Wedding Reception Back Home -- The Stationary

I love stationary.  Particularly anything that has the Eiffel Tower on it!  I wanted our invitations for the wedding to be perfect.  I didn't realize how much custom invitations cost until I went out to try and find some.   My estimation was well over a thousand dollars by the time I had save-the-date's, wedding invitations and response cards done.  In the end I ended up making my own save-the-date's, wedding invitations and response cards for around $150.

I love the Save the Date card I made! I thought the images of the construction of the Eiffel Tower with the words "We're Almost There..." (implying that not only that the construction of the Eiffel Tower was almost done but also that the wedding was approaching) was quite clever.  The back of the Save the Date had a large image of the Eiffel Tower on it.  For the envelopes, I purchased an Eiffel Tower stamp from Michael's (thank goodness for those 50% off coupons!) and black ink and stamped all of the envelopes myself then hand addressed them.  The envelopes measured 6"x6" and were also purchased at Michaels.  I had the Save the Dates  printed at a local print shop.

Save the Date

For the wedding invitation I purchased the boxed wedding invitation paper and envelopes from Michaels (also 50% off).  For the background image I found cardstock at Michaels that had a Paris theme to it and scanned it onto my computer and cropped it to match the size of the invitation paper I had bought.  I then added my own wording to the invitation and printed all of the invitations on a color laser printer at home.  To address the wedding invitations, I bought adhesive labels and typed everyone's name and address onto them before sticking them on the envelope.


Background Image of my Wedding Invitation

The response cards were also a box set that I purchased from Michaels.  I saw a really neat idea on The Knot to make response cards more creative (see here).  It was good in theory, but only about 10-15% of the responses I received were creative, which was kind of disappointing.  The wording is as follows:

Répondez S’il Vous Plaît

The favour of your creative response is requested by the thirtieth of June two thousand and ten.

If I were to do this type of response card again (which I probably wouldn't due to the limited success), I would also include a section for the responders to put their name since I also received anonymous responses! I pre-stamped all of the envelopes for the response cards so that the people who were invited could just pop the response card in the mail.  I saved all of the responses I received in a photo album (since some of them were creative and amusing) so that I will be able to look at them in years to come!

Response Card

For the guest book at the wedding reception, I made a photo book with our engagement pictures in it along with questions to pose to the guests.  The idea came from here.  We asked questions like "What should the bride and groom do for their first wedding anniversary?", "What is your favorite memory of the bride and/or groom?", "What is the meaning of love?" etc.  It's a lot harder to come up with questions that you would think!  IcingDesigns made a card to put next to the guest book to explain to the guests what to do.  The card said:

Guest Book

Find a Page.  Answer the Question.  Sign you name.

If I'm being honest, this was even worse of a flop than the response cards! I just don't think people understood what to do.  Not a lot of people signed the guest book to begin with (despite being in an open area -- gift table, next to the entrance), and of those who did sign only a small portion answered the question.  It's a nice keepsake though.  Something to look back on in the coming years!

Guest Book

Are you ready to hear the cutest story ever? When my brother was little, he was asked to be a ring bearer at one of my mother's friend's weddings.  When my mom asked Andrew if he would like to be the ring bearer he'd cry and say "no".  After asking him several more times, he finally gave in and said "Mommy, after I'm done being the ring bear, will I turn back into a human?" He had thought all along that he was going to turn into a bear and therefore didn't want to play any part in the wedding! To commemorate this hilarious situation I had "buttons" made for my little brothers (who are thirteen years younger than me) that had a picture of a bear on them and said:

Ring Bear

July 17, 2010

The custom buttons were made by BauerDesigns on Etsy.  As a gift to my little brothers, I gave them each a Build-A-Bear dressed in a tuxedo (to look like them!) and a book (one got The Little Prince, the other, The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

xo Ceilidh