Invitations: Cost Breakdown

Now that you've seen the invitations, it's time to break this bad boy down and figure out how much it cost to make them.

Number of invitations: 93

Total printing cost for all inserts: $171.39 from Catprint

Stamps (outer envelope and RSVP card): $97.52

Wrap labels: $15.87 from onlinelabels.com

Belly bands: Paper used from previous projects.

Corner rounder: $4.54

Envelopes (includes sample costs): $48.71 from Envelope Mall

$240.51 total, excluding postage
$2.59 per invitation, excluding postage
$3.63 apiece including postage

Was this cheaper than having someone else design them? Or buying a box of invitations? Probably not, on both counts, but I had a lot of fun messing around with various designs, and assembling them with care. To me, it was worth the months I put into them. I would not change a single thing.

Are you designing your own invitations? Or have you hired one of the amazing, uber-talented paper vendors out there? Tell me about your paperrrr. :)

Wino Forever

I mentioned a while back that the project I was looking forward to the least is our DIY bar. I was so looking forward to having someone else take care of this, but once we hired our bartender, I found out it was significantly cheaper to provide our own alcohol than to purchase it through him. This also means we have to provide our own mini-fridges and coolers, but we've already planned to borrow some from family members.

The wine we chose for our wedding is not very expensive, but HEB runs specials on it pretty often, so over the past few months, Mr. Hyena and I have been on the lookout for any sales, and then cleared the shelves of whatever was available. Then, recently FSIL Hyena told me they were having a blow-out "Texas Wine Week" sale, and the time had come to round out the rest of the bottles.

We estimated about 48 bottles of wine for the afternoon, and finally have them all. Now, neither of us really has the means to store this much wine, but I made it work.

The rest are over at Mr. H's. Thank goodness I've been packing up my apartment and therefore haven't had people over in a while, because this totally makes me look like I have a problem.

For those of you who are purchasing your own wine before your wedding, I learned something interesting from FMIL Hyena: if you purchase wine bottles ahead of time, the cork needs to stay moist or the wine will eventually ruin itself. Lay your bottles flat or slightly pointing downward (like they would on a wine rack), and rotate them every once in awhile to prevent this from happening.

Are you providing your own alcohol? What other storage tips do you have?

Buzz Like a Bee!

I was walking back to my office after lunch on Tuesday, when I got an e-mail on my phone. "Weddingbee Application," the subject line said. I didn't want to get my hopes up too high; in fact, I hadn't even told the mister I had applied, just in case. You know how these things go. I cautiously opened the e-mail ... and my eyes practically bugged out of my head. I'd be a great addition to the Weddingbee team?! Sweeter words have never been typed! I calmly walked into my office, shut the door behind me, and proceeded to jump up and down Anchorman-style for a good ten minutes.  I am a BEE! I'm so EXCITED!

(source)

I immediately called Mr. Hyena, who couldn't understand what I was saying since I was doing too much jumping. Too bad! BEE! I'm a bee! WHEE!

So who are these crazy kids?

We are the Hyenas! We both grew up in north Texas. I work in marketing, love going out with friends, and nothing is more satisfying to me than sticking my nose in a good book. I went to college at the University of Oklahoma (BOOMER SOONER!), but now I'm living and working in Aggieland while Mr. H finishes school. He is a grad student at Texas A&M, and is planning to get his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering. He is excellent at making faces, is a badass drummer (both in percussion and Rock Band), and his love for the Texas Rangers can be surpassed by no man. 

Why yes, Snoopy's house is made out of Ice!

Together, we enjoy making up our own lyrics to songs, quoting movies and TV shows word-for-word, and loving on my kitty-boo, Elliott. 

She is trouble. Don't let her adorable face fool you.

The wedding we're planning is a budget-minded, brightly colored, DIY afternoon affair with a cocktail party vibe. It will be laid-back and fun, with both classic and unique elements, and will hopefully culminate in a raging dance party!

The second I saw the hyena icon, I knew it had to be mine. My reasoning is two-fold.  One: whenever I think of hyenas, I think of laughing. (I don't know if real hyenas laugh or not, but I don't know anything else about them!)

Also, The Lion King is my favorite Disney movie.

One of my favorite things about being with Mr. H is how we can make each other laugh. We say and do a lot of ridiculous things, and it makes my heart happy. Secondly, I have been told I have a very distinct laugh. I had a teacher in high school who claimed she always knew where I was because of my laugh. I've had strangers approach me and tell me they love my laugh. Strange thing, but what can I say?

Anyway. We're less than three months away from the wedding, and I can't wait to tell you all about it! Let's get this party started! 

Invitations: The Big Reveal

Finally, here is the story of our invitations! We worked long and hard on them, tirelessly rounding corners and cutting belly bands, printing endless versions of labels trying to get them to line up properly ... and look, Mr. Hyena helped!

Belly-banding!

Corner-rounding!

Here they are, ready to be sent off into the world ... 

