Weddingbee boards

My fiance is hiking the Appalachian Trail for the six months before our wedding, and I was a bit concerned that our wedding and reception would turn into a 10 hour discussion of his hike on an endless loop. 

I thought that doing my own invitations (and save-the-dates, favors, decorations, menus, karaoke books) would help give me a *little* bit of the spotlight if they're done well.  Only time will tell if it works!

i voted for the third option... but in actuality all those those were true for me. i wanted something memorable even if most guests will end up throwing them away. at least i'll have a special keepsake for myself.

I'm doing our invitations because I got it in my head that it would be fun, and thought of a design I love (in my head still).  So, now I have to do them, because otherwise it has no chance of coming out like what I have in my head.  I taught myself Gimp, Inkscape, and some Gocco basics while designing our save the dates though, so at least I've gotten that out of the way.  We'll see if the finished product is even close to what I have in my head, but I will at least feel good about sending something from the heart... :)

I picked the first option, but I'm really in between the first two.  I knew I was going to design my own invites, I'm too much of an individualist and a perfectionist not to.  But it was the production aspect that I most struggled with.  I was in love with letterpress, but commercial letterpress was so expensive, but I also loved the fact that this could be something handmade that we could do together.  I determined I wasn't happy with the cost of commercial letterpress, or the quality of the less expensive thermography printers.  And my husband offered to build me a letterpress!  In the end, we probably didn't save much if any money, but they turned out beautifully and I learned some valuable lessons about not procrastinating and knowing when to be less of a perfectionist. :)

(click to see larger)