A Homemade Wedding Homestead-Style: Pretty Paper

As soon as we decided to have a wedding, I send these little suckers out. I wanted everyone to know we had already gotten married, but that we were planning a party to celebrate. Plus, we have a lot of family from out of town, so we wanted to make sure they knew about it with enough advance notice.

I formatted and printed these on my home printer. I set it up to print four to a page. Then I went to Staples and cut them out using their large paper cutter. They were designed to be postcards. On the back side I hand addressed them. For any out-of-towners, I sent them in an envelope along with some hotel information.

They were simple, casual and (to me) classy. They also set the stage for all of the forth coming stationery for the wedding. I wanted to lay the foundation for a nice, but fun and relaxed event.

Not all of Cowboy H's family was invited for the wedding. He didn't want anyone feeling obligated or pressured to come all the way to California. Instead, we decided to plan a bbq-get-together-reception for when we visit in the fall. Still, we wanted to finally announce that we got married, so we sent the cards pictured above to them. (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. After getting married in May, we didn't tell anyone besides a select few until October. It was like our special little secret. It was kind of cool really.)

(Don't worry, that's not his address. It got returned to me; that's the only reason I have it!)

For the invitations, I just the same paper and similar fonts as the little announcements. Again, these were formatted by me and printed on my friend's laser printer. She was so kind to offer and it was kinda fun to have some company doing wedding stuff. The envelopes were printed too, with the same font as the body of the invite.

The maps were printed on the back of the invites. I hemmed and hawed about this decision for quite a while, trying to determine whether it would be tacky or not. I wasn't planning on doing maps, but I found an online tutorial (weddingmapper.com) that gave me the idea, so I was determined to do it. But, I wasn't sure if I would have enough paper to print the maps separately. Also, I had calculated postage for my proposed invites to be standard (47 cents) and was afraid adding another piece of paper would increase my postage. Printing on the back turned out to be a good idea, making the invite all inclusive. The map was actually really easy to design. They looked really plain compared so some other wedding maps I'd seen, but honestly, that's all there is to Nipomo! In the end, their simplicity tied in with the rest of the paper goods.

The invitations were printed two to a page. I then trekked to Staples and used their paper cutter (again, and not for the last time). After being cut down to size, I corner punched the eyelet design using a punch I got at Michaels. I really loved the final look. It was exactly what I was going for. Simple, clean, a little bit country, but still pretty classy.

The RSVPs were also formatted and printed at home. These were printed four to a page and designed to be postcards. I counted on Staples once again to cut them out, then rounded the corners using another punch from Michaels. The back was stamped with our address and a cute little fruit stamp was put in the corner.

I didn't want the typical run-of-the-mill responses (too cookie cutter for this wedding). In keeping with the "vibe" of the celebration I came up with my own. I'm glad I did because a lot of people wrote little notes ("Can't wait", "Getting excited") that made me smile. I gave me hope that the type of celebration I wanted (FUN!) was going to be possible.

Footnote: The horseshoe logos(?) were designed by a very talented and good friend of mine. He came up with what would become our "monogram" and I had it made into a rubber stamp (along with a smaller single horseshoe one). These suckers were used EVERYWHERE and really tied everything together. Head's up: our wedding ended up having a horseshoe theme.

Up next, Cupcakes, Cupcakes, Cupcakes! and more food stuffs!