I'm so sorry it's taken me forever to get round to writing this post, life doesn't seem to have gotten any quieter since the wedding came and went.
But here we go - finally.
So the story starts back about 18 months ago when my brother Mathew and his (then) fiancé Cheryl threw an engagement party. Cheryl asked me to help with the invites for them and we kept it all very simple but over an afternoon of stamping and gluing they asked me if I would make their wedding invites for them. Of course I said yes.
They knew they wanted pocket envelope cards, square and the colour scheme was going to be navy blue. But past that, they were utterly stumped! So first things first was try and come up with something which they could work from. Here's what I came up with:
With something to pick apart, it helped Mathew and Cheryl really focus on what they wanted. Matt wanted to design a logo linking their initials and the snowboarding theme they were planning to incorporate - that replaced the circle and butterflies. They loved the band but wanted solid ribbon not organza and no text on the front.
Round 2:
Success! with the basic principles of the design agreed it was time to locate the blanks to proceed in making them. I wanted to get a textured cardstock - I just think it looks classier and I lucked out, finding a company on ebay which sold packs of 100 blanks, with 3 inserts pre-cut and envelopes for £100+ P&P - SOOOO much cheaper then any other company I'd looked at.
With about 85 invites to make, I started making them early in the new year: I started with all the belly bands
The next task was to produce the RSVP's. I wanted to design a postcard style RSVP, but trying to get all the information onto something that small, with room for a stamp and address was tricky. After several trials I finally came up with a design that they loved.
After that, the remainder of the inserts were easy. Cheryl found a lovely poem on Pinterest for the gift list and the rest of the information was done in a very traditional format.
They sat ready to be written for about 6 weeks as they finalised the guest list and then Mum helped us to write them all as she has the most gorgeous handwriting.
With the invites done and no point in starting the place names until we knew for certain who was coming, the next task was to contemplate the confetti boxes. Now I was going to cut and make 50+ boxes but then a trip to the Range gave me a saving grace - they had 10 boxes for £1 which was cheaper than I could make them and frankly, would save me tearing my hair out!
So I shrunk the logo and cut that out again and mounted them on foam pads and 2 weeks before the wedding, Cheryl and I sat stuffing the boxes full of dried natural hydrangea heads and rose petals (begged and given from various friends and neighbours gardens).
On the same weekend, we also did up all the place names.
They had a sweet bar at the reception so the place names where sweet bags rolled up with the name tags and a rhyme and a matching blue tag tied up. It took me a while to work out how many poems and names I could get out of a standard A4 sheet but once I had we punched them all out using Woodware tag punch and a single hole punch - I can advise that punching over 300 tags and then putting the holes in will give you a) hand cramp and b) a guaranteed bruised hand.
(without name - I did some spare just in case)
The final thing we did that weekend was staple together all the orders of service - which Mathew had designed the covers for.
The last thing I had to make for them for the wedding stationary was their table names. The tables were all named after snowboard runs in Banff, Canada (which is where Matt proposed and where they're going on honeymoon). I table plan was a master of design by Matt, who created a vinyl laminate to go onto an old snowboard!
Now, the only problem with being a bridesmaid is you don't get chance to take photographs really, so thanks go to my cousin who sent me these so I can show you
So, in theory - that was my requirements finished, but I had one last project up my sleeve. I wanted to create a card banner for them and I used chipboard bunting (from everycraftsapound) and painted it with blue paints I had at home. The real trouble came with the letters. I tried cutting card by hand, having a friend cut them out on a cricut and yet it never looked right. I tried foam letters (nooooooooooo) and finally I decided I needed wooden letters and started to look around. I was horrified at the cost of them so brought a bag of letters which are normally used for children to draw around to learn shapes and pulled out the ones I needed. I painted them white and then spritzed them with cosmic shimmer which I heat set with a hair dryer!
So there you go - all the stationary and settings I did for their wedding.
They were, thankfully thrilled with what I made them and I think it all went down really well with the guests too.
I'll be back in the week with the wedding cake (Mum's masterpiece), the wedding flowers and the card I made them. But until then, happy crafting!
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