Invitation Suite: The Big Reveal

The invitations made it safely to their destinations and guests are already beginning to RSVP through our website, meaning I can finally show them to my readers.

I turned this red peony set from Target into our beautiful invitations. They were on clearance from $34.99 per box to only $6.70. I bought three boxes right away. Have I mentioned how much I love Target?

The contents of the 50 invitation kit were already fantastic alone, but just needed a little customization.

Since I had enough invitation sets to make 150 invitations when I only needed to make about 55, I was able to make mistakes and use sheets for multiple parts of the invite. For example, the cards meant for the RSVPs were also used for our save the dates. The extra sheets for the actual invitations were cut in half and used for the comment card.

Here was the result. I used the same fonts we used for all the stationary projects to maintain some uniformity. The envelope for the RSVP cards were embossed with a peony stamp.

Here is the actual invitation close up. Brandon's input in this was the "general merriment immediately following" part. I also included the address for our wedding website so that guests can have access to directions to the Nixon Library, our registries, RSVP, learn more about us and sign our online guest book.

Can you now see why I have been so proud of myself?

Surviving the Wedding Day

To my wonderful bridesmaids and bridesman: If you do not want to know anything about your gifts stop reading NOW.



One of the ideas I found early on while browsing through dozens of wedding blogs is the bridal party survival kit. I was inspired by a post in 100 Layer Cake that featured cellophane bags holding useful emergency things for the wedding day. The post also provides a beautiful downloadable label template.



I decided to create my own label that used our wedding fonts, was larger, and required a little less ink. I used a Martha Stewart template and pasted it into a Microsoft Word document since I do not have PhotoShop. I had to create another document with the text only and matched it so that when I printed the two documents together they would match.

Each female kit includes deodorant, hair tie, bobby pins, Aleve pills, band-aids, gum, tissues, oil absorbant sheets, baby wipes, Q-tips, chocolate, and a tampon. I put these items into a disposable 25 fl oz. plastic containers.

I adjusted Tony's kit and tossed in an extra Twix because his was so sparse compared to the girls' kit.

Cost breakdown:
Travel-size deodorant: $0.97 each
Gum: two packs of three for $4
Twix: $1.02
Aleve: two packs of six caplets for $1.94
Containers: $2.14 for five
Tissue: two packs of four for $2.24
Band-aids: $0.58 for ten
All other items were found around the house

Total cost: $16.77
Cost per kit: $3.35

Budget friendly, thoughtful, and practical. Three cheers for Target and their crazy clearance prices!