A Very Slow Start To Wedding Crafts

Hello everyone.  While we are still awaiting the photos from the professional photographer, I thought I could share two wedding craft projects I made for Bethany's wedding, one huge project and one mini project.  The first is the HUGE project:  The wedding invitations.

The invitations were a bit of a hybrid project.  The tools I used were my computer, printer, purchased dies, my Vagabond (which was a lifesaver in this project), and my on-line digital account.

I purchased the chocolate brown folios from My Gatsby, a wonderful source for DIY invitations and stationary.  I also purchased white metallic finish heavy card stock on which to print the invitation wording. I was able to use MS Word and set up my file so that I printed 3 invitations on each 8.5 x 11 inch sheet. A word of advice, the metallic finish card stock will need to be printed on a laser printer or copied on a heat set copier as the ink will smear if you attempt to use an ink jet printer.

I used two dies (from the same set) to create the focal point of the invitation, one for the lace embossed back layer, and the insert for the words section, which is also cut and embossed.  I used Champagne card stock for the lace layer, cutting four from each 12 x 12 inch sheet. The two cuts were glued together and glued to the center of the folio.

For the folio pock fillers, I had a simple RSVP card and printed self addressed, stamped envelop.  I also had four inserts. I used 4 x 8 inch photo card size templates to create the inserts.  Knowing that my folio was 7 inches tall, I made the shortest insert 4 inches tall and added 1 inch in length to each card.

A word about the cards:  The shortest card, Accommodations, included the hotel information for the two hotels where I reserved blocks of rooms for the guest, including name, address, rates, and any special information like "breakfast included".  I was able to print two of these per card which was nice as this was the card used the most, second only the regular RSVP.

The second from the bottom card, Rehearsal Activities, is an invitation from the Groom's family to all family and all out of town guests to join them on July 4th for a full day of food, games, swimming, low country boil, and fire works.  The grooms family put so much work into the rehearsal day and it was a huge success!  I created this card so that the bottom three inches were cut off, making it 4 x 5 inches.

The top two cards may seem a bit odd to some of you.  The Bridal Breakfast (or brunch) is, I believe, a South Carolina tradition.  I first heard of a bridal brunch 12 years ago at my niece's wedding when her aunts from SC planned the brunch.  Since then, living in SC, I have come to realize that this is a normal wedding activity.

The Bridal Breakfast invitations was sent to all bridesmaids and ladies of both families.  We had 35 guests and it was a wonderful start to the wedding day.  I used the same 4 x 8 card, but made it so that the bottom two inches were cut off.

The Groom's Luncheon was something that Doug and I made up!  He found that not enough men were interested in a golf outing to justify planning that, so we decided to go with a casual lunch for the Groom, groomsmen, and men of both families.  Doug hosted a build a burger bar with pub fries and beverages at the Aiken Brewing Company.  I do not want to discuss the ultimate bar bill!

Each of the top three inserts had a clip off response section with instructions to include the clip off section in envelop with your RSVP.  This system worked very well and we were able to track our numbers very accurately.

Above is the monogrammed J & B decorative emblem for the front of the invitation folios.

We sent out a little over 100 invitation to 207 people.  I was so thankful for my Vagabond that I was not cranking the dies through my manual machine.  Yay for electric die cut/embossing machines!

I told you that I would also share a mini-project with you today.  This is the little banner I made for the front of the cards bird cage.   As you can see below, the cage looked quite nice on the gifts table, even if someone did block it with a large box. I happened by the table and unburied the cards cage!

I am truly hoping that I will have more professional photos soon that might show more of the items I crafted for the wedding and bridal breakfast.

Thanks for stopping by today and checking out these two wedding projects.