The Story of our Invitations

    Shawn and I are very budget conscious. If there is an element we can improvise and re-allocate our resources, we will. We did with our invitations.


     Everyone says your invitation is a reflection of your event, and sets the tone to your guests in advance. My personal feeling about our invitations, was that I wanted an initial "aww" when our guests opened it, knowing it would get tossed eventually. We included magnets with our invites as  favors to our invited, and also as  tool to keep them reminded. Its sort of like a save the date/invitation. I felt the need to send them early this way because our reception is on a Friday, and people should be aware of this (especialy out-of towners). Our guests get a present just for being in our lives, even if they can't come.  Presents are fun!

  One side was printed cardstock with the details and on the other, we attached the magnets with photo corners. We got the magnets from Costco, as my sister did the same for her save-t-d's. It was super affordable, and we didn't have to have memberships. Plus, then sent us extra :)!

The photo on the bottom left was taken in an actual photo booth in Florida.Top, Photo shop tweaking, I used this font for nostalgia.

   We scored the paper for the invitations at TJMaxx, of all places! I got 2 boxes of multi-colored, texturized, scalloped edged cardstock notecards, with envelopes. The rsvp cards were smaller notecards. Two boxes of those, all for about $22. Earlier this year I shopped around at Sam Flax and on-line shops and was convinced I could do it for cheaper. It really didn't matter to me that they were all different colored because I don't really have colors. No bridesmaids dresses to refer to!

I thought about doing an on-line rsvp, or just a post card to save money and paper, but really, its so much easier for guests to pop a SASE in the mail. I feel that if we are requesting their presence, its the least we could do, plus we already had the envelopes. I spent about the same on stamps than on the paper+magnet combo, but we always need stamps, right?

 Its so worth it!!! I think we pulled it off, as I have received 3 Rsvps so far, and a few praises on our creation! Oddly, we received two envelopes that weren't sealed. The RSVP was intact, so no big. Just Odd?

Sweet Hubbs did the collating and the printing.

Hard at work.

Bully did absolutely nothing to help.

The book I used for reference. My mom's had this for ages.

Rsvp's inspired by tickets.

Our invitations.

Ready to go out! 

I tried to do some cool design with stamps but didn't quite work out. So I have about 100 1cent stamps.
Other expenses are a return address stamp $20 online, and an acorn stamp for the other side of the envelope, $5, from Michaels.

Martha Stewart Weddings.com really helped me with ideas, as well as other wedding blogs, in particular A Homegrown Wedding. Check out their Save-t-d's here. I am such an amateur!

Oh, I forgot to print the rsvp date, so please as soon as you can??? I still have to send out 4 more. Yikes, better go!