For the next post on the little details of our wedding, let's talk about the important detail: wedding stationary. This includes everything from save-the dates to response cards to place cards. All of these details can add up if you pay a company to order and print personalized stationary for each aspect of your wedding. I've found that paying the big bucks (some people pay up to $500 or even more for their invites alone!) is not necessary.
There are a few alternatives like buying kits at Michael's for instance where you can design and print your own at home. Of course the print quality may not be as great as your invite from the expensive printing company, but honestly those invites get thrown out eventually. You can still have something that's beautiful and make a statement without paying a huge chunk of your budget for it.
Luckily, I have a mother who is excellent at calligraphy and who wants to soon set up her own business doing calligraphy for peoples' special events as well as possibly designing and making hand-made invites and cards. She's super talented.
As a wedding gift she did our stationary for us.
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| Photo courtesy of Kara Loomis Photography |
Since our colors were Navy, Ivory & Yellow accents we decided to keep the stationary to just the navy & ivory for formality. My mom purchased this gorgeous navy paper along with large sheets of the navy/ivory designed paper from an online paper store for under $100 (paper for all stationary). The invitation had 5 layers. Navy on top of the ivory paper that had the navy calligraphy on it with a 3-layer stripe consisting of navy paper, ivory ribbon, topped with the navy/ivory damask paper strip.
My dad was handy since he was able to scan my mom's original calligraphy onto Photoshop on our computer. He touched up the calligraphy and was able to make mass prints so my mom only had to do the calligraphy once.
For the ceremony programs, my mom used a slightly different design, but we kept the same color scheme going. It's important to do this to give the wedding a sense of cohesion.
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| Photo courtesy of Kara Loomis Photography |
We used templates we purchased at Staples. The templates had an ivory border and we scanned in my mom's calligraphy once again along with the monogram she designed using scraps from the paper she used for the save-the-dates and the invitations (which matched). Once they were all printed, the paper was folded 3 ways and tied with a navy satin ribbon. We used double sided glue dots to hold the ribbon into place in the back.
Originally I was going to have salt-water taffy for favors and hang place cards inside a giant picture frame. Luckily, my aunt offered to make red and white wine for our favors! So, to save paper and time, we decided to use the wine bottles as both the favors and a clever place card display. Guests picked up their wine bottle with their name and table number tied around the neck of the bottle.
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| Photo courtesy of Kara Loomis Photography |
Of course that beautiful navy/ivory damask design returned on more scraps from the invites and save-the-dates. The tags are actually large place cards that my mom cut in half and punched holes to string through the navy satin ribbon (scraps from the ceremony programs).
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| Photo courtesy of Kara Loomis Photography |
The labels were designed by both my mom (the monogram that was also on the ceremony program) and my aunt since my aunt is a graphic designer and had the equipment to design and print mass labels to put on each wine bottle.
So, the guests grabbed these beautiful bottles of home-made wine and walked towards their seats to find these adorable table numbers!
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| Photo courtesy of Kara Loomis Photography |
The wedding had a nautical theme and since lighthouses are important to both the Husband and I we wanted to incorporate them somehow. I found these 5-inch wooden lighthouses on Etsy. They were $12 for 15. Then, I had my dad saw a small slit at the top where the table number would sit. I painted them --and had to do several coats to get the finish I wanted.
My mom did calligraphy numbers and used the same paper she had left over from the invitations (ofcourse!)
I think total, between the save-the-dates, invitations, envelopes, stamps, calligraphy supplies, ribbon, place card stationary, and ceremony stationary the total cost for ALL of our stationary was around $300 but no more than $350. Pretty good if you ask me!
I hope my mom starts up her business because she did an absolutely amazing job and I am so lucky to have had her!
Next, we will talk about some of the little sentimental touches we added to make our day super personal. Stay tuned!
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