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June 13, 2007
Invitations
We mailed a good chunk of the Save-the-Dates this week. On the one hand, I felt a little bit irresponsible inviting people to an event that may or may not be catered or have a bartender (ahem), but on the other hand, I was excited to hear people's reactions. It was a bit anticlimactic -- people don't exactly get a postcard and call you up to say, hey great job cropping that photo and choosing that font! Instead, there's a mention here or there. We got a wonderful, wonderful phone messages yesterday, though. As I mentioned, the photos came from a family book, but we didn't know who the tennis players or swimmers were. I was using a bit of artistic license and hoping that the people weren't completely inappropriate. It turns out that the male swimmer is my great-great-grandfather, and the tennis player on the right is my great-grandmother in disguise. We got lucky. I couldn't be happier. It was like a gift to hear that from my cousin.
I've shifted my attention now to invitations, another excellent method of procrastinating on the larger planning issues and phone calls.
At first I didn't think a homemade invitation was really an option -- I wasn't sure I could pull it off and make it look anything but handmade. Instead, D and I spent hours poring over samples in binders at stationary stores. Nothing looked great, though. The letterpress options are lovely, but absurdly priced (see for some photos of the process), and nothing else came close to the natural look I had in mind.
Next, I looked at online sites like Paper Source and Wedding Paper Divas (thanks, Liz). It's nice to be able to mock-up a sample invitation easily, but I was worried about the hard proof and lack of person-to-person consultation, and nothing seemed really unique to us and our wedding. There are some lovely options, though.
In an effort to figure something out on my own, I went to Kate's yesterday and bought a bunch of sheets of lovely, deckle edge paper. I also found a dragonfly punch online. It's lovely to have an excuse to buy these things and spend hours in in Kate's and Lee's Art Shop, poring over papers made from pineapples and such.
Last night, I put together something that looks reasonably acceptable. With a slightly better printer and some details to make it feel more formal, I think we might be on to something.
Regardless of which method we use, I've been surprised by the lack of environmentally-friendly options out there. At Lion in the Sun in Park Slope, I thought we'd find something, but we heard the same thing we heard everywhere -- that Crane's is made from cotton, so that's preferable to trees, and there may be one other book with some recycled content, but it's not much.
There are some online invitation retailers that are eco-friendly (thanks again, Liz), and Treehugger has suggestions, but I haven't found the paper colors I'm looking for in recycled or eco-friendly versions yet. Will have to keep looking.
Posted by csageday at June 13, 2007 01:01 AM
Comments
stick to your guns on what's important to you and let the rest go :) We (me, sis and mom) handmade all of my invites ans it was well worth it!
Posted by: kaitlyn at June 13, 2007 12:01 PM
Thanks, kaitlyn. I've been getting some good ideas by browsing through Flickr lately (a search for "wedding invitations" brings up a few things) -- and a friend offered to help with assembly if we do them ourselves, so this is looking better! It's so much fun to be creative with these things...
Posted by: Cindy at June 13, 2007 12:43 PM