All posts in category Wedding Stationary

A Love Affair with Envelope Liners

So, I don’t think that this is news to anyone but…I am obsessed with envelope liners(see here, here). This weekend the obsession was back in full force. We are just about finished getting our updated save the dates ready to mail out and I wasn’t planning on doing envelope liners, but I just couldn’t help myself. I love the way it looks! When we were out and about this weekend picking up our envelopes at PaperSource we overheard a newly engaged bride-to-be inquiring about the how-to on envelope liners and I knew I wasn’t alone in my obsession. I love how the new Save the Dates came out and a lot of that had to do with the envelope liners. I will reveal them soon! I have a feeling you’re going to love them too…

There are really a million options when it comes to envelope liners. You can choose a beautiful specialty paper, you could create your own and print them out on your home computer, you can use rubber stamps to create something unique, or my personal, budget-friendly option wrapping paper!

1, 2, 3, 4

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by soontobemrschadwick on January 27, 2014 • Permalink

Posted in A Love Affair with, DIY Wedding, Save the Dates, Wedding, Wedding Stationary

Posted by soontobemrschadwick on January 27, 2014

https://soontobemrschadwick.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/a-love-affair-with-envelope-liners/

DIY or Buy?

Hello there! It’s been a while. The holidays were just absoultely lovely. The Mr. and I spent some quality time with his family up in Vermont this Christmas. It was filled with love, laughs, a Christmas day hike, board games, and so much more.

While, it’s tough to come back to reality after the holidays I am excited to be back to share with you some escort card inspiration. Escort cards can be a bit boring…and they are really the first impression of your wedding reception. So I advise you to not let the first impression be boring. You could buy some folded cards & then have a calligrapher do the rest. It’s classic. But, I recommend to add a little more personality with a quick DIY. There are so many different ways to spruce up this element of your wedding so, don’t bow out…get creative!

I love our escort “cards,” well they aren’t really cards but, anyway I love them! They have a bit of whimsy, the display fits in with our art deco theme, and they were made by yours truly. I can’t wait to share them with you, but until then here are some other great ideas to get your wheels turning:

Beverage Escort Cards

Pancake Escort Cards

Pick Your Posies Escort Cards

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by soontobemrschadwick on December 30, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Art Deco, Baltimore Bride, DIY or Buy?, DIY Wedding, Wedding, Wedding Decor, Wedding Stationary

Posted by soontobemrschadwick on December 30, 2013

https://soontobemrschadwick.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/diy-or-buy-6/

DIY or Buy?

Wedding invitations…there are so many gorgeous wedding invitation suites out there! OMG! That was actually the first thing the Mr. and I looked at, lol! We went to the most beautiful paper boutique in Portsmouth, NH just days after our engagement. I was so excited! Just a little fair warning it only takes you about umm 5 minutes to fall in love with everything! If you are ever in that area you have to stop by Gus & Ruby, not only do they have beautiful paper goods but, they also have great gifts! But, for us buying the type of custom wedding invitation suite that I soo wanted was just not in the budget. So, I got to work! I was going to get the custom suite I wanted by DIYing my heart out. One thing that I would definitely recommend if you plan on DIYing your wedding invites is to wait until after you have your wedding venue selected and your general design plan for the wedding: decor, cake, dress. So you know what type of look would suit everything. I started out just researching design elements that fit with our look that I could incorporate easily. Our venue as I have mentioned before reminds me so much of Jay Gatsby’s house straight off of the 1974 set of the film (swoon Robert Redford). So, some of our design inspiration has come from the Jazz Age. However, at the same time I wanted to keep them modern with a bit whimsy. Here are some of the elements that inspired me:

1, 2, 3

The design process was actually a lot of fun for me. I would print out the updates as I incorporated different elements to show the Mr. and he would give me some input. It was really a great team project. Then we got them printed using our handy, dandy Groupon saving tons of money. All that is left is assembling them, postage, and calligraphy. We were actually snowed in yesterday so, we got a good dent into the assembly process. It was such a great sense of accomplishment seeing how it all came together. I couldn’t be happier! Plus, I am so grateful that we didn’t have it in our budget for the fancy letterpress suite. We would have missed out on collaborating on such an amazing project together. We were snowed in with the fireplace on in our PJs putting them together. It was a great day!

