My Wedding Planning: DIY Wedding Invitations

                    All photos in this post taken by my talented brother, Noah Zinsmeister                                         
Today's wedding planning post is a big one! Of all the elements that went into preparing for our wedding day, I believe I spent the most time on our invitations. I don't think I'll ever forget the hours I spent that June and July of 2011 at my parents' dining room table tying ribbons, cutting paper, embossing and stuffing envelopes. Not to mention all of the fun choices I got to make that spring about fonts, colors, beautiful papers, and overall design. Suffice it to say that I loved it--those hours were very well spent!

As I mentioned in a previous post, all of the supplies for our invitations came from the Paper Source. We heard about the Paper Source from a friend of my mom's whose daughter made her own wedding invitations too. Little tips from friends can make such a difference!

I got started by attending a wedding workshop at the Brooklyn store, where we learned the basics about how to style our own wedding invitations using their paper and supplies. This was great--there are so many color choices, and enclosure types (I didn't even know what an enclosure was before the workshop!) and envelope sizes and styles to choose from when designing wedding invitations, and the women running the workshop were so helpful.

                                               

We had a winter wedding and our colors were cream, gold, and rhubarb (a dusty rose). So for the invitations, I decided on cream paper for the invitations, RSVP card, reception card, and the outer envelope. I used rhubarb for the enclosure that would hold all of the smaller pieces, as well as for the little RSVP envelope. And I used gold paper to line both envelopes and gold ribbon to tie around the enclosure. By the way, my family thought I was absolutely crazy for tracing, cutting out, and gluing in my own envelope liners! But I think in the end, they saw how beautiful this extra touch was. 

                                                          

The sketch that you see above is The Lincklaen House, the historic hotel and restaurant in my hometown where we held our reception. (On the back of this card is the information on the time and location of the reception.) I found this sketch very randomly one day in my old room--it was from a set of note cards and this was the last one left. We had just decided to hold our reception here and I thought it would be lovely to scan the sketch and include it in our invitations. Thanks to my dad's scanning expertise, it worked perfectly!

We designed the fonts and layouts and wordings ourselves, but we did outsource the actual printing. The print shop at the local college where my mom worked at the time did a lovely job (at a very reasonable price). We brought them the paper, and they printed and cut everything to size. 

Above is our wedding program, which we also designed and made ourselves. I remember cutting and hole-punching and tying these little ribbons with my husband and brother and parents over Thanksgiving. I love those memories!

Paper used for Invitation, RSVP card, Reception card and Wedding Program // Color: Luxe Cream

Outer Envelope // Color: Luxe Cream

Enclosure for Invitation, Reception Card, and RSVP card and envelope // Color: Rhubarb

RSVP Envelope // Color: Rhubarb

Paper used to line outer envelope and RSVP envelope // Color: Antique Gold

Ribbon // Color: Vintage Gold

Labels for Guest Addresses (not pictured) // Color: Superfine Soft White

(DIY Envelope Liner Template Kit)

(Embosser for return address on outer envelope)