My ideas for a DIY wedding began roughly twenty-five years ago. When I was in my teens I worked after school and on the weekends for a photographer who shot a lot of weddings. I saw military, church, and backyard weddings and I got to see the "behind the scenes" drama as well as the ceremonies and receptions. One of the things that I saw time and time again, was that the weddings that were designed to be the most beautiful were often the least fun. I learned that expense created beautiful pictures but not necessarily beautiful memories. I heard many brides say that they missed the whole day because they were so concerned with how things looked that they missed what really happened.
I have always loved to make things and a wedding, especially my wedding will give me the chance to make things that I love! I have fifteen months and some change before our projected date so I have lots of time to plan. I'll let you know our victories and defeats, and I'll solicit ideas and advice as well as sharing my experience, strength and hope...
Today I stopped by Michaels on the way to work and picked up a paper cutter with one of my 40% coupons. While DIY is often much more affordable than premade anything, it's super cheap with an additional discount. Michaels has 40% coupons almost every week. I buy a double paper on Sundays for $3 here in Dallas and that gives me two coupons to buy wedding supplies with! For anyone who hasn't signed up on the Michaels website, I would recommend it because they also email coupons on weeks when they don't have coupons in the paper. According to my math, if I buy all the supplies for my invitations at 40% off, I will be able to make my two-part super cute one-of-a-kind "I designed it myself" wedding invitations for less than it will cost to mail them!!!
About the design for my invites: I fell in love with these invitations from paper-source.com. In playing around with the design I discovered I could make the petal envelope in two peices and have two places to put information, the inner frame would hold the wedding info and the outside frame would have the reception info on it. The actual design is ridiculously simple. I took a CD and traced the circle. Then I left about 1/8 of an inch between and then I drew another circle with the CD. I used a ruler to make straight lines from one circle to the next. I then made a square in the center of the two circles. By laying the two pill shapes in a cross, I could fold the half circles over and tuck them into a box fold, which makes the pretty flower shape. I used double sided scrapbook paper in a fall palate for my pill shapes, solid scrapbook paper to make a square and then used a corner punch to curve the edges of the solid square frame, and I'll have all my info printed on cream tag board, and cut into a rounded square about 1/4" smaller than the framing square. (See pictures at the top of the blog or email me with additional questions.)
My invitations are for an informal wedding so I am skipping the "belly band" and am not putting it in an envelope. I will put a seal on the back, and I'll use labels I print off the computer to address them. I know that every book in the universe says one HAS TO address wedding invitations by hand, but as I am already hand-making the invitations and am adding approximately a zillion touches to make sure that every guest feels personally welcomed and appreciated, I feel comfortable breaking that rule. I have found that the up-side to being a first time bride who is over forty, is that there are very few people who are brave enough to tell me I HAVE TO do anything, including the bridal books!
To save on paper costs and postage, and because my friends aren't necessarily the RSVP kind, I'm just including the address for this blog, and friends who would like to give me the heads up can send me an email. This is becoming more acceptable with wedding invitations, as saving on paper is considered "going green." I will also use my stamp to make round stickers for my favors and to use on my thank you notes. I'll make sure to share those DIY ideas as well.
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