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by soontobemrschadwick on December 9, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Art Deco, Baltimore Bride, Calligraphy, Crafty, DIY or Buy?, DIY Wedding, DIY wedding invites, Wedding, Wedding Invites, Wedding Stationary

Posted by soontobemrschadwick on December 9, 2013

https://soontobemrschadwick.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/diy-or-buy-5/

Groupon Can Save Your Wedding Budget

Ok so I know it sounds crazy, Grouponing your way through wedding planning. However, Groupon has been a huge moneysaver for us. DIYing all of our wedding stationary has been a huge help, but we wouldn’t have been able to have them printed at such a huge discount without the help of our new friend Groupon, look at the savings

Source: Association of Bridal Consultants

Obviously we were thrilled! So, now that I have learned what a difference a Groupon can make I have been on the look out for anything that could help me trim off some of the fat of our wedding budget. Just this week I was able to get a beautiful Aiden Mattox dress for our rehearsal dinner from Saks for 80% off, saving over $100 thanks to Groupon. Check out the Groupon deals available now in the Baltimore area & see if Groupon can save your wedding budget too.

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by soontobemrschadwick on November 6, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Baltimore Bride, DIY Wedding, DIY wedding invites, Save the Dates, Wedding, Wedding Advice, Wedding Budget, Wedding Invites, Wedding Stationary

Posted by soontobemrschadwick on November 6, 2013

https://soontobemrschadwick.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/groupon-can-save-your-wedding-budget/

Save the Date, the BIG Reveal

I know there has been a lot of talk about our Save the Dates the past few weeks around here, but I promise this is the last post. A big thank you to all of our friends & family and your very sweet compliments regarding the recent arrivals to your mailboxes. It was so nice to see them the past few days. I just wanted to show you guys what all the hype was about and give you a BIG reveal of our design…from the card to the beautifully lined envelopes and everything in between.

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by soontobemrschadwick on August 5, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Baltimore Bride, DIY Wedding, DIY wedding invites, Vintage, Vintage Wedding, Wedding, Wedding Invites, Wedding Paper, Wedding Stationary

Posted by soontobemrschadwick on August 5, 2013

https://soontobemrschadwick.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/save-the-date-the-big-reveal/

Save the Date, Quick Tip

We dropped our Save the Dates off at the post office yesterday, YAY! When I was on my way out of my office headed out to the post office, I was chatting with one of my lovely co-workers who shared a great tip with me…so I wanted to share it with you.

I was fully attending on just dropping off the Save the Dates with a smile and a thank you. Boy was I wrong… you do not want to use the automatic sorter for your precious wedding stationary. You can easily have the post office weigh your Save the Date or invitation and verify that you have the correct postage and then opt to stamp on the postmark yourself, its called hand cancelling. This will eliminate the necessity for the envelope to go through a machine that often results in some damage to the invitation (at least some sort of crease), and always leaves machine marks and creases on the beautified envelope that was electronically addressed in a illustrative font or tastefully addressed by a hand calligrapher. Just make sure when hand cancelling that you get the postmark on each stamp and then you are all set. These are all of our lovely guests’ Save the Dates looking sharp with their postmarks (and their addresses blurred out).

It only took me like 5 minutes and it provided me with so much relief. Lucky for me there won’t be any nightmares of the automated machine destroying all of my hard work. DIY wedding stationary is a labor of love and it is definitely not worth risking!

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by soontobemrschadwick on July 31, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Baltimore Bride, Crafty, DIY Wedding, DIY wedding invites, Save the Dates, Vintage, Vintage Wedding, Wedding, Wedding Stationary

Posted by soontobemrschadwick on July 31, 2013

https://soontobemrschadwick.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/save-the-date-quick-tip/

Wedding Paper, Part IV

In my opinion the crowning glory of your wedding stationary is not only the pretty calligraphy (see my post about that here) its also about the stamps. My new blog post is up on the Baltimore Bride! And it’s all about the perfect stamp for your perfect invitation!

Lots of really great tips! Check it out here!

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by soontobemrschadwick on June 14, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Art Deco, Baltimore Bride, Save the Dates, Vintage, Vintage Wedding, Wedding Invites, Wedding Paper, Wedding Stationary

Posted by soontobemrschadwick on June 14, 2013

https://soontobemrschadwick.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/wedding-paper-partiv/

Calligraphy is an Art

When I first started researching calligraphy for our wedding stationary I was blown away by how expensive it can be, some of the calligraphers can charge up to $1.25 per line. For a typical wedding invitation that adds up to about $6.25 if you decide to do an inner envelope, let me just say whoa! If you invite 100 people that’s $625 just to address your invites, let alone the actual cost of the invites. That’s just not a realistic dollar figure for our budget.

