DIY Wedding Invitations - Lessons Learned

After 9 hours straight (yes, nine long hours) of working on our wedding invitations, I finally decided to call it a night. And while brushing my teeth just minutes ago, ideas popped into my head all of the sudden of how I could have done things differently in an easier and faster way. Sadly, I'm already nearing the end of this invitation making process and won't get a chance to implement my ideas. But I thought I would share it here for other brides who are also making their own invitations.

1. Mounting the Mat and Main Invitation onto the Pocket Fold

What I Did

The design of my invitations is a basic 5 x 7 Pocket Fold with a left and right panel. Both panels have an accent base mat. The left panel has the main invitation on white paper that is mounted on the top of the base mat (the main invitation measures about 1/8" smaller on each side than the base mat) The right panel of the pocket fold are the inserts. Once my invitations are mailed, I will definitely upload a picture so you can get a better idea of what I'm talking about. Anyway, when I mounted the base mat onto the left side of the pocketfold, I basically "eyeballed" the center of the panel. This was not exactly the ideal method and of course, I was never able to perfectly align it on each side. But, I am hoping that I did a decent enough job that the imperfections aren't immediately noticed. The same "eyeballing" method was used when I mounted the Main Invitation onto the base mat yielding the same inconsistent results. Also, because I was "eyeballing", it took me forever to get it just right such that the invitation would land almost perfectly in the middle of the mat base.

What I Should Have Done

When I had my "Aha!" moment, I was happy yet angry at the same time. Happy because I had finally figured out how to properly mount the paper but angry because I had already mounted all the paper I had and couldn't re-do them. Anyways, my "Aha!" moment is pretty simple and I really don't know why I hadn't thought of it sooner. What I should have done is measure from the top of the pocketfold 1/8" and then make a faint pencil mark (just a dot or something). Then, from the left side of the pocketfold, place my ruler such than it's 1/8" from the edge. All I would have to do from here is mount the base mat flush against the ruler on the left side and align the top to the pencil mark I made. Assuming that all of my paper were pre cut by professionals, the rest of the sides should have equal spacing of 1/8" from the edge of each side of the pocketfold panel. This same process would be applied for mounting the main invitation onto the base mat.

2. Design, Print, Cut

What I Did

For some reason, I found it much easier to design everything on PowerPoint. There, I was able to fit two insert panels per page (Inserts are: Main invitation, Direction insert, Accommodation insert, Reception insert, and RSVP insert). I then printed the design on an 8.5 X 11 Sheet of paper and painstakingly cut each and every sheet so that I could separate the two panels. Because I am making 150 invitations with a total of 5 inserts, that means that I cut 375 pieces of paper one by one (actually, so far only 300 sheets because I haven't cut the RSVP cards yet). I started printing this past Sunday and finished cutting paper by Wednesday which means that it took me approximately 17 hours to print and cut alone.

What I Should Have Done

The last thing I did tonight was print mailing addresses on each individual outer envelope through the top feeder of my printer. It was pretty easy and I did it through Microsoft Word. All I had to do was set the paper size to 5x7 (the size of my invites), type in the name and address in the middle of the page and print. I suppose the repetitive nature of the task finally beat it into my head that I really should have gotten my paper pre-cut at any office supply store. They can cut up to 100 sheets at a time in a matter of seconds and it only cost $1.50-$2 per cut (not per sheet of paper). Similar to what I did with the envelopes, I should have typed my design on Word with the page setting set on custom sized paper (just indicate what size I had my paper cut) and then fed the pre-cut paper through the top feeder of my printer. I anticipate that changing the process from Design in Power Point - Print - Cut to Design in Word - Cut - Print would have probably saved me 12 hours.

Despite the tedious work, I'm happy to report that the invitations are coming along really well. Hopefully, I can implement these ideas for some of my other friend's future weddings (if they choose to go the DIY route....which I hope they will ; ).

Pictures coming soon!

Prepare for Marriage

This past November, Joe and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary and for the most part, we've always felt like we already know everything there is to know about each other. What else is there to know? I know the look he gets when he's day dreaming in the car. I can tell exactly what he ate from the smell of his poo. And from the slightest change in the tone of his voice, I can tell if he's lied to me about something.

So as most brides, I've focused mainly on what needs to be done for the big day and little time getting to know my husband to be.

It was no surprise that I waited until the last minute to figure out how we would meet our Pre-Cana requirement to be married in the Catholic Church. We figured that with Joe's work schedule, it would be nearly impossible to make multiple trips to meet with our priest. Engaged Encounter weekend was our only option. Engaged Encounter is basically Pre-Cana compressed in one weekend. It's a retreat where you and your fiance discuss topics that really should be discussed before committing to a lifelong partnership. Topics range from how you will handle money as a married couple (by the way this is the #1reason people divorce!) to better communication skills. It's therapy - sponsored by the Catholic Church.

None of the topics discussed during the weekend were new to us. The main difference was that our conversations about them in the past were in passing. Typically, we would be faced with some challenge - money for example - of how we would split a certain expense - and that's when we'd talk about how we should handle money going forward. The Engaged Encounter setting forces you to talk about these topics and nothing else. There's not television in the background...there isn't someplace else you need to be.

Aside from committing the time to get to know each other better, the biggest benefit we got out of this was our general attitude toward our "trigger points". You know, the things that really irk people about each other. After a certain amount of years together, there are certain words or sentences...innocent as they may be...that could trigger crazy amounts of irritation. For Joe, it's probably my almost nightly request for a glass of water when he's already tucked himself comfortably in bed...and for me, it's the tone of his voice when I call him at work (because a customer pissed him off and I'm on the receiving end of the frustration). So back to what we learned about this (also applicable to alot of other situation), was surprisingly simple - "Decide to love".

{commence puking and sarcastic remarks from the audience}

Yes, the answer is simply to decide to love. Getting ready to get that last word in an argument and really stick it to them by bringing back some old issue? Decide to love instead and keep your mouth shut. Let the laundry sit there because you don't really care if it's folded or not? Decide to love instead and just fold the damn pile because you know that for some odd reason, it makes him crazy happy that you would.

We decide our emotions. We decide our actions.

Decide to love.

Wedding planning can be crazy. Almost every weekend on our calendars are already spoken for. But you have to set aside some time to prepare for marriage. For us, we sacrificed an already planned family vacation because it was literally the only weekend we could go. It was worth every penny ($350 for the weekend including meals for the both of us) and for you non-Catholic folks, you don't even have to be Catholic to go.

This is probably going to be the cheapest thing you'll spend in preparation for the wedding...but it's going to be the most worth while.