Etsy Wedding Invitations

I am neither crafty nor patient.  So all this DIY invitation stuff I read about sounds really great, but it's not gonna happen.  However, I love the idea of buying stuff from talented people with their own businesses, rather than from huge online businesses or expensive stores.    Enter Etsy.  I love Etsy.  I will one day write a post on all of the cool stuff I've gotten from there.  (I've already posted about our awesome save the dates, which I am still LOVING.)
So, here are some of the invites I considered, from some really amazing Etsy artisans:

These were really lovely, simple and well designed.  I was THIS CLOSE to choosing these.  The seller was amazing to work with, and asked a bunch of questions to get the "feel" of our wedding before sending us a customized sample.

Love Made Visible

Handmade, linen invitations with eco friendly envelopes.  Again, the seller was great to work with.  They were a little too plain for me, but really lovely. 

Artful Beginnings

If our wedding invite budget was double what it is, I would have bought these.  They were WAY out of our price range.  The coolest part?  The seller will include customized vintage-style RSVP postcards for each guest with THEIR hometown on it.  So cool.  Someone please get these and tell me all about them. 

Oh So Suite

And the finalist.  I was so indecisive about wedding invites, but I kept coming back to these.  Simple, a little different, great quality, and super affordable.  I entered one of her giveaways she was hosting, and she gave me 15% off the entire suite.  Awesome.

CheerupCherup

On our invites, the flower petals will be sage green, the envelopes will be a pewter grey, and the writing will be in black and blush pink to go with our rather loose color palette.  I'm as psyched as I can be about wedding invitations.  To be honest, this is something I don't really care that much about.  I just knew I wanted to like them, and they needed to be less than 4 bucks a pop.  Done and done.  I feel so accomplished. 

Save the Date choices - Help!

One day, while trolling Etsy and searching for Save the Dates, I stumbled upon these:

Vintage-style Save the Date postcards!  About 90% of our guests will be traveling into Madison, so it is almost like a destination wedding. The postcards will be a great way to invite them to come to Madison, and show them what our (old) beautiful city looks like!  The seller, Beyonddesign, will create custom Save the Date postcards from old vintage postcard images she finds, and then designs to meet your needs.  These were exactly what we've been looking for.    She was amazing to work with, and was great with making changes based on our feedback.  She gave us SO MANY options, but we have narrowed it down to two choices.

Option A

Option B

I love them for such different reasons!  Option A has such a fun, vintage vibe and it really showcases a lot of the different parts of Madison that we love.  Option B shows one of my favorite views of Madison, which you see right when you are driving in, and it shows off one of the lakes.

I just can't decide!  Please help!

Save the Dates (no acronym please)

A few years ago, I had no idea what Save the Dates were (and no, I will not use that acronym, it just seems WRONG).  Then, all of a sudden, everywhere we went we saw them on the fridge!  Most of the Save the Dates we saw were of the engagement picture magnet/postcard variety, which are lovely, but really not for us.  I really like Save the Dates that are fairly simple and to the point, and P prefers the cheese factor to be close to zero.
Here are some that I really love, seriously considered, and are $2/each or less:

This was the first one I fell in love with.

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I love everything this Etsy seller does.

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Also an Etsy seller, also amazing.

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We decided to go the Etsy route, but we did something a bit different.  It is in the works as we speak and I can't wait to share it!

What unique, affordable Save the Dates did you find in your search?

Elegantly Navigating Family Issues: Semantics

When a bride and a groom from divorced families decide to tie the knot, there are A LOT of issues that come up during wedding planning that I absolutely did not expect.   I think that this is something that a lot of brides and grooms deal with, and need advice on. 

The first small issue that came up was invitation wording.  P's mother has been married to his stepdad (who P is incredibly close with) for years.  P's dad is not remarried, but has been with the same woman for many years, and she happens to be our florist-friendor!  My mother has been remarried for a couple of years to a man I am not very close with, and then we have my father, who is remarried, and who probably won't come.  Add all that to the fact that the groom's family will be paying for a large portion of the costs, we will be paying a portion, and the bride's mother will be paying a portion.  Is your head spinning yet?  Mine hurts.  Here is what I imagine our invitation will look like (in my worst nightmare):

Mrs. and Mr. Bride's mother

and

Mr. and Mrs. Bride's father (who probably won't show up)

invite you to join them in the celebration of love as their daughter,

Bride-whose-head-is-hurting

is united in marriage to

Groom-who-thinks-the-solution-is-to-send-an-evite

son of Mrs. Groom's mom and Stepdad

and Groom's dad and partner (who won't like being at the end of the invite)

Woa.  OK, I know that would never happen but OMG. 

Then I began to search the blogs and saw the perfect wedding invitation wording:

Together with their families

The Bride

and

The Groom

would like you to come party with us! (or something like that)

Ahhhh.  Simplicity.  Perfect.

So what is the lesson we've learned today?  Keep it simple.

Have you had to elegantly navigate any family issues?  How have you handled it?

Will you be my bridesmaid?

In asking my lovely ladies to be my bridesmaids, I knew that I wanted to do something special. All of my bridesmaids live long distance from me (2 in California, 2 in Michigan, and one in Florida), so I couldn't ask them in person.

And so the search for bridesmaid cards began!

A DIY option:

Once Wed  Disclaimer: I could never do this. My friends would laugh out loud and want to know when the wedding had gotten to my brain.  I'm not exactly a paper doll sort of a girl.

And then I stumbled upon Etsy and found that there is a whole genre of bridesmaids cards.  Seriously, I was overwhelmed. Finally, I found an option that fit my style/price range and ordered them up.

Here they are:

Etsy Seller SongbirdPie

I'm digging the rustic vibe of these cards. She added each girl's name to the top and even made me a MOH and junior bridesmaid card. This seller was wonderful to work with and the cards were less than $2 each, w/envelopes.

Of course, I ended up calling all of them first because I just couldn't wait, but all of my ladies loved their cards. My favorite response was a text that read "Of course I will be your bridesmaid, you crafty little minx". I love my friends.