But, the more I thought about it calligraphy really is an art. Generally, the more expensive calligraphers have done it for years and have really honed their craft. They offer you so many choices when it comes to fonts and styles and they are just lovely. Check out one of the area’s best (in my opinion), Meant to Be Calligraphy! Here are some of my favorite styles:

While, these glamour shots were enticing, realistically Meant to Be Calligraphy was not meant to be for us. I may or may not have had a “moment” about this, lol! I won’t go into details. But, as luck would have it I was sharing my plight with a co-worker who recommended a lovely woman in our area that does calligraphy as a hobby and did her daughters wedding invitations who is within our budget. Sometimes you get to have your cake and eat it too! I can’t wait to see our Save the Dates. I just dropped them off to her a few weeks ago and I am dying with anticipation. She did give me a sneak peek though, check it out!

So don’t give up hope ladies! We all have these lofty aspirations that we have been dreaming up since we were young or in my case since I fell in love. Some you just have to let go of and focus on what’s important! You are marrying the love of your life and making a commitment for the rest of your life to be there for this person and he/she for you. That is truly the most important thing! But, at the same time don’t give up hope there are ways to get what you want as long as you are willing to put forth the effort. Effort comes in all shapes and sizes: research, DIY, thrifting, and so much more. If I know anything, one thing I do know for a fact is that where there is a will there is a way. Here’s hoping!

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by soontobemrschadwick on June 6, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Baltimore Bride, Calligraphy, Save the Dates, Wedding Stationary

Posted by soontobemrschadwick on June 6, 2013

https://soontobemrschadwick.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/calligraphy-is-an-art/

Wedding Paper, Part III

Okay, so I like many brides spend countless hours dreaming of lofty pinspired DIY projects. More often than not I have fallen prey to how simple these project seem. I march into the local craft store with all this enthusiasm and excitement to only end up frustrated and with at least $50 missing from my checking account. I’m pretty sure the future husband is real close to demanding a cease fire on all the DIY, but he has been pretty awesome and supportive through it all so far (which is one of the million reasons I love him so much).

Most recently, the DIY du jour was the DIY envelope liners that I alluded to last week here. Lucky for us this DIY was not only super simple but, it ended up being a fun project for the two of us. Here’s how we did it:

1. Get the goods. You will need: the right size envelope liner template (love these from Paper Source), patterned paper of your choice (1 sheet per envelope), a pen, a pair of scissors, double sided tape. If you gather all your supplies in advance, you will save yourself a lot of time. Double check that you have enough patterned paper for all of your envelopes, so you don’t have to pause mid-project. A lesson we had to learn the hard way because we ran out, not fun.

2. Trace the appropriate envelope liner template depending on the size of your envelopes onto each back side of the sheet of patterned paper. Or, if you are feeling brave stack a few up. We did like 4 at a time and it worked out just fine and saved us a lot of time.

3. Use your scissors to cut out the envelope liners.

4. Once you have all the envelope liners cut out place each one inside the envelope and fold the flap down to crease the envelope liner.

5. Remove the liner from the envelope and place your double sided tape on the top of each side of the rectangle portion and then on the sides of the triangle portion as well as on the rounded tip. Smooth to secure. Repeat on all of your envelopes.

Stand back and look at the beauty that is your envelopes! Enjoy!

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by soontobemrschadwick on May 16, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in DIY Wedding, DIY wedding invites, Save the Dates, Vintage, Vintage Wedding, Wedding Invites, Wedding Paper, Wedding Stationary

Posted by soontobemrschadwick on May 16, 2013

https://soontobemrschadwick.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/wedding-paper-part-iii/

Wedding Paper, Part II

I wasn’t initially planning on doing a blog series on wedding paper…but let’s be honest what’s not to love about the beautiful stationary that is wedding. So, I decided to keep our conversation about fonts, artsy, vintage, and all things paper alive. Today we are going to look at just how beautiful envelope liners really are and why it’s worth the extra effort if you’re DIYing.

Let’s take a looksy at just how pretty it is…

the perfect pop of color

just a touch of whimsy

the city skyline setting the tone

I knew that envelope liners were absolutely necessary after browsing through the beautiful work of Cheree Berry Paper. Then after reading Cheree Berry’s bio it all made sense. She was an associate art director at kate spade in New York City, that’s why it was love at first sight. My mild obsession with kate spade has been prevalent for years now and of course it would inspire the wedding in some way. And here it is…in paper! Next week I am going to walk you through just how easy it is to DIY envelope liners, so stay tuned.

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by soontobemrschadwick on May 8, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Crafty, DIY Wedding, Vintage, Vintage Wedding, Wedding, Wedding Paper, Wedding Stationary

Posted by soontobemrschadwick on May 8, 2013

https://soontobemrschadwick.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/wedding-paper-part-ii/