Invited to the Junket

Greg & I have had our invitations designed & ready to print for what seems like FOREVER. We got a great recommendation from a friend of ours to try a printer she'd used before here in Chicago so we set up an appointment & had it all figured out. Then my Mom had the idea of checking with a family printer in St. Pete. Of course I was originally peeved because this would "slow us down", but I have to give credit to Mom...she got a pretty brilliant deal back home & I was happy to shop "local".

When I was home for my bachelorette party & shower we picked up the invitations & they are exactly what I wanted. I flew them all the way back to Chicago so that Greg & I could address them & get them on their way. FIRST I had to figure out how to get them addressed without either hiring a full time calligrapher or paying a printer a big fee to print them for us. SO I decided to do it myself. Shocker right? Fellow savvy brides...pay attention. Everybody else, stop reading.

It's a 2 parter: FIRST I found this tutorial on how to print on this little baby RSVP envelopes. That was a relief because I had already been having a hard time with the big envelopes so I was afraid of how difficult the little ones would be. They turned out to be easier than the big ones. SECOND I did myself a favor & created a spreadsheet of our guests & their addresses. I am already excited for how this is going to streamline the holiday card process. Once I made my "mail merge" (I know...nerd) I was home free. ALSO I happened across a beautiful script that I think is polished without being fussy & that's what I used for the whole project. I found it on one of my favorite blogs, How About Orange.

all of the necessary components

So, once all of the addressing was completed I started the hunt for postage. I might lean a little on the overly practical side of things, so I had an embarrassingly practical plan to begin with which I won't even share. THEN I started looking on Zazzle for postage because that's where we got our stamps for the Save the Dates & I loved them. Their products are super cute but a little pricey for me at this stage of the game. Enter the old trusty United States Postal Service...Making bridal postage dreams come true since 1775. There were 3 "wedding stamps" available but of course you know I can't let my creative side go down without a fight...and then I found THEEEESE. Garden of Love? We're getting married in a Garden. We're in love. PERFECT! So we order 1.5 MILLION sheets of these (ok not that much but close) & they finally arrived YESTERDAY!

If I haven't already said enough how much we love & adore our neighbors Rich & Charlene I need to say it again. They have changed our Chicago living lives since we met this Fall. They have been supportive, kind & helpful in every possible way & they're really more like family than neighbors. It's almost like my dream of all of my family & friends living on a compound somewhere in the south...except it's a condo building with our neighbors in Chicago. Gotta start small. Anyway, they had our pups for the day (per usual) so we went down to their place for dinner & invitation assembling. Charlene is a fellow crafter/do it yourselfer so she jumped right in & Rich played his valued role as puppy wrangler. All in all it didn't take long & we had a really good time.

So here we are. The stamped & addressed wedding invitations are on their way to their destinations & we are counting down the 6 short weeks to the wedding. Since I'm already on a bridal rant here I want to give credit to the people who made the invitations so amazing. #1 the designer, Ngaire Locking of Greetings Oscar in Melbourne Australia. Yes, Australia but we found Greetings Oscar via Etsy, my favorite wedding shopping site. She was & continues to be amazing as we finalize many other pieces of the suite for the big day. #2 the printer, Bates Printing. They were fast, affordable & amazing. They'll be doing the rest of our printing for the wedding for sure.

So that's the "exciting happenings" around here. We're off to Canada this afternoon for the annual Sigma Chi Hockey Tournament. This trip is a belated birthday trip for Greg & we're both excited. It's my first time to Canada so I'm sure there'll be lots of pictures. Stay tuuuuuuuuuned!

Happy Friday Friendlies,
Meggo