Wedding Craft #2: The Wedding Invites

I can't tell you all how long I've been dying to post images of the invites that Brian and I created for our wedding. Of course, I seem to have misplaced the memory card which contains images of us creating our little invites! Luckily, I found a few extra invites laying around the house and some pictures from my iPhone. I just couldn't wait any longer to share these!

We spent a good 1-4 months trying to agree on a font. That was probably the hardest part of this whole process. Once we agreed, it all went fairly smoothly. I had to burn a few YUDU screens to get the letters nice and sharp and that was a bit of a process. Though, that process turned me into a YUDU screen making pro, so it's all good.

Using the screen above, I screen printed approximately 250 hankie invites. It was fun. Tiring, but fun. My entire apartment was covered in freshly inked invites, except for a tiny trail for me to walk (pictures of this are on my missing memory card, which I will post when I find it). The process took me a good long time, so by the time I was done, it was conveniently time for bed. After the hankies were dry, in the morning, Brian came by and ironed each one down, to lock in the ink. Each hankie had it's own unique pattern, making them all really special.

Our invites didn't stop there. We really wanted to create a vintage feel to them, so I consulted the archives at the Pasadena Public Library, to see if they had any old images of Castle Green (the venue of our wedding reception). I was conveniently interning at the Pasadena Public Library at the time, so that really helped. When we found an image we liked, I designed a post card, based on an old postcard image I saw online, changing up a few things. I included a silhouette cutout that Brian and I got done at Disneyland, which became one of the elements we repeated throughout our signage at the wedding.

These postcards became our rsvp cards. We used a circular, fancy paperclip to attach each stamp (I couldn't pre-cover the great postage area on the postcard). It was really fun to get these back in the mail... although, many of my friends opted to keep their postcards and just let me know their responses over the phone - also good. Having these postcards is an instant keepsake of our special day, so I'll hang on to them for as long as I can.

I also designed an additional postcard, which included a map and reception information.

We didn't really stop there. I really love the look of lined envelopes, and I wanted to tie in our love of music, books, and libraries - especially since a lot of this was going to happen at our wedding. So, Brian went to work and cut out and glued all of our envelope liners, which we made out of old discarded music books from one of the libraries I work at. Not to worry - we didn't cut into anything valuable, I checked... and so did the librarians at my work, before discarding them.

As Brian cut and lined envelopes, I was printing them, using our silhouette.

Then folding them delicately into their envelopes. We had a good 150 or so go out. Not a small task! After the wedding, we received this amazing package in the mail from our friends Rose and Danny.

It was our invitation, turned beautifully into a pillow by the talented Salty Oat! So adorable! Notice the beautiful embroidery along the flowers... and the back of the pillow is just perfect!

This pillow is particularly exciting because we are in the process of creating a wedding quilt as well... which I will disclose more about in another post!

Up Next: Wedding favors.