Here's what our guests would see. I could have blurred everything out, but I love the fonts we used, and I want to show them off! So ... I 'shopped a new address on! Pretty envelopes! Pretty stamps! Harry Potter!

Okay, and the blurring begins. We did wrap labels since I wanted to print people's addresses instead of worrying about calligraphy. Our return address is on the back.

Open the envelope verrrrrry carefully to see the pretty liners! I only have a picture of one of the papers we used, but I had many different scrapbook paper patterns in my scrapbook basket, so they're all unique!

The suite, cuddling cozily in its belly band. Awww.

All the pieces together!

Now, this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't do something to make life difficult for myself. We had two events during the wedding weekend outside our ceremony and reception: the rehearsal dinner and a Sunday barbecue. Instead of mailing separate invitations for all those events ... I created three different RSVP cards and two different event cards, depending on which events each person is invited to. Oh, complications. ^_^

The RSVP cards with the bright pink envelopes! I love getting responses in the mail, and the pink envelopes make me so happy!

Andddd ... the event cards.

Last but not least, the invitation itself. I guess it's too late to elope now. ;)

These took months of work to create, have printed, assemble, figure out which pieces go in which envelopes, etc., but it was totally worth it seeing the final result! They're so pretty and colorful!

Did your fiancé/e help out with any of your major projects?

Invitations: Paper and Printing

This is me holding out on you just a liiiiiittle bit longer.  One of my bridesmaids lives in China, and I'm going to pretend she hasn't gotten her invitation yet. *wink*

So. A while back, when I first was working on them, I was telling you about the different components of the invitations. Once I had my envelopes, I went about designing our invitations. I never intended to print them myself on my printer, because I wanted them to have a higher-quality finish than I think my printer can provide. I contacted a couple of printers in town that we use at work to get pricing information, and found out I could get them printed for much cheaper online.

There are a lot of places online you can order prints, but I decided to go with Catprint.

Not, not you, kitty-boo.

Hi everyone. I'm Miss Hyena. And I am a crazy cat lady.

THIS:

via Catprint

They had tons of paper options for printing, and since you can't actually touch things through the screen (yet), I asked them for their wedding paper samples, which they sent to me for free. They felt pretty. I couldn't decide between four of the five samples they sent me! They were all so nice, and one was textured, and two of them were shimmery ... I let Mr. Hyena touch them, and he decided the one he liked best was the 130-lb. ultra heavy card stock in white. It's soft. ^_^  Oh, and they did a beautiful job on the invitations, and I lurve them.

The thing I really like about Catprint is that I could order the invitation pieces in the quantities I needed them; I found through most of the local printers, you had to purchase quantities of 100, 250 or 500, and I didn't need that many of them. Especially because, as you'll see soon, I had many varieties of inserts for the invites...

I promise the next post is the big reveal! Pinky swear!

(Catprint did not pay me for this post. They're just awesome and I can't stop saying nice things.)

Invitations: Sent!

I got a little too excited, and I mailed out our invitations about a week earlier than planned.

That there's the box that once contained many envelopes of pink and maroon joy. I thought about taking a picture of myself holding the box, but earlier in the evening I completed Week 5 Day 2 of my C25K training, and no one wants to see what I look like after (successfully!) running for eight minutes.

Rumor has it the invites are popping up in our guests' mailboxes already, so it won't be long before I show you the full suite!

It's GROUNDHOG DAY!

This has to be déja vu. I briefly touched on trash cans being unacceptable wedding décor, but here we are, back at trash cans again. ("What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.")

Earlier this evening, Matt and I were at Sam's Club looking for cups for the bar. They had a perfect size for wine, but we thought they might be a little small for beer cups, which is not the point at all. The point was, people were going to be drinking beverages and noshing on hors d'oeuvres all night, and we do not have wait staff to clean up the trash. The tables will just accumulate more and more refuse until each one could be its own landfill.

Matt says, no problem, just put some trash cans in the corner and people can throw away their own plates and cups. Allie has an aneurism in the middle of the store. Trash cans are unacceptable wedding décor. You can't ask your guests to be the cleanup crew at your wedding.

Sure, trash cans would obviously be the easiest choice, and I am just so tired of trying to think about little details. But a much bigger part of me, the part that has been planning this wedding for sixteen months, says no way buddy, you aren't ruining MY wedding aesthetic with trash cans. Hell, I'll figure out how many plasma donations it would take me to hire someone to wait tables, so long as there's someone to do it. (Well, not literally. But you know what I mean.)

Am I justified in thinking this is a big problem? As a guest, would you have a problem with trash cans tucked away in corners at the venue? Would it offend you? Or do you think Matt's right and I just need to calm down? Do you have any clever ideas for "disguising" trash cans?*
("Am I right or am I right or am I right?")


*Matt's best idea was to get a homeless guy to sit outside the venue, with a bonfire in a trash can. This way, throwing your trash away becomes an awesome activity. It at least made me smile.