I've always loved looking at thank you notes and finding pretty paper to wrap gifts in, but I was especially obsessed with finding the perfect paper goods for our wedding. Perfect...and within our budget. Let me translate further:
Within our budget = cheap
I started out the hunt by looking for our save the date cards, but I was quickly distracted by these beauties. I fell in love with this invitation suite after seeing it on a blog post. I convinced myself that these would be ours!
Picture courtesy of the super-cool Green Wedding Shoes
Yeah, I didn't know at the time that letterpress invitations require lots of money and maybe a kidney. I found out that this suite started at $1000. I don't know about you guys, but $1000 is not cheap to me. It's a whole paycheck. I picked up my brown hyperventilation paper bag and got back to save the date hunting.
I kept checking Minted and Wedding Paper Divas for cute designs, but they all made me feel kind of "meh." Mind you, I had a pretty specific vision in mind. I wanted to incorporate our wedding colors, and since we were adding little nods to "Up", maybe something with balloons.
We were getting close to being six months out from our date and I knew we weren't going to get our engagement pictures back in time to use them (different story for a different post!), so I kept looking. And looking. And looking. I felt like I had reached the end of the internet in my search for something I loved. I had narrowed the field down to two designs that I felt okay about, these two from Minted:
They were...okay, but I couldn't stop looking which I knew meant that I was not completely happy with either choice. The cloud ones definitely fit our vision but I just wasn't all that enthusiastic about them. I tried to keep my search going on etsy, cursing them all the time for getting rid of their alchemy feature.
Finally, my search for "balloon save the date cards" yielded this:
I checked the price ($53 for 50 cards?!?! SCORE!) and then contacted Kristen about changing the color scheme for me. She replied to my message within five minutes and I had a proof within fifteen minutes. These came in the mail less than a week after I had placed my order.
Personal photo, last names removed to keep you guys from trying
to check our criminal records :)
I was so happy with them! Our colors, those balloons, the fonts! I loved it! I wasn't exactly thrilled about the super-bright white paper, but I still thought they were awesome. I bought a pack of craft paper envelopes at Hobby Lobby for five bucks, enlisted a bridesmaid to help me address them by hand, slapped some Love stamps on them and sent them out into the world.
.JPG)
Another personal photo, this one with filters! Thanks, Instagram!
I am happy to say that my etsy search also led me to my awesome wedding invitations and thank you cards. The wedding invitations were done by a different vendor who gave me the same kind of awesome service as Kristen did. We are still about a month out from sending our invitations, but I can't wait for everyone to see them. Our long-awaited (by us) engagement pictures will be making a special appearance with those.
Did you have a crazy search to find your perfect paper goods?
I had my sister design mine-- thank god. I think I might have gone crazy, if not. I did find a ton of designs I fell in love with on Etsy, though!
ReplyDeleteI wish I would have designed my own! I would have saved myself hours of internet searches!
Delete