wedding wednesday

At this rate I don't think I'll ever make it to the ACTUAL wedding updates. I have 3000 pictures from the wedding day, so whenever I get around to that it will take me a good two months of wedding wednesdays to finish it up. Unless you want to see wedding pictures every day? I could handle that but I know most people couldn't. 

Right after we got engaged I started to look online for invitations. It was HARD. I was being extremely picky and getting frustrated that they didn't have exactly what I was looking for. Even when I found some that I liked, just didn't love, it would have cost me almost $2000 dollars. AKA more than my freaking wedding DRESS. There was no way that I was going to pay that for something that most people throw away. (I say most because I'm that freak who keeps every single one I have ever received.) 

Then a little light bulb went off - I wasn't going to find everything I wanted in an already made invitation. Why not have them custom made? I found an AMAZING designer and got the ball rolling. She actually is from Baton Rouge and lives on the same street as my sister-in-law, small world! I ended up combining two of her already made invitations so it was extremely affordable. 

The wedding colors were navy and yellow so I had her do the invites in a deep navy. The RSVP card is my favorite - to save on shipping costs (holy GEEZE that costs so much!) I decided to do a postcard - I found the cute wording on Pinterest. Where else?

I also decided to include a map since most of our guests were out-of-town guests. I found this designer on etsy and it was $10. Seriously, I couldn't believe it either. I was going to make it myself but I took on way too many DIY projects, so for $10 I call this one a major win. 

I printed them myself which also helped tremendously on reducing the costs. I found a great online printer - Cards & Pockets - and first ordered some sample papers to see what I liked. I ended up going with a white that has a hint of sparkle. (You can see it slightly in the first photo.) Nothing overwhelming, just a little extra touch to jazz it up a bit. And then I found the inner and outer envelopes online as well. 

I can't find a photo of the address part of the envelopes, but I printed those myself, too. I found a fancy font online and spent 397239 hours in front of my printer doing each one. But it paid off, they looked AMAZING and my work pays for my ink so it was free. I like free! For the return address I bought a stamp on Etsy.

That is what addressing hell looks like right there. All in all I spent less than $300 on everything - I think we sent out right around 200 invites. I'm sure I could have found cheaper than that, but $300 is way better than $2000. 

This was probably an extremely boring post for most of you, but I really loved our invites. Then again I am a really huge wedding nerd. Next week I promise I'll do something interesting - perhaps the rehearsal dinner. I think I had 5 margaritas that night...so that should reassure you that it was a good one.