Brilliant, DIY, Budget Rehearsal Dinner Invitations

 Today I am so excited, because our rehearsal dinner invitations have been sent and should be at their destinations by now!   These invitations were so much fun for me, because although I didn't DIY the wedding invitations (I had to make the call to preserve my sanity!) I decided that the smaller number of rehearsal dinner invites merited some DIY action.  And in case you didn't know, making invitations is WORK!  I'm glad I just stuck with these (and glad I had FMIL and FSIL to help)!  Don't worry though, I'll give you all the details for how you can make them yourself!

First, I went to Paper Source and I purchased enough of the following supplies to make 30 invitations: (1) A7 note cards in leaf, (2) cover weight 8.5 x 11 cardstock in leaf, (3) soft white enclosure cards, which are slightly smaller than the A7 cards, (4) 4 bar cards in soft white, (5) "Retro Snowflake" envelope liners, and (6) A7 envelopes in superfine white.  I also gathered up my handy-dandy address labels, which have been used for a variety of projects.

For step 1, we attacked the envelopes.  I had 50 envelope liners but only needed to line 30 envelopes, so I cut rectangles from the leftovers and glued them to the front of the envelopes.  I also used a heart-shaped hole punch to add a heart near the return address.  Using fonts we selected for the invitation, I printed out address labels and added them on top.

[caption id="attachment_1485" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Of course we couldn't send a plain envelope..."][/caption]

 Step 2 involved making the invitations themselves.  I set up a custom paper size in Microsoft Word to work with our soft white enclosure cards, and used my selected fonts to create a few different "proofs" which I circulated to my FMIL for her thoughts (she and FFIL are generously throwing the rehearsal dinner, so her input was important to me!)  Once we nailed down a look, I set my home printer to its "best" print setting, and fired them off.

[caption id="attachment_1484" align="aligncenter" width="260" caption="Detailed view of the invite itself"][/caption]

 Next came the belly bands.  Those were fun and easy!  I scanned baby photos of J. and I, and then used photoshop to crop them and turn them to sepia tones!  I also used the photoshop tools to age one of the photos a bit, so that they had a similar texture.  I printed the baby photos onto leftover soft white insert cards and then cut them out with crinkle-edged shears so that they would look antique!

We also took the 8.5 x 11 leaf cardstock and cut it into 1.5 inch strips.  Using the bone folder, we scored and folded the bands, and then used foam tape (to give the photos some height) to adhere the photos to the belly bands.  Cute right? 

What guests will see when they open the envelope...

Now it was time to work on the map and direction card, which would be inserted with the invitation into the belly band.  These were pretty easy to make.  I designed the map itself using the same technique as my invitation map enclosures and I made sure that all work was done in the same colors as the invitation and address labels.  It took some fussing (and some time) but it wasn't difficult.  When I finally liked the look of the maps, I printed them on the 4 bar cards using my home printer's "photo" setting- this was important for the map image, because it allowed for those tiny words to print crisply.

[caption id="attachment_1482" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The front of the direction card"][/caption]

On the back of the card, I included directions: hotel to church, church to restaurant, and restaurant to hotel.  The map itself has addresses, in case people want to plug into their GPS systems.  I carefully printed the directions on the backs of the map cards- I say carefully because I was very worried about ink smearing, or printing upside down.  By taking my time, neither was an issue.

[caption id="attachment_1483" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Back of the directions card"][/caption]

And there you have it- our rehearsal dinner invitations were complete, and for only about $50.  Which is less than they cost even at budget retailers- and so much cuter, don't you think?  A special thank you to FMIL and FSIL for their most excellent help in putting these together last Sunday.  It look a little while, but I think the final product was SO worth it.  And FMIL even found adorable holiday stamps for the envelopes.  Another wedding project successfully completed!

[caption id="attachment_1481" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The total package"][/caption]