April 02, 2012

the wedding pt 4: the invitations.

As has already been established, wedding planning as a whole was not my forte. There were, however, certain parts of it that got me excited, and these particular parts involved me putting a pencil to paper and drawing the evening away.

I had decided early on that I would draw as much of my wedding as I could. Unfortunately there's only so much you can draw. You can't draw the flowers. You can't draw the centrepieces. Nor can you draw your bridesmaids' dresses... although... I guess you could try. But be thankful I didn't, bridesmaids.

The biggest drawing project I took on was the invitation suite. Yes, a suite. Until starting research for my wedding invites I wasn't aware that the collection of info you stuff into the envelope was referred to as a suite, as if it were a fancy hotel room or some intense musical composition. It's funny, the things you learn while planning a wedding. I feel so much more... cultured.

My invitation suite research led me to believe that any attempt I might make to create my own hand-drawn invitations would result in complete and utter failure. There are a great deal of beautiful things online that encourage you to wallow in a pit of self-doubt and pity regarding your own levels of creative skill. After spending far too much time on sites like this and sighing over creations like these...




...Wayne took me by the shoulders, told me to get off the internet machine and start drawing. Thank you Wayne.

After lots of sketching and experimentation with my wedding's colour palette (which didn't actually ever exist because who needs a colour palette when you can just throw colours together and hope they look good?), this was the final result.

No, my dress did not look this cool, but thank you for asking.

Thankfully I heard no tales of lost or misdirected guests! Hurrah! Thank you, dear little map.

More deets...

And the all-important RSVP card. I opted for the postcard version. Envelopes = unnecessary extra cost. Plus, I figured the people at the post office could use a little sunshine in their day. If I worked at a post office I'd totally want to read people's postcards. And that's probably why I don't work at a post office.

You'll notice that the speech bubbles on the front are empty. We let the guests fill those in. You're getting dozens of these RSVP cards back in the mail, you might as well get some entertainment out of it. The results were varied... mostly cute, often funny, sometimes inappropriate... always amusing. We hung them up at the reception like this:


And that was that. I sent them out -- Canada Post didn't fail me, despite their silly strike -- the RSVPs returned (mostly on time), and the wedding happened. And I learned what an invitation suite was and became extra cultured. Oh la la.

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