A few weeks ago I decided to hire an E&I alumn to design my invitations! I remembered back when she posted about her own invitations, here, and I had to find out if she was still designing. Well, she was! And she has been the best, most helpful designer I could have asked for. Click here to visit Kimberly's website.

I wasn't sure I could do custom-designed invitations while staying within my budget. But with the few special things I wanted to incorporate on my invites, it was going to be hard to just order them through a template. So I reached out to Kim and she walked me through the process and quickly turned me from being totally overwhelmed with not knowing what to do, into being really excited about all of the options. She also helped navigate the printing process and recommend some different printers.

We are now collaborating about the design and figuring out the wording. With all the options, it can be tough to pick which direction to go in...do you want them to be silly, funny, quirky, formal, religious, simple...the list goes on. I have been leaning in the direction of making them sweet and personal. Here are some I'm liking.

Source

Like the wording on these - "...invite you to join them on a most spectacular day..." and "...invite you to share in their true love and marriage..."

Invitation Wording2 Source: left, right

The one on the right is sweet - "All the Roads led to you. You're invited to celebrate the start of a new path for..."

right

Source: left, right

I like the ends of these: "dinner, dancing and revelry to follow!" and "Dancing, Drinks and fun to follow"

If you are trying to figure out the wording for your invitations, Invitation Consultants and Offbeat Bride are some great resources. The first has a TON of great ideas for different situations - eloping, destination weddings, how to include parents' names, etc. The second has some more quirky and funny ideas.

How did you pick your invitation wording?

This weekend my goal was to send out our save the dates. With my job, I design invitations to all kinds of events all the time, however it was very fun to finally get to design something that was entirely for me and JB. This has probably been the most daunting job for me simply because of the inspiration overload that I keep talking about. From letterpress, to printed balloons and magnets to film strips, here are some of my very favorites.

one, two, three, four, five, six

JB and I have been together for almost six years (2.5 of which were in high school), because of this we have done a TON of monumental things together from attending senior prom to venturing abroad to moving in to college dorms. I wanted a way to remind people of all the things we've done together in a simple, concise and adorable way...enter, the punch card.

We are punch card fanatics, if your restaurant has a punch card, you better bet that we'll fill that card for the free froyo, sandwich...So we decided to combine our love of punch cards with a list of the things we've done together and there you have it, a *hand-punched* punch card ending with an un-punched "Vow I do."

Kraft envelopes are my favorite and with my mom's swirly handwriting they are the perfect amount of whimsy and handmade. The one thing I wish I could have done was to use antique stamps on the envelopes (like number six above), but when I really looked at my budget, it just wasn't something I chose to do. I ordered the rubber stamps with our return address and the heart with "JB and Taylor" from RubberStamps.net and even though it said 7-10 days, they had it to me in 5. Plus on this site, you can easily upload any .jpg image, see a preview and order a stamp (aka you can use your own handwriting for a stamp to make everything look perfectly handmade).

Next, on to the invitations! I want something more elegant for the invites, but still modern and fun. My mom is an incredible artist, so I would love to use her work. What do you think, hand painting, watercolor, more with the modern typography like the save the dates, what's your pick?