Tuesday, February 28, 2012

{our diy wedding invites}




 I have been dying to share our wedding invites for months now.  Wedding invitations are truly a long process and even longer when you decide you are going to try to do the whole thing yourself! We started talking about the main idea for our invites back in November, but started seriously working on them in January and finally were able to send them out late last week!

We always knew we wanted to do some sort of illustration on our invites, something that we could also use on additional paper goods at the wedding.  I asked one of the talented artists at my work to help us out and with our direction, he did an amazing job illustrating a crest for us- especially capturing our Boston Terrier, Muji!  Since he put the entire illustration into Photoshop, we will be able to modify the crest by adding or deleting elements or revising the text so that we can use the graphic for things after the wedding.





I special ordered the 6.5 inch square Kraft envelopes through this Etsy shop, they have the ability to make custom envelopes in a variety of colors/shapes at what I consider to be an unbeatable price- ours were only 60 cents each!  I had an incredibly hard time finding kraft paper envelopes with a pointed flap rather than a straight across closure like the ones we used for our engagement party invites which is why we ended up going custom.  We then lined the envelopes with black/white striped paper which we created ourselves and printed onto normal copy paper.

The main invite wording was by far the most difficult and time consuming part for us.  Getting the design, fonts and wording just right so that it would look modern and fun, but also sit well alongside the more intricate crest illustration proved to be a challenge.  Fonts are especially one of those things that I could literally spend hours messing with so I thought it would be helpful to outline exactly which fonts we used as well as where you can find them for download:


FONTS USED:

wording in crest: Copperplate Bold
cursive font in invite: commercial script
Natalie: Reina
Christopher: Ostrich Sans Black
address on main envelope, reply envelope & return address on flap: Ostrich Sans Regular
date on invite & "directions": Otama


After we finalized the main invite wording and design, we formatted it with the crest to be printed onto a 6 inch wide by 18 inch long piece of 110lb cardstock which would be folded twice to make three 6 inch square "panels."  We had the invites and the double sided directions printed at Columbia Printing in downtown LA, these are the same people who printed our save the dates.




For the reply cards, we choose to use the white 4-bar sized envelopes from Paper Source which we lined in Kraft paper.  We then whipped up a simple reply card and printed it ourselves which I thoroughly regret doing- not because they look bad or were particularly difficult to print, but simply because Columbia Printing is so insanely reasonable and we should have just asked them to print/cut these as well.  The reply card and the 4.5 inch square map are secured in a diagonal slit in the third "panel" of the main invite.

Based on the main invite design, I also created similar labels for our return address printed on the pointed envelope flap and the main address printed on the reply envelope.  Figuring out how to format this to print correctly in our printer took every last piece of my patience, but in the end I think the cohesive look was well worth it.  So long as you have a printer with a top loading rear-feed tray you will be able to print on your own envelopes.







{the spoils of envelope lining}

While I am by no means an expert, I am more than happy to help with any additional questions you might have about making your own wedding or event invites - feel free to contact me!

14 comments:

  1. SO IN LOVE. These are so well designed- modern and cool and elegant and timeless! Great job, girl! If mine turn out half as nice as yours did, I'll be happy! They look amazing!

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  2. OH and I forgot to add that I LOVE THAT MUJI IS IN THE INVITATION!

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  3. These invitations are incredible!! The amount of thought you put into the details totally pay off. Thanks so much for sharing the fonts you used!

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  4. These are so adorable! I love that they are so personal and include your adorable pup!

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  5. These are amazing! Are you sure you're not an expert?

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  6. oh my goodness. you are INSANE! these are fantastic and i love the colors and details!!!

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  7. This suite is seriously spectacular! I'm such a sucker for a deeply pointed envelope and creative envelope lining. Love it!

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  8. Holy cow, these are amazing. I can't believe these are DIY-fantastic!

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  9. These are the best invites I have come across to date bar none. Well done. Thank you so much for explaining all the details so well, it is such a helpful post.

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  10. Just wondering if the diagonal that the directions card etc sit into is just a slit in the card, or is it an additional triangle of card stuck onto the corner?Thanks!

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  11. these are freaking awesome! i am totally going to live vicariously through your instagram wedding updates!

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  12. Just came across your invitation suite now but: really very nice! Thanks for the inspiration and the fonts, Sandra

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  13. We started talking about the main idea for our invites back in November, but started seriously working on them in January and finally were able to send them out late last week! davetiye

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