The Only Thing That Could Keep Me Away From Blogging…
…was my wedding invitations. And they did keep me away from blogging (and checking/answering email, reading other people’s blogs, and otherwise enjoying myself) for well over a week. I’m not quite sure I’m back into the swing of things yet; we’ll see.
Anyvay, these invitations became the bane of my existence. To save money, my friend said she would help me design them. GREAT! Only problem: I spent well over 40 hours on them, at least 10 of them we were working on the design. Hmm…at that rate, my time is worth, oh, I don’t know, about $.02 an hour. Looks like I probably should have bit the bullet and bought them pre-made. Too late now; they’re done and I’m already getting RSVPs back (albeit with additional guests I wasn’t counting on, but I’m getting them back nonetheless).
I apologize in advance for the poor pictures…I just want this period of my life behind me already! I seriously doubt I’ll ever look back on this with fondness. The wedding day I’ll definitely love, but this whole planning thing and spending every hard-earned penny on wedding stuff (because every time I turn around THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE TO BUY)…mmm, no. If I ever have to do this again (knock on wood I don’t!) I’m eloping.
I tink you’ll be able to click on the images to enlarge them, but I’m not positive. If not, get out your magnifying glass.
So this is what people see when they first open up the envelope (the envelope was lined in that fancy shmancy green florentine paper btw). Not bad so far, eh? (I love saying eh.)
Hmm…the quality of this photo isn’t looking that great when I insert it into this post. Hopefully it’ll correct itself when I publish this. Anyway, see that there’s basically three borders around the actual invitation? Yeah, I had to cut all of those. And see how the outer edge and the edge around the invitation are the same? Well, to save money, my friend and I thought I’d just cut out the smaller box out of the bigger box…which easily took 5 hours. Can you guess how much money I saved? $2.40.
This is a closer-up of the invitation. That ampersand in the middle? That’s supposed to be green, but I couldn’t afford the color printing at Kinko’s… 
Oof, that looks horribly pixelated. It doesn’t look like that in real life, I promise. This was the amazing part of the invitations. There’s three inserts that are printed are gradually darker shades of green. My friend copied part of the design from the florentine paper and made it so that when the cards were lined up, the design would flow across the three inserts, but when you take it apart, you’d never know that the picture is part of a whole. Here’s the inserts individually (sorry about the poor pictures!!!):
So that’s it. I feel like I should have birthed these things with the amount of time (and money…) that I put into these. Hopefully the rest of my projects are not nearly as time consuming, because I don’t know how much more I can legitimately call in ‘sick’ (it was only two days, I swear!). 
| Tags: invitations, Wedding 17 comments »
April 28th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Hi Trishie Trish! Goodness, I wrote to you and I thought you were mad at me. Now I see all the beauty and wonder that kept you away. They are gorgeus and absolutely worth it! *says me who never had to do it herself AND if she ever does, IS Eloping!
With that said, I expect an answer to my emails now, some funny posts to keep me laughing and MY FRIEND Back. I mean who else am I going to laugh at with such predictability! And what did you do without Raych’s posts? I know you needed a good DOINK to laugh at (oooh that almost sounded kinky! lol)
See what you do to me! Anyway, I miss you much sweetie! I’m glad you’re back!
Hugs and love,
Amy
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April 28th, 2008 at 4:45 am
I think they are gorgeous! I always make all of my invitations, Christmas cards and announcements too. Every single time I think that there are adorable ones that I could buy but…..I also rarely end up saving money!
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April 28th, 2008 at 5:15 am
They’re gorgeous! Good job.
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April 28th, 2008 at 5:43 am
extremely gorgeous! wow! very, very nice.
We missed you, -Care
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April 28th, 2008 at 8:15 am
I missed you.
Your invitations are lovely. I remember thinking I’d do mine myself and how much money we’d save, and then there I am at the Staples with the flu using their paper cutter to cut out dozens of photos, and then gluing and cutting and sticking and ACK!
I want to say that surely nothing else will take quite as long, but I don’t know what you have planned for centerpieces.
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April 28th, 2008 at 8:28 am
BeYOUteeful!
But, good God, what a lot of work!!!
Someday you’ll look back on this and .. grumble, LOL.
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April 28th, 2008 at 8:49 am
they are soooo unique! love them! wow…the big day is really around the corner (nothing like a little pressure from your blogging buddies, right?!). what’s left on your ‘to do’ list?!
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April 28th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Wow! Those are absolutely gorgeous. Great job!
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April 28th, 2008 at 9:56 am
those are gorgeous!
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April 28th, 2008 at 11:38 am
They’re great looking, and I think they suit your personality, so you should be glad (in retrospect) that you spent all that time working on them.
I can’t imagine your invitations being all flowery and fluffy.
BTW — I’m coming and bringing 50 of my closest friends. Don’t worry, we’ll all give you great gifts, like the wonderful banana-shaped ice-cream sundae set that I have stashed somewhere in my garage. I think it’s next to the “salad shooter” that someone gave me for my wedding. Maybe I’ll give you that instead.
Oh, and I want beef or seafood. No chicken.
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April 28th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Even though the money savings wasn’t what you hoped, they sure came out beautiful (and totally original)!
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April 28th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I think they’re lovely, Trish! And I do agree with you about the preparations being a headache, I too had a hard time gjoing through all the stuff but it worth everything!! Thanks for sharing with us.
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April 28th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Trish, I was wondering.. where are you two crazy kids going on your honeymoon?
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April 28th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Nice work! They are really pretty! I love the color.
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April 29th, 2008 at 3:01 am
I created my own wedding invitations too…but yours surpass anything I attempted!! They look awesome!! Very professional!! Very beautiful!
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April 29th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Simply beautiful!! I love them! Like you, I also made my own wedding invitations and if I had to go back and do it again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Even though it’s hard, in the end it’s so worth it! Here in Utah, there are some pretty non-impressive, ugly wedding invitations. I hate them. I think invitations set the tone for the entire event and I can tell from yours that you’re wedding is going to be AWESOME!
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April 29th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
[...] All of this to say, Melody at Melody’s Reading Cornerhas more than flattered me by bestowing me with the BFF Gold Card Award. What makes this even better is that I LOVE HER BLOG TOO. And it came at a perfect time: when I was knee deep in invitation hell. [...]