K + C wedding invitation

25 June 2010

Since it’s Kate’s birthday today (happy birthday, sister!), I thought it was as good a time as any to share her wedding invitation with y’all. These were definitely a labor of love, but since we didn’t print them ourselves, not a particularly agonizing process. In fact, I would say we were as pleased with the end result as we were the process. Without further ado…

We chose the A7 envelopes in matte lemon drop from Paper Presentation. I hand-wrote the addresses with a simple black pen, and Kate chose the wedding cake stamps.

As you probably have gathered by now, bunting is something of a theme for this wedding, and we decided to carry that through to the paper goods, as well. The envelope liners were conceptualized by me, actualized by the fabulous Chelsey from Fourth & Folded, printed and cut by me, and installed by Kate. Teamwork, I tell you!

The stack guests saw when they opened the flap. From front to back, we have reception card, second reception card, reply postcard, information card, and wedding invitation, all tied off with yellow and white baker’s twine from Divine Twine.

Instead of including a reply card, we included a reply postcard from the wedding location, and asked guests to write a note letting us know which events they’d be able to attend. I’m jealous Kate will be receiving 100 pretty postcards in the mail over the next two months!

The whole suite:

We went with simple wording for the invitation, and opted to recognize C’s parents, as well.

“And afterward for lunch and lawn games,” says the reception card.

K and C will be having a second reception in C’s home state since a significant number of his family and family friends won’t be able to travel across the country for the August events.

The information card was double-sided. The first side detailed the weekend’s events, starting, as you can see, with a wiffle ball game and wharf jumping. Whee!

The reverse included some of the details found on K + C’s wedding website, including travel and packing information.

One more look at the whole shebang…

…and it’s on to the nitty-gritty.

Cost Breakdown:
–$423 for 100 letterpress invitations, 100 letterpress reception cards, 25 letterpress California reception cards, and 100 double-sided, flat-printed information cards from Clinton Press
–$50 (approximately) for paper for all suite pieces from Paper Depot. If there was one thing we (I) could have changed, it would have been to order thicker paper.
–$37.05 for 125 matte lemon drop A7 envelopes from Paper Presentation
–$50 for 100 postcards from the wedding location
–$7.50 for baker’s twine from Divine Twine. (The spool is $15, but we used half for this project and half for another.)
–$15 (approximately) for the black markers and ink pad for addressing
–$0 for envelope liners. I printed them on my home computer and Chelsey kindly gifted her services. We love you, Chelsey!!
–$25.76 for reply postcard postage
–$56.12 for invitation postage

TOTAL: $664.43

We mailed 92 invitations, which comes out to a cost of $7.22 per invite. Yes, we easily could have bought something cheaper, but they wouldn’t have been as perfect for this wedding. We actually had budgeted (somewhat arbitrarily) $668 for invitations, so I’d say we did pretty well!

What do you think? Would you be excited about K + C’s wedding if you got this in the mail?!

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Meredith Perdue
June 25, 2010 1:13 pm

These are incredible- I think all of K+C's guests will be super excited to receive these in the mail! I love that you collaborated with Chelsey- she is so talented! And lawn games post-ceremony? How fun!

Jenna
June 25, 2010 1:26 pm

I would be! So darling. So so so darling. I also sent out RSVP postcards and I got so excited to get the mail every day while they were pouring in. Are the little bow and hearts added by you for the picture or are they included somehow?

I also had something like $7 invitations that were a handcrafted labor of love. I don't regret the money I spent on them at all!

Em
June 25, 2010 2:00 pm

Jenna — Nah, the hearts and bow were added by me for the photo as an attempt at styling :) We will be using the snappy navy and white grosgrain in a few other wedding projects, however!

xoxo, C
June 25, 2010 3:02 pm

So happy to help :)
If our wedding had been earlier (stupid pre-scheduled boat cruises) we ABSOLUTELY would have had lawn games. Classic Maine wedding staple :)

Peggy
June 25, 2010 3:59 pm

Loved the invites, especaially the RSVP postcard! Hate to miss out on all of the fun :-(

Emily
June 25, 2010 4:05 pm

And we're SO SAD you guys won't be there, Peggy!

Brooke
June 25, 2010 10:13 pm

Adorable! Love the postcard from the venue–a super cute touch! I'm always impressed with handcrafted invitations. And less than $700 for letterpress? Well done!

(On a side note, you don't know me but left a comment on my wedding planning blog back when it was brookeandjon.wordpress.com. Just wanted to say hi!)

Kara
June 29, 2010 3:25 pm

Beautiful job on the invitations! I love the postcard reply. I remember getting that postcard a lot from you guys as a kid!

Alissa
July 13, 2010 9:07 pm

These are adorable! Maybe I missed it, but what is the cursive font used on the invitations? So sweet!

Emily
July 15, 2010 4:15 pm

Hi Alissa! Thanks so much! The cursive font is Honey Script, which I believe I downloaded for free from MyFonts.com. Google it and you should be able to find it!

Wee
July 24, 2010 7:19 am

Em, you did a wonderful job on the invites, we were so happy to open ours! The post card is really nice as well . . . I should probably remember to send it to K . . . or maybe just hand it to her. It looks so festive in my mail holder though! Excellent work!

(PS it's Alisha, your birthday-buddy! :D)

Emily
July 24, 2010 4:07 pm

Thank you, Alisha!! I love having a birthday buddy :)

Beehive
August 17, 2010 2:32 am

Beautiful! I was married in Maine last summer, I hope your weather is as lovely as ours was :)

[…] for your own wedding. I get that — after all, I created the entire invitation suite for my sister’s wedding by hand! So if that’s you, I say go for it! But, I’ll also say that time and again I […]

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