Early in the wedding planning process, I made up my mind to create from scratch my own invitations for our estimated 300 guests.   I wasn’t going crazy – I simply couldn’t find a vendor that had the design, detail, and look at the price I’m willing to pay.  I had a image in mind on what it will be, and I was determined to create it!

Truth to be told, the “image” of the wedding invitations evolved a bit during the planning process for various reasons, but mostly due to chinese customs.  Who knew you’re not suppose to use navy blue on wedding invites?? (i thought it was only black that is taboo!)  That was my original look and first draft – Navy blue cardstock, orange body ribbon as accent, white cardstock inside with black letters. (Blue and Orange were my chosen wedding colours).  I knew I needed to have chinese in the invitation as well, but wasn’t quite sure how to incorporate yet.  However, our families strike that colour concept pretty quickly when I described/show them a crude sample.

On to design #2 – to appease the chinese traditionalists, I was going to make TWO designs. One in English that would still have navy blue card with orange body ribbon, and then a Chinese wording one that will be in orange card and blue body ribbon.   Apparently the blue body ribbon (2 inches of it) was still no good.   At this point, I was looking at the math behind the stationary costs, and realized that if I was to purchased the orange in bulk, it would be more cost effective.  Which led me to design #3.

Design #3 – EVERYONE was going to get an orange cardstock (I chose a linen feel cardstock), with a silver and brown body ribbon accent (threw in the brown to give it some kick as I thought the silver alone was too plain).  The brown ribbon had bright blue dashes along the top and bottom – just so I was appeased too!  Inside was going to be an IVORY cardstock (white colour was apparently also no good), with the top of card the English formal church invitation, and the bottom of the card the Chinese formal church invitation.  I was going to put extra cards in there for reception info, rsvp etc.  Plus some sort of stamped design on the inside (main church invite) for prettiness.

Here’s the entire wedding invitation set I designed and made, qty 200:

1. 4 x 5.25 ivory cardstock – English church invitation

2.  4×5.25 ivory cardstock – Chinese church and reception invitation (wording works better to together)

3. 3.5 x 4.5 ivory cardstock – English Reception & RSVP info insert with Chinese RSVP info at back (duplex printing)

4.  3.5 x 5 ivory cardstock – RSVP card (for the 80 invitations that will be going to “older” guests where they will want to submit formal RSVPs rather than via our website.  Duplex printing for English and Chinese  (with 2 different layouts – one for guests with 2 or less guests, and another for 4 or less guests)

5.  4.375 x 5.75 Orange cardstock – Invitation card with 1.5″ silver ribbon and 7/8″ brown with blue dash ribbon

6.  2″ circle monograms on ivory cardstock

7.  Envelope wrap around labels

8.  Purchased 2 envelop sizes in ivory – a2 envelop for addressing and mailing, a1 envelop for RSVP returns

It took me many many hours of fussing on my computer with fonts, sizes, design, layouts, wording, and editing before I was ready to go to print and say I was ready.  Then the real production began.

Part 2 here.