RSVPs Are Rolling In

A few weeks ago Zac and I sent out our wedding invitations. Since then we have been excited to check the mail everyday and find RSVP envelopes waiting for us. It's so nice to discover one or two of these little grey envelopes hiding in the sea of junk mail and bills.

I've read a few stories from other blogs and wedding websites about brides and grooms getting back RSVP cards without names. It can bring some confusion wondering who will or won't be attending the big event. To make sure we didn't have to worry about this confusion, I decided to create a way of tracking who our RSVP cards went to. Before placing all of the RSVP cards in the invitation envelopes, I wrote a small number on the back of each card. Here's an example:

The number on the card was matched up to a a guest. I kept a list with guests and their coordinating numbers.

This numbering method has already come in handy. We've received a few RSVPs without names and without the numbers on the back of each card I would have been clueless in regards to who had sent back a response. Instead, it was super easy to flip over the card, check the number, and refer back to my list.

Has anyone else used a similar tracking system? How long did it take to get back te majority of your RSVP cards? I'd love to hear how this went for other brides. 

Signed, Sealed, Delivered!

The invitations are complete and all have been mailed out! Soon the RSVP cards will come rolling in. With only 78 days left until the wedding, crunch time is finally upon us.

When deciding on invitations, Zac and I looked through a bunch of different pictures online on different invitation websites, but didn't really find anything that we liked. It seemed silly to spend a bunch of money on something we weren't excited about. In the end we decided just to make our own. We ordered some pocketfold invitations and envelopes from Cards and Pockets (read all about that here), and I got to work on designing the invitations, RSVP cards, and maps.

I'm no graphic expert and don't have extensive computer experience, so I used Microsoft Word to complete the task. (I did the same thing when I designed our save the dates.)

I took my time, and over the course of a few weeks I came up with something that I thought went really well with the vibe of our wedding. I ended up using 5 different fonts, three colors, a few heart shapes, and some lines and dashes. I made the invitation less formal by not using our last names and using a design that had a more casual, less traditional flow.

The next step was to create the matching RSVP cards. I incorporated the same fonts and colors that I used on the invitation. The important pieces of information that I needed to make sure appeared on the RSVP cards included:

- The date in which guests would need to RSVP by.

- The fact that our wedding is an adult only occasion. (Just in case guests did not read our blog post about plus ones and children.)

- A place for guests to include their name.

- The number of seats that we were allowing/reserving for each party.

- A place for guests to let us know how many of the reserved seats they would be needing.

- The address to our wedding website.

- And of course the most important detail, a place for guests to let us know whether or not they would be able to attend.

It took a little bit of manuevering but I finally figured out how to get the information squeezed onto the 3X4 cards without looking too crowded or jumbled.

I started to assemble the invitations and loved the way that they looked all together. I posted a picture of the RSVP card and the completed look (pictured below) on Pinterest, and the response was pretty nice. I had 8 people email me to ask if I could send them the template I used so that they could modify it for their own weddings. It was really flattering!

The next order of business was to create inserts with a map and directions to the venue. Though a lot of our guests live in the area, not everyone has been to Wolf Lakes Park, and we would hate for anyone to get lost or arrive late because we neglected to help them out with directions. Wolf Lakes was nice enough to include a map as well as a list of multiple routes in our package of information when we booked out date. This information made the task a lot easier on me. I created a sheet of inserts for each invitation.

One sheet for each invitation resulted in quite a stack of paper. It took me a little while until I was ready to sit down and tackle the task of cutting each of them to size for the nearly 100 invitations we were sending out.

Finally all was finished and the invitations were ready to be sealed, stamped, and addressed.

Since our envelopes were a dark, slate grey color, I realized that using a regular black or blue ink pen wasn't going to work. I picked up two white gel pens at Micheal's Craft Store for only $3. It was a good thing that I bought more than one. The first pen ran out of ink at around invitation #70. Between addressing the invitations and RSVP card return envelopes I think the first pen made it pretty far. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I spent Valentine's Day evening, sealing and stamping all of the invitations (94 in total!). [For a little bit I felt a little like Susan on Seinfeld!]

Now that the invitation business is complete, it's time to move on to other projects! This weekend is going to be a fun one. Amy's baby shower is tomorrow, and our little nephew, Grayson is having a Dr. Seuss themed first birthday on Sunday. I can't wait to share the details!

Post Valentine's Day Wrap Up

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day yesterday!

Zac and I decided to spend a casual afternoon together. Since we have less than 80 days left until the wedding (so exciting!!!) and with so much left to do it would be really silly to spend a bunch of money on expensive gifts, a fancy dinner, etc. Zac and I both work in restaurants so we normally work on this holiday. I was lucky enough to get the day off this year but Zac had a closing shift in the evening. Working in restaurants we know that its better to stay away from the craziness and we typically eat at home on Valentine's day, but yesterday we decided to get some lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant before getting some fun wedding related things done. At lunch Zac gave me this adorable card:

The next stop on our Valentine's Day afternoon plan was to Rogers Jewelry to pick out Zac's wedding band. While Zac tried on rings his smile got bigger and bigger. In the whole 6.5 years we've been together I've never seen Zac wear a ring. There were a couple that looked good on him but in the end we chose this one:

Zac loves it and is excited to wear it. As soon as we got in the car to leave Rogers, he opened the box and put the ring on. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that it wasn't fair that I've been able to wear my engagement ring for over a year now and he hasn't been able to show off a ring of his own. We decided that Valentine's day was his day to wear his ring. He took it off before he went to work but as soon as he got home at 10:30 pm he put it right back on because he still had 1.5 hours until the day was over. I thought it was the cutest thing ever. 

From Rogers Jewelry we headed to the post office. Our invitations are completely done (I'll be sharing the details later) and all they need are stamps to be sent out. We needed stamps for the RSVP card envelopes and we took a sample invitation with us to be weighed so that we knew what the postage would be to send the invitations out as well. The lady at the post office was very nice. After getting us a coil of stamps for the RSVP envelopes, she brought over a few selections of $0.65 stamps for us to choose from for the invitations. In the end we decided on a butterfly print. (It was much better than the cartoon dogs option.)

By the time we were done with the post office, Zac and I had just enough time to snuggle and watch a movie before he had to go to work. When Zac left, I got to work on our wedding invitations. It took me an hour and a half to stamp each rsvp card, stuff the invitations, and stamp and seal each envelope. I felt quite accomplished when it was all over.

It's exciting to see all of those invitations ready to be mailed out. It means that our wedding day is getting closer and what could be more exciting than that?! Pretty soon the RSVP cards will be coming in! I love getting mail, and hearing back from our guests will be the best mail, ever!

To celebrate my accomplishment, I snuggled on the couch with my little Valentine, Jim, had a fire roaring in the fireplace, enjoyed a glass of champagne, and caught up on The Bachelor.

It was a fantastic Valentine's Day!