With just 10 months to go to The Big Day, we are feeling pretty good about the things we have checked off the to-do list. One of the perks of a long engagement is that there’s ample time to pick and choose every detail. I’ve been able to spend a lot of time on certain elements, but with very little stress involved.
One of the first things we worked on were invitations. I ordered samples galore, I poured over PaperSource, Wedding Paper Divas, Rexcraft, Jean M, Invitations by Dawn, and just about any other website you could think of or that’s advertised in a wedding magazine or discussed on a blog. We found all white invites. We found engraved invites. We found invites tied with ribbons. We found imvites pressed with leaves or hearts or cowboy boots. We found elaborate enclosures and simple all-in-one cards. It’s overwhelming all of the options you can choose for what seems to be such a simple thing.
We agreed pretty early into the decision process that we wanted some color. Navy invitations proved to be much less common than other colors, so our choices of pre-made sets were already limited. We wanted something clean and modern, but still classic and traditional. We decided to go the way of custom design invitations to get exactly what we wanted. We probably spent more money on invites than we could have because of it, but the general consensus was that any money spent on something we didn’t love was money wasted. Invitations were very important to my parents, so we had a decent budget for the whole package to work with, but spending less wouldn’t have been a bad idea either.
Approximately 58 invitation samples later (56 of which were immediately rejected by The Fiance), I began custom-designing an invitation on My Gatsby. It was a little work intensive to get the wording and layout exactly perfect, but the end result was perfect: navy pocketfolds with white inserts, navy ink and custom paper seals. The enclosures were actually printed at a discount – My Gatsby runs different kinds of specials almost constantly and we had great timing for one of them.
I love our invitations. Here they are, closed and sealed:

We will not be using inner envelopes because of the pocketfold (saved some moolah and some paper). Three enclosures are tucked inside, not including an envelope for the RSVP card.


I love the whole suite. It turned out exactly as we had pictured it. The cardstock has a great texture and feel to it. The inserts themselves are printed via thermography, which mimics letterpress at significantly less cost.

I was also able to order extra navy cardstock that matches the invitations. We’ll be using it to make programs, table numbers, and escort cards (my next big task to do).
They say that the invitations help set the tone for the whole wedding, and I simply love the first impression we’ll be sending our guests. I can’t wait to get started on the calligraphy and send them out!