DIY Save The Dates and Invitations

Welcome back to Wedding Wednesday!

Today I’m doing a quick little post about designing my own stationery for the wedding. My background: I have extensive photoshop training and some minor design experience. I took classes for photoshop from middle school up through college. So that is where all of my experience lays.

Let’s get started!

Here is what my stationery currently looks like.

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Why did I choose to design my own stationery?

I wanted to be able to really customize it. A lot of the pre-designed packs only allow you to put in some minor details, like names and dates. I wanted to be able to have something unique, recognizable, and fun. I knew that doing it myself would give me the full control of customization that I wanted, as well as save me a little bit of money. A pack of 100 sheets of 5×7 rounded corner paper cost me roughly $12. So instead of spending $200+ on save the dates and invitations, I spent $50 on paper and envelopes. I’d consider that a massive success.

What sort of inspiration did I look for?

Since we are getting married on a ship, I wanted something a little nautical themed, maybe travel related. I took to pinterest to gather some ideas about fun invite ideas. I was seeing luggage tag shapes, airplane tickets, and some that were shaped like the steering wheels of ships. I had an entire pinterest board dedicated just to invite inspo until I re-did my pinterest wedding board and got rid of that.

I had actually found some people selling some that were designed to look like passports, and I adored it. I thought it was such a cute idea, and began sketching out ideas and ways to make my own.

Didn’t you need pictures? How did you get your backgrounds?

I actually have paid access to certain stock photo sites, and had been given permission to pull a few stock photos for my personal use. That’s how I got the rope border on my save the dates, and the background I used and modified heavily. The main photo, my father took. And the rest of the empty boxes in the “passport” will be filled over the summer when we are able to go back to the beach and take some photos there.

Ultimately, I’m happy with how they turned out. The test print of my actual invitation showed me how I needed to tweak the colors, and what sizing issues I needed to fix. But those will be ready to be mailed come August!

Thanks for reading, folks. See you later!

They Cancelled My Cruise?!?! What to do!

So wedding planning can be an ever-changing roller coaster of events and emotions. Anyone who has ever planned one can back me up on this one. You have to have contingency plans for your contingency plans.

And from the title, you can see that literally anything can happen.

Last week, we had to deal with some hard decision making. Why? Because the original cruise booking I’d selected for my wedding had gotten cancelled.

Pros and Cons of a Cruise Wedding

If you’re like me, you are likely making a long list of the benefits and drawbacks of all of your wedding options once you start planning. And if not, I envy you and your calmness.

I’ve decided to type up my short list for such a scenario today. Focusing solely on the Cruise wedding we chose.

Wedding Planning: Early Choices

Happy Friday, everybody! And welcome back for the next installment in my adventures in wedding planning. Today I’m not doing anything terribly intense, just breaking down some of the personal choices that we are making for the wedding and cruise.

Have any of you cruised before? If not, I highly recommend it. So much is included in the cost, it ultimately costs less than a week-long stay in a stateside beach town. If you shop right, that is. Let me know in the comments if you’ve cruised, and if so on what line!

Wedding Planning: Price comparisons

Welcome back, friends! If you were here on Monday, you read about how we were given the idea to get married on a cruise, rather than a more “traditional” venue on land. If not, go ahead and click that link and see a silly photo of the people who suggested the whole thing.

Today I’m here to walk you through my early-stage planning process by helping you see how we determined which cruise line to give our money to. I looked at four cruise lines in my quest to find the right one.

Carnival
Royal Caribbean
Norwegian Cruise Line
Princess Cruises

Color coded for your convenience.

Now let’s dive in!

We’re Getting Married!

So as many people already know by now, I’m engaged!

A few months ago, my long term boyfriend proposed at a local vineyard. It was cute, and sweet, and I think a little expected by my family. He’d invited my sister along for the day, as well as his mother and sister. So there was a little bit of planning involved.

All of that got the wheels turning. What sort of ceremony would we want? What kind of budget would we need? When did we want to become legally bound on paper in the eyes of the government?

It took a fair bit of time to figure that out, to be honest. We did celebrate properly that night with Chinese food and more wine with our siblings and close friends. But the day after was when all of the questions started coming in. We were both getting phone calls from relatives that our parents had told, friends who live in other states, and I’d gotten my first bridal advertisement on Instagram. That’s how you know it’s serious business.

The first question everyone had for us was the obvious one: When? Now at the time, we hadn’t given thought to a date, seeing as we had been engaged for less than 24 hours. But we did know one thing, it would be a little while. We wanted to save up some money and weigh our options. So we started generalizing with “One or two years, probably.” And the like. None of this, however, stopped our parents from beginning to toss out suggestions. Local churches, local vineyards, state parks. If it was a reasonably priced venue, we ended up looking at it.

But believe it or not, the winning suggestion came in tandem from my father and my sister. (Dad and sister pictured below during the Christmas Cruise 2017)

Can you tell we’re a family who enjoys fun?

Anyway. She had texted me while we were going over options with my parents:

“How about a cruise wedding?”

Now that was an idea! It was fairly unique to us, I adore cruising as a means of vacation, and the price was comparable to a land-locked wedding done in more traditional means. (Cheaper, even.) All at once the idea of getting married on a beautiful cruise ship surrounded by our friends and family before setting sail for a tropical island sounded absolutely spectacular in our minds.

It was time to start researching cruise lines.

Come on back in a few days as I break down my research process and how we decided which cruise to book!