STD's

It has been a while since I went post crazy. School is back in session and since I work at a Big Ten University, 40,000 students have descended upon campus and have been keeping every employee at the university very busy. Being two months into the semester, I am still busy, but way behind on updating my thoughts. It's time to catch up!

We decided we wanted to use Save the Date's since our wedding is during the height of most schools and colleges spring break. We have already had guests tell us that we chose a date during their spring break. Since we chose a date we liked, I honestly could care less who has spring break that week. But I guess it is better to make sure the information is out there now so everyone can plan ahead instead of me telling them "I don't care if you come or not!" :)

So back to the STD's. We wanted something nice and easy that aligned with either our theme or colors and that looked professional. On top of that, we really didn't want to spend a lot of money. I began scouring the Internet looking for ideas and found postcards for an awesome bargain at vistaprint.com. We were able to redesign the post card to fit our needs and we were able to get 250 postcards for less than 50 dollars!


We have had the postcards for just over two months now, and knew we needed to get them sent out. Last week we finally sat down and finalized the guest list and got almost all of the addresses we needed. The list came out to 300 people and that was with cutting it down by about 60 people! We were then able to print address labels for all of the guests and attach them to our postcards. On Thursday of last week we sent them out. It feels so good to have a finalized guest list and have sent out all of our postcards. With less than six months to go, I am feeling pretty good!

DIY

I am not the most creative person, but I figured a couple DIY projects would be a good idea to add a personal touch to the wedding. I chose to make my own programs and favors. I have heard that DIY projects are nice to have, but they can be a huge pain to complete. Hopefully starting 8 months out will give me enough time to make 300 programs and favors without too much stress.

For the programs, I decided to keep it simple. I went to Hobby Lobby and bought black cardstock, white cardstock, vellum, and sheer ribbon in maroon and white. I also purchased a paper cutter/scorer, a necessity if you decide to make your own paper products. I decided to keep the programs the size of a regular piece of paper folded over. The outside is the black card stock. The actual printing will be done on the white card stock on the inside. I cut about an inch off of the top and side of the white cardstock, to leave a black boarder from the cover. I then tied a ribbon around the front cover to hold the white cardstock to the black cardstock. It allows for three pages available for print. On the front i used scrapbook tape to attach a 3 by 3 inch square of white paper printed with a monogram I made in a word document. To finish off the program, I printed our names, date, and location on the vellum and using the scrapbook tape I attached it atop the monogram.

For the favors, we decided to keep along the same theme. We purchased small black Chinese take out boxes and hot glued ribbons around the top. We had a stamp made to stamp the tags we found to hang on the side. We have not decided if they will be pre-filled with candy, or if we will have a candy buffet.

I have only made about 20 boxes and it took quite some time. Hopefully I won't pull all my hair out in the process of making these favors.