Hey That’s A Nice Life

Okay, so I haven’t posted in several weeks. It’s not because I didn’t have anything to share, trust me.

The invitations got safely out the door almost a month ago now and responses have been coming in for weeks (yay!). Here’s a look at the final package.

Each invitation package cost less than $1.  Love it!

You may remember that I decided to design a label to match the invitation.   These were printed six per page on full size label sheets and then hand cut.  Kristen helped me label each envelope and emboss our return address on the flap.  And, as I mentioned in my last post, Don hand cancelled the postage before we popped them into the mail.

Here’s a closer look at the label:

Beyond the invitations, I’ve been busy with other projects to tell you about, too.  More posts coming soon!

courtesy of Me

Whee!  The invitations are in the mail.

Wedding elf Kristen came over last week and helped me address, emboss and seal the envelopes.

Today - in the middle of the blizzard - we took the invitations to the post office across from Lost Dog Cafe (yes, we had lunch while we were in the area).  I asked the man behind the counter if we could have the invitation postage cancelled by hand.

As I expected, he gave us a funny look and then handed over the stamper.  Don got to work and a few minutes later the invitations were cancelled and in the mail.

There are pictures documenting the whole thing, but I am way too tired to post them now.  I’m off to Florida through the weekend … so maybe Don will post them in my absence.  Ha ha ha.

[So there. --Don]

When we first launched our wedding Web site, we mentioned that the Friday evening Welcome Picnic would feature entertainment by those in attendance.   This was an idea that Don casually mentioned one day, and that I immediately loved.  Probably even more than he expected.

It came about when Don pointed out to me that in addition to all the talented wedding elves who would help us make invitations and take photos and just be all round helpful before, during and after our wedding that we happened to know an extraordinary number of people with talents in the performing arts.  He thought it would be cool to ask all of them to perform the night before the wedding instead of asking one of them to perform during the ceremony.  As soon as he said, I was determined to make it happen.

So we started by casually mentioning it when someone would mentioned his/her talent.  Then last week, I updated the Web site with actual information about the “Talent Showcase”.  But the full court press started today.

This morning we had some folks over for brunch.  After we had plied some of the talent with lots of mimosas and bloody marys, I started in earnest.  And surprisingly, everyone agreed.  Some really got into it, making plans for acts and making notes about what numbers they would perform.

Others agreed reluctantly, and if you’re one of those people I’m telling you now that we don’t want you to be uncomfortable and will not hold you responsible for anything you said today.  Well, most of you anyway.

Here’s a list of some of the things people agreed to do:

EP - Sing opera
KD - Maybe play a secret new instrument and perform a lounge act with MD
MD - Perform a lounge act with KD
TB - Emcee and perform a 5 minute comedic stand up
TB - Sing
EW - Play the flute
LW - Play the guitar
KW - Irish dance
KH - Sing

We have some out of town friends attending with similar performing abilities that we’re hoping to recruit as well.  EG has said she will sing and play guitar and we’re hoping CVR will sing as well.  FBIL2 also is working a little number for us.  

The best part about today was that we learned about talents people had that we didn’t even know about and were reminded about talents that we had forgotten about overs the years.  So, I bet some of you reading this blog who will be our wedding have a talent that you’d love to show off - it can be serious or silly - and we’d LOVE to include you.  Drop me e-mail (susan at fussellwhiteside dot com) and let me know what you can do.

We going to show off our talents, too.  Don is considering a little juggling act for Friday night, in fact.   As for my talent, well … you’ll see it in the wedding invitations, the programs, the menus, the escort cards, the Save the Date cards, the thank you cards, and so on.  It’s hard to perform, but you won’t be able to attend this wedding and not notice it.

An official e-mail will be sent about the Talent Showcase AFTER the invitations get mailed after which time we’ll need to know what you will perform for our lovely emcee, but feel free to tell me now if you’ve already made up your mind.

The invitations are nearly assembled and I love how they turned out. Sure I would have liked gorgeous letterpress invitations on creamy thick paper … but the price was too dear. My favorite part about these invitations is that my fabulous friends / wedding elves helped me make them over a few evenings, some wine, some beer and lots of chatter. My second favorite part is how much money we saved. Have I mentioned how nice it is to have an almost vendor-free wedding planning process?

