like I had just finished my last final when we finished the last invite. 

So, before I left for India, Julie basically gave me free reign on the invitations since we were short on time.  Since I am such a paper person, I took this job pretty seriously and went to India armed with my own fonts.  I sort of hate the fonts that always seem to be used on Indian invitations.  Here you have these beautiful invitations on amazing paper and then they go and slap some Times New Roman in italics on them. So, I narrowed my font choices down to my top 10 faves for Julie to approve and took her favorite with me to India. 

Invitation shopping wasn't exactly the awe inspiring event I thought it would be.  I've seen some beautiful wedding invitations in my time so this was secretly the one task I was dying to get to, but the three places I was able to visit didn't have anything that left me speechless like I'd hoped to blog about. I had dreams of custom made invitations, but those dreams were shattered pretty quickly when Julie's parents saw how expensive it would be. :")

I wanted something elegant, but something a little different. I also wanted something colorful, but the one invitation I fell in love with was the one invitation that lacked color. But I figured we'll make up for it with the wedding. :)  So, while I didn't come back waving a flag of valor, I am pretty proud of them. They look kind of awesome.

Forgive the bad photos. I've tried to take pics in all kinds of light and the shimmer on the invites just do not allow good pics.

The inner envelope caught my eye out of the stacks and stacks of invitations I went thru because of this gold embellishment. It looked really modern next to the traditional invitations I was seeing. After visiting three vendors, the invitations were all looking the same or too typical, so at the end of the day, these stood out to me. I sent a snap of them to Julie and she loved them.    

We had a girls night one night and knocked out the bulk of the invitations. So I took advantage of the extra hands and had Mandy and Melanie round all the corners. Yes, details are important to me.   

The inside cards for all the events are all staggered like most invitations are. I originally wanted different colored cards for the different events, but the options this vendor had were not what I had in mind. And at the end of the day, the colored cards would not have looked right with the invite.  So, I left it alone.

We went with gold ink as opposed to the brown ink it originally came with because I felt the gold ink would give it a bit more glam.  And it does.

We took some time to address the outer envelopes. I rigged up my Silhouette with my own metallic pen, some cardstock, and some crazy taping skillz and got it to address a few of them for us.  I'll explain this a bit more in the next  post as I've already received a few questions about it.

I was on a roll until the third night of invitation assembly, so at the end of the day we had to settle for hand addressing the bulk of them. But, Julie lucked out there. As Kelly put it, Julie is really lucky to have friends that basically practice their handwriting as a hobby. So between Kelly and myself, we finished addressing the invitations that were left.

Before I left, I also had Julie send me images of a ganesh that she liked just in case I saw anything I wanted to have custom made with it. Came in handy because this invite did not come with a ganesh on it already and I didn't want the job of deciding which ganesh to go with. So I had them add the ganesh on the corner of the invite.

I am very pleased with the quality of the invitations. It makes me giddy to see them. When Julie brought them over for the first time, I got a little misty eyed. I love the invites, but I also love seeing her name on a wedding invitation. *Sigh*

Huge props to a preggars Kelly, Mandy, and Melanie for being apart of the invitation committee.  We couldn't have finished in 2012 without you guys. 

Party Like a Princess

Recently, I had the opportunity to use my powers for good rather than evil.  My Seester's coworker, Brenda, asked me to make some invitations for her daughter's 1st birthday.  All I had to hear was "princess party" and I was all over it.

Since Brenda had a clear vision of what she wanted, the only thing I had to worry about was ruining this little girl's first birthday party with horribly constructed invites.  No pressure. 

This is what Brenda fell in love with.

{image via Paper Chick}

Obviously, Paper Chick is in a whole other league from me, but I told Brenda I would see what I could do. So I got to work and tried to figure out how to produce something that would end up being the same concept Brenda wanted minus the skills Paper Chick has. This is what I came up with.  

Naturally, I consulted my Precious my Silhouette.  Side note...The more I work with my Silhouette, the more I feel like I become invisible and am consumed by crafty thoughts.  Love that machine.  Anyway, the Silhouette offers a couple dress options, but nothing that would work as is, so I chose this shape and modified it slightly to fit what I envisioned.  I made sure that the invite would fit in a standard A7 envelope and that there would be enough room on the skirt to fit the text Brenda wanted.

I recently saw The Count of Monte Cristo and was a bit enamored with the invites he sent for the extravagant ball he threw for himself.  The font was basically consistent throughout the invite and I felt like it looked really regal that way.  So I kept the font consistent despite my inclination to use one or two more.  I think it made this particular invite look really girly. And what's more girly than a princess party?? 

For the details, I chose pink tulle and pink ribbon. You can't really tell the tulle is pink, but it has a sparkle to it that the white tulle didn't have so I basically had to use it.  I have a reputation to uphold after all.  And just because I think pink and pearls go together like tulle and ribbon, I added a pearl at the neckline. 

I couldn't get a good shot of the tulle - the light wasn't working with me this morning - so here it is from another angle. 

And just because I thought they looked so cute all together, I had to share a snap of them all packed up. 

With as much love as Brenda has poured into making her daughter's 1st birthday a true celebration, I can't help but be honored to have had a small part in it.  Thanks, Brenda.