I am not a paper person!

I am not a scrap booking, craft stores, Paper Source loving bride. But luckily I have friends that are. I know many brides to be find that making your invitations as one of the most cost effective ways to help with the budget. And Miss Butterscotch happens to be one of those brides. When my two good friends took me to paper source I vividly remember one saying to me "so what type of blue do you want?" and I looked at the wall with the about 10 different shades of blue and pointed to the whole blue section simply replied "blue". She laughed at me. So I have come a long way since my first visit. And while I am still not a paper person I can at least pick a blue.
I told the hive that the cost of our day so far is hovering around $15,772ish. Here is the cost break down of my invitations.
Envelopments 5x7 pockets 1.69 per pocket *Originally $2.25
Envelopments 8x11 cover weight .41 per sheet *Originally .54
Stardream Sapphire (discontinued from Paper Zone) .12 per invite
Stardream Opal (discontinued from Paper Zone) .12 per invite
4 bar reply envelope in Sapphire .30 per invite
Cutting costs done at Costco .12 per invite
Sticker to close pocket .10 per invite
Clear plastic to mail invites .05 per invite
Sticker Labels (both the to and return labels) .10 per invite
Stamps to mail and with the return stamp 1.28 per invite
Total per invite $4.29

I would have loved to keep them under $4 but the feed back that I have gotten from family and friends has been well worth the extra cost and labor. And when I went to get them weighed at the post office I have a small crowd of postal workers impressed too! All in all I got exactly what I wanted. We are using the Chopin script that you see in my mock above throughout the wedding (*programs and fan favors posts to come soon :)) We also as you will see used plastic slip covers to mail them in rather than spend more money on envelops.

*My envelopment cost were discounted by 25% since I purchased more than 100 and my local vendor had a special donation drive going that if you donated rolls of toilet paper to a local women shelter they would give you a discount on your purchase.

I didn't include the cost of the $9 corner punch or the $9.00 spray glue since I can use both items again for other project.
Here are some pictures sorry that they are not the greatest but the paper is so metallic that the glare was unavoidable. What do you think?








What was your invitation budget and how did you stick to it or what were you willing to spend a little more on?

They are in the mail...

I dropped the invitations off in the mail. They have been a work in progress for the last few months and finally they are free! I mailed them off about 2.5 months in advance. If you read my rant below about the post office you will know why they were sent out two weeks early. But without any further ado here they are...

I decided not to use an outer envelop. I loved the color of my pockets so I rather use that. But I also personalized the rsvp cards. I used punches on all the corners and I wanted to continue that delicate look on the lables that I chose. I wasn't able to find anything that really matched so i came up with my own labels. I loved them!


Ahhh...a job well done!

Going Postal

UGH!!! That is all I have to say about the post offfice. I finally finished my DIY invites and took one to be weighed at the post office. And guess what??? They have new rules regarding pockets. I was planning on mailing them out in three weeks but due to the additional cost they are hitting mail boxes by next friday. What are the new rules you ask...
1. Stamp prices are going up
2. Pocket thickness has changed (less room than before)
3. 4 bar rsvp sizes need to right on otherwise, you guessed it! They will be charging you more now.
4. Invites need to be bendable or they will be considered ridged and an extra cost will be added.
5. Additional cost for plastic slip covers. I don't know if this is a new rule or not but just thought I would mention it.
Total cost $0.87 (my invites were 2.5 oz) If I would have waited the cost would have been $1.75! I saved almost a $1.00 per invite! Crazy! I will have pictures next week!

Stamps

Now that my DIY invites are almost complete I have started to think about my stamps that I want to use. I personally never thought of this as an issues until my friend Kori got married and then she was obsessed with all thing wedding. So now I have prepared myself for the postage rate change. But I don't think the post office has prepared themselves. I looked on USPS and they have the ugliest stamps available...I can have the forever stamp with the romantic liberty bell

Or how about the flag stamp with the baby poop tan background...

If I were a huge star wars fan I would do this...

I am just hoping they will get the wedding stamp with the new rate together by June.

If they don't have a better stamp option I may just make my own photostamps.com

Love hate relationship

So most of this weekend I worked on our invitations. I have a love hate relationship with my invites. I love them because they are exactly what I wanted. I hate them because I rather just paid an extra $200 and had them made by someone else. After about 20 rewrites of the directions, because according to the groom I have no sense of direction. So I allowed him to write them but I would edit them to help them be more user friendly. Finally everything is all printed and ready to go. Now the fun part of assembly...I found double stick tape and craft adhesive is the best way to go. My paper is so heavy that I wanted the extra step. I must say they are so pretty. My current pride and joy are the return envelopes. Rather than labels I just printed directly on them. I don't know why but to me they look so professionally done. Here is a sneak peek of what I have been up to.