Here’s what we did:

1. The invitation is crafted from two pieces of 80lb cardstock (cut in half so that one piece of paper made two invitations) tied together with raffia. The background is metallic lagoon and the text overlay is aquamarine metallic. Both pieces have just a bit of shimmer. The text was laser printed two per page onto a regular sheet of printer paper and then photocopied (!) onto the invitation. We used a paper cutter we already owned to cut the darker blue sheets in half and then trim a quarter inch all around and cut in half the lighter blue. Two small holes punched into each piece allowed us to thread a thin piece of natural-colored raffia through and make a simple bow. Just below the bow we glued a tiny starfish.
2. The response card was designed as a self mailing postcard. On the front is a color photocopy of a vintage postcard from Ocean City. We used Photoshop to change the text from “Greetings from” Ocean City to “A Wedding In” Ocean City. The vintage image was printed four per page on some leftover cardstock from some long-forgotten craft project. The back is the actual response portion. There are three events that require responses for our wedding and we decided to include all three events on the same response cards without issuing separate invitations for each event. We added “Number attending” to the Welcome Dinner and Bagel Brunch events because children are invited to attend those events, but not the actual wedding and reception. Again, I printed the response cards four per page on the darker blue cardstock. Everything was trimmed on the paper cutter.
3. The insert is a half sheet of the lighter blue cardstock printed and photocopied like the invitation and response card.
4. The envelope is the same aquamarine metallic. The paper and the envelopes were ordered from www.actionenvelope.com which has a lovely assortment of colors and decent prices.
5. I ordered an address embosser from www.expressionery.com to stamp the return address onto the envelope flap. It has not come yet – I selected the 10 day free shipping method and had a 40 percent off coupon. Wahoo!
6. I am going to make address labels that coordinate with the colors and design of the invitation for the outside of the envelope – we aren’t actually addressing for another 6 weeks, though (in case anyone moves, etc.).

As I mentioned, the cost of these DIY invitations is pretty hard to beat. We made 76 invitations for the following costs:

• Lagoon invitation paper - $15.96
• Aquamarine invitation paper - $11.36
• Lagoon response card - $7.96
• Aquamarine insert card - $11.36
• Envelopes - $15.92
• Starfish - $12

I already had the raffia and the plain white cardstock used for the vintage postcard image. That brings the total cost for the invitation to $74.50 – or about $.98 per invitation.

That’s right – less than $1 per piece for custom-designed, handmade invitations.

The labels will increase the cost a little (not significantly), and of course there is the postage that has to be accounted for ($.59 per invitation and $.27 per response card). We could save money by hand addressing all the invitations, but I love the idea of creating a label that works with the overall theme and design elements. Miss Sushi, one of the WeddingBee bloggers, made some that I just loved and I decided it would work well for us, too. I plan to use the address embosser for the Thank You cards and next year’s Christmas cards as well (provided we do not move I’ll emboss every item we send in the mail!) – so the $16 I spent on the embosser can be shared across multiple projects. I had to order the paper and envelopes in quantities of 50, but I have other projects that require the same paper, so it will not be wasted.

Here’s the working idea I have for label right now. I am going to keep playing around a little, but I like the way it’s looking so far.

As I mentioned back in October, I have a pretty extensive list of DIY projects for the wedding.

Among the most important of these projects is the invitations.

As you know, I’m trying to stay way ahead of schedule since I have very busy spring. Thankfully, several of my friends offered to help with some of the DIY projects. My awesome wedding elves started helping me assemble the wedding invitations last week and we’re moving much faster than I ever imagined. Last week, Don cut all the invitation pieces, Katy hole punched them, and I tied them together. This week, Jaimie started adhering the starfish while Katy and I started (and finished!) the response cards. I am very pleased with the results.

The response cards were printed four per page and trimmed to be the size of postcards. Onto the front of the postcard we adhered a reproduction of a vintage postcard from Ocean City. It originally said “Greetings from Ocean City,” but Jaimie had the great idea to change it to “A Wedding in Ocean City” and I think it turned out great! I even had to time to stamp them tonight (after triple checking the USPS Web site to make sure postcards rates are not increasing in 2009). The only thing left to do on the response cards is to write a very small number on each one so that I can figure out who sent it in the event someone forgets to write their name on the response (which, I understand, happens more frequently than you might imagine).

