Saturday, January 30, 2010

There's no backing out now...

Well, it's official...our invitations were dropped in the mail today.  So I guess there's no way that Mr Fix It and I can back out now ;)

Here's a few final photos of the finished product.  I showed the original invites when I received the mockup back here.   However, after showing them to Mr Fix It, he had one main request - change the font on the invites to something a little bit more 'formal' and not so simple and plain.  Whatever...I accommodated his request and here is the final invite as we sent it out:

* As always, note the colors are not represented well at all...they look green in this pic instead of the aqua color.   :(



Did you see that I added some little crystal rhinestones to the invites to bling them up a bit...love it! 

And here are the envelope wraps my sister and I created as well as the fun little personalized photo stamp I bought from stamps.com.  Yeah, they're heavy invites and so we had to pay $0.61 per envelope.  BE SURE TO TAKE A SAMPLE OF YOUR INVITE INTO THE POST OFFICE TO HAVE THEM WEIGH AND CONFIRM POSTAGE NEEDED BEFORE YOU MAIL YOUR INVITES!!!



I didn't take a pic of the back side of the envelope but it wraps all the way around to the back where our return address is on the back side.  The graphic also wraps around to the back as well.


Sorry the stamp pic is blurry...I really need a new camera.


All boxed up just before I left for the post office:



Well, that's it...98 invitations from our 'A list' have been dropped in the mail today.  This is 11 weeks before our wedding...about 3 weeks earlier than when they typically suggest you mail them out (6-8 weeks).  But we are giving them 5 weeks to respond.  I know that's early to respond to a wedding that's still 6 weeks away, but we won't be sticklers about people absolutely returning their response by that date.  We just needed to do this to assist with confirming those that absolutely will not be coming (most likely because they're out of state).  This way, it allows us to confirm those that cannot attend so that we can still mail out a few 'B list' invites to local friends we had to cut :(  At the same time, it gives us plenty of time to call people who are lazy about returning their RSVP card.  Especially since our caterer needs the final head count 3 weeks before the big day.

As the no's roll in, we'll mail out a few additional invites to our B listers (hopefully) and then give them an extra 4 weeks to respond (since they didn't get their invite as early).  Either way, the guest list is stressing me out big time...but that's a post for another day.  All I will say for now is let's just pray that at least 23 people out of 221 will respond that they cannot come.  Fingers crossed!

What do you think of the finished invite?  Are/Did you go the envelope wrap route or did you use calligraphy, handwriting or computer printed envelopes?

17 comments:

kmattso2 said...

They're gorgeous! I love the rhinestones you added!
You're doing exactly what I'm hoping to do with an A and B list. We're absolutely tapping out our guest list, so I'm unfortunately hoping we get some no's right away so I can add in a few more people!

Belinda C said...

They look fantastic! We're doing the same thing with the A and B list thing. Our venue is already very small as it is (sits about 90 guests, not including our table, if I cram 10 per table) but we're going more for 72 guests (8 per table) for comfort.
And yeah...we will be allowing time for us to make phone calls to those procrastinating types.
Oh, and I really LOVE those envelope wraps! I'm still debating on doing those or not.... =)

Shannon said...

They look beautiful! Stunning! I think we're going to use similar wording for the beginning part of our invites as you :)

My Dream Ring said...

They are so beautiful, love the design. CONGRATS!!!

Heather said...

They look beautiful, and what a great feeling it must be to mail them! I say don’t worry about sending them out early. We’re sending ours out early and requesting the responses earlier than usual, too. Since my last trip out to California will be in April, I’d like to have a basic count by then so that I can go over the reception room layout in person, etc. I think it will work out just fine for you. :)

Kim said...

They are beautiful! I am a sucker for rhinestones. Do you know ti name of the script font you used? I am in a world of font pains right now and can't make up my mind - your fonts work so well together!

Sarah said...

Love the invites! I think they turned out awesome. And I agree with your fiance, I like the formal writing better.
As for the actual guest list, if you wanted close friends why did you invite others? I'm assuming this is family related and you didn't want to offend anyone, but just curious. I know we'll have to be cutting down people because we are topping out at 200 and my MIL gave us 100 from HER side only! Umm, 100 for my husbands side includes his Dad's side too! Needless to say its going to take some serious cutting out. We however won't be having a B list. Whoever gets cut, stays cut.

Born to be Mrs. Beever said...

Sarah Ann: Yep, it's because we had to add family first obviously and therefore had to cut local friends :( that I really hope we get to invite. I have several family members out of state that I had not even originally planned on sending an invite since I haven't talked to some of them in 15+ years! But then out of the freaking blue they send me e-mails and phone calls saying they can't wait to see us at the wedding!!! So of course, I can't cut family before friends, no matter how distant. Anyway, some of them who originally said they were definitely coming are now flaking out. Thus we decided to go with the B list with the anticipation that many who said they would come, won't...and this will allow us to invite those that we really want there.

Gaynor {Our Day by Design} said...

I love the invites, they look great, must be so exciting to have them posted! I think pocketfolds look great but I would say that since we are having them too!

I'm currently sitting in a sea of card, paper and glue, making the seals for our ribbon enclosures for our pocketfolds! On the plus side everything else is printed and ready to hopefully assemble tomorrow and post on Monday!

Genevieve said...

Wow! They are beautiful!

Em said...

Loooove them! Love them so so so much! Right now we're deciding whether to write the envelopes ourselves or make labels. I really love your labels. Is there any way you could do a tutorial on how you made them? Again, they look great!!

The Professional Bridesmaid said...

They look amazing. I love the wraparounds. And the little rhinesones are so cute. Well done! Congrats.

Sophia said...

I just realized that aqua is your color... and mine are blue and green shades. I just learned a few days ago that turquoise is the color of the year for 2010... and that's just around our colors! Isn't that awesome? :-D

GM said...

Love them! I want to do wrap-around labels for our invites as well.

We're also hoping 20 or so people can't come (which is horrible to say because we want everyone to be able to come, but we've budgeted for 20 people less than we're inviting!)

Mrs T said...

They look great. I love the little extra bling too! Address wraps and those stamps are super cute too.

I felt strange sending my invites out too. It sort of makes it real.

Crossing my fingers your RSVP's are easier than ours were!

honey my heart said...

amazing look and details :) the personalized stamps are perfection.

Salt said...

Oh dag...those are absolutely GORGEOUS!

Ours are going to be so casual that I'm just going to handwrite. I have pretty neat handwriting. :)

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