Now I just have to print out and trim the information card (hotel and travel information, etc.), finish adhering the starfish and stuff the invitations. Oh, and address them.

Don’t worry little wedding elves, there are a lot more DIY projects ahead. We have to make the program fans, and the favors, the escort cards and the menu cards. Plus, I’m sure I’ll come up with a few more projects for us in the next 130 days!

Thanks to TheKnot.com it’s practically unheard of to have a wedding these days WITHOUT a wedding Web site. Since we know a little something about Web sites (well, Don does at least), we thought it would be a good way to pass information to our guests.

You’d think that Don would have taken charge of this project but somehow it fell to me. This probably traces back to the days when we were starting Nice Mirror and Don was working on Web sites full time for his previous employer. Understandably, he didn’t want to come home every night or spend time on the weekend working on yet another Web project … but we needed a site, so I stepped in. It’s not very good, and you can’t actually order anything from us, but it’s there.

These days, Web projects account for just a fraction of Don’s total workload, but I already have the position of Family Web Master and that doesn’t seem likely to change. Don also spends a lot of time working on the excellent hyper local blog with which he’s involved and I think he finds that a little more stimulating than making maps of shuttle drop-off sites and inserting information about hotel blocks. On the other hand, I actually care about what people are going to wear and what the weather has been the last five years on May 2, so it makes sense that I head up the project.

The bad part is that I’m basically a one-trick pony so you’ll see a lot of similarities between Nice Mirror and our wedding Web site. That’s the bad part. The good part is that framework is there and while we’ll have to add information as we get closer, there’s a lot there now for people to discover as they get our Save the Date cards in the mail. Yay!

Here’s what the site looks like:

You can also just visit it. A little knowledge (and I mean a LITTLE knowledge) of HTML and access to Photoshop is a dangerous thing.

Let me know what you think.

I have just returned from the post office where I mailed the Save the Date post cards.

*gulp*

I guess we’re dropping some bucks on this whole wedding thing now, huh?

In other news, the fruit-themed post cards stamps feature papaya, guava, star fruit, kiwi and pomegranate. I thought that was cool and now I’m craving a fruity snack. Actually, I think I’m craving a fruity martini …

As you may remember, our Save the Date postcards arrived this week and they looked great, except for one small flaw on the informational side. I debated what to do about it on the blog. Although everyone said to let it go, I had already trimmed about 1/4 inch off the bottom of one and sent a test card to myself. Don wondered if the post office would sticker the bottom, ruining the effect … but when the card arrived it looked great - no sticker, no weird ink. Since trimming the cards takes almost no time, we decided to do it. In fact, after first being skeptical, Don ending up trimming all of them for me. It’s only about 65 cards so it only took about 10 extra minutes - maybe not even that long.

Now it’s time to address them, so I’m about to make a pot of coffee and sit down with the address book.

They’re here. Our save the date cards arrived … for the second time.

The first time they arrived, last week, there was a big black box over most of the informational side. I was on my way to New York so Don took care of it (yay! good and helpful fiance!) and the replacements were sent out. There’s still a small printing issue (everything is just a bit too high on on the back of the card so that the line touches the top, but doesn’t touch the bottom), but I think I’m using these anyway because the mistake is likely ours and it’s a pretty small detail.

Here are the cards:

See how “Please save the date …” is closer to the top of the card than “Love, Don and Susan” is to the bottom? Maybe I could trim the bottom on the paper cutter and make it more even? Or maybe I should I shrug the whole thing off and forget about the small error?

When we were in Ocean City for the food tasting, we took a bunch of pictures on the beach including the image used on the front of the postcard above. We took those two starfish with us (it’s a recurring theme for the wedding) and started off down the beach. I wrote the various text items that we needed and Don plopped the starfish down and took the pictures. We went straight down the beach for about a block.

Assuming that the centering issue doesn’t make me change my mind above using this version, the next step is to get them addressed. Ack!

In Arlington County you can vote early for just about any reason you can come up with - including if you’re going to be a poll worker on election day (Don) or you work outside of the county (both of us). Don voted on September 27 and I voted today.