Weeeee!

I just got off the phone with my dress shop. My wedding dress is in! I made a tentative appointment for 3 on Saturday for my fist fitting.

The only problem? My sister, Bri, graduates at 4....half an hour away from where my dress is.

Unfortunately I may just have to skip the first half of Bri's graduation. I would have my fitting earlier, but Keegan and I have our taste testing with Hy-vee at 10. Rusty, the guy we've been emailing back and forth with said that the food tasting would take 30-minutes to an hour, and the cake testing would take about an hour. So total, 1.5-2 hours of food tasting. This means that the earliest I could get to a fitting would be about noon or noon-thirty after the 30 minute drive from Columbia to Jeff City. I was worried about them not having any appointments late enough, but the only appointment they had is almost too late.

Oh well, I won't be back in Missouri until June 23 for Keegan's cousin's wedding and even then, we'll be in Kansas City, not Columbia, so this seems to be the best, if not only, time to get my fitting in.

As well as visiting my dress and doing our taste testing, I want to go back to our venue and take as many pictures as possible. We've been having problems visualizing our space because when we went to see it last (in January,) it was in the middle of an overhaul. We're still not sure if we're going to get married in a stone semi-circle or on the grass. Believe me, the stone semi-circle is more appealing than it sounds.

I also want to run into Kay Jewelers to see how long it would be to get my rings soldered together. I'm hoping that they could do it in the few days we'll be in Columbia before the wedding. If not, I guess we'll just wait until we get back from our "honeymoon" to get it done. I also want to talk to them about getting my rings engraved.

As well as all of the above, I want to go dress shopping for my mom, go to Hobby Lobby/Michaels, get Keegan's hair cut, go to Kohls to see if they have the white dress I want to wear at the rehearsal dinner, talk to my parents about the rehearsal dinner, go makeup shopping with my mom, and go to Target to see if they have $1 flip flops.

Think I could cram any more into the 36 hours we'll be in Missouri?

Wedding Invitation Cost Breakdown

When I first started looking into wedding invitations, I was surprised at how expensive they were.  Brides everywhere were saying that $3-5 per invitation was a good price. We were looking at sending over 100 invitations and couldn't see spending $500! I decided that I would make my own invitation suite and started doing some research.

One of the first places I found for paper and envelopes was Action Envelope. They had comparable prices to other paper places so I decided to order my paper from them.

Back in October, I placed an order with Action Envelope for 5 of they envelopes in different colors. They were $1 each and with my order I got a $5 credit on my next order.

I got one A9 sized envelope in each of these 5 colors:

"Linen"

"Avocado"

"Grocery Bag"

"Chocolate"

"Racing Green"

We had already picked out our color scheme, so we wanted to see what the different greens looked like as well as figuring out if we wanted a white-ish envelope or something colored. 

We ended up loving the "racing green" color so we decided to use it as the main color for our invitations. The "avocado," "chocolate," and "mandarin" color would be used as accent colors. We chose the "linen" paper and envelope because it had such a great texture and added that something special to the invitations. 

We ordered our paper in December. We ordered 250 sheets of "natural linen" paper for $18.95, 250 sheets of the "racing green" paper for $42.95, 50 sheets of paper in "avocado" for $10.95, 50 sheets in "chocolate" for $15.95 and 50 sheets of paper in "mandarin" for $15.95.

Total with the $5 credit from ordering the sample envelopes taken off and $11.27 in shipping, our paper cost us $155.87. 

Later, we had to order another 250 sheets of the linen paper because we ran out. The paper was $19.95 plus $9.24 in shipping to equal $29.19. 

Ordering the extra linen paper took our total up to $185.06 for the paper (including shipping charges.)

Each invitation took 2.5 sheets of the linen paper for the main information sheets, ~1/4 of a linen sheet for the RSVP card, 1 sheet of the racing green paper for the back, approximately 1/5 of a sheet of racing green paper for the pocket,  ~1/4 of the avocado paper for the back of the RSVP card, and ~1/5 of the avocado paper for the band. I'm not counting the punched-out clovers and leaves in the cost because they were all punched out from scraps left over from cutting out the main parts of the invitations and other projects.

Linen Paper:
$18.95 + $19.95 = $38.90 (total amount paid for linen paper)
$38.90/400 (number of sheets) = 9.7 cents per page
9.7 cents x 2.75 sheets (amount used per invitation) = 26.70 cents of linen used per invitation

Racing Green Paper:
$42.95/250 (number of sheets) = 17.18 cents per page
17.18 cents x 1.2 (amount used per invitation) = 20.6 cents of racing green used per invitation

Avocado Paper:
$10.95/50 (number of sheets) = 21.9 cents per page
21.9 cents x .45 (amount used per invitation) = 9.8 cents of avocado used per invitation

Cost of paper per invitation: 57.1 cents (26.70 + 20.6 + 9.8)

Each envelope also got an A9 envelope and an A1 envelope for the RSVP. The outside envelopes were $44.95 for 150 and the envelopes for the RSVP cards were $32.85 for 150 (not including shipping.)

Outside Envelope: $44.95/150 = 29.9 cents

RSVP Envelop: $32.85/150 = 21.9 cents

Cost of envelopes per invitation:  51.8 cents (29.9 + 21.9)

Running total: $1.09 per invitation 


Other Expenses:

We bought 3 packs of "glue dots" to put together the invitations at ~$2.65/pack = $7.95

After the "glue dots" ran out, we used double stick tape at $5.95 for a 2 pack x 2 = $11.90

The punches we used to make the clover and leaf shapes were ~$20

I bought a paper cutter at $25 plus 2 packs of blades for another $12 which totals $37

We made 112 invitations so to get the price of each "other expense," I'm going to divide the cost by 112. 

Glue Dots: $7.95/112 = 7.09 cents
Double Stick Tape: $11.90/112 = 10.6 cents
Punches: 17.8 cents
Paper Cutter & Blades: 33 cents

Total for "others" = 68.49 cents

Running total: $1.09 (paper) + 68.49 cents ("others") =  $1.77 per invitation

Postage
We put a single 65 cent stamp on the outside envelope to send our invitations to everyone in the U.S. We also put a 45 cent stamp on the RSVP card for people to send back to us. For our guests in the U.S. we spent $1.10 in postage per invitation. 

For our out of country guests (my family in Canada, ) we put two 65 cent stamps on the outside envelope, but no 45 cent stamp on the RSVP card because we figured they'd have to put Canadian postage on something sent in Canada. For our out of country guests we spent $1.30 in postage.

Total cost per invitation
U.S. guests: $2.87 ($1.77 for paper and "others" plus $1.10 postage)
Canada guests: $3.07 ($1.77 for paper and "others" plus $1.30 in postage)
(total does not include shipping charges or gas used to drive to craft stores) 

I'm actually extremely proud of this. I couldn't find a pre-made or ordered invitation for this cheap. We did pay out the wazoo for postage (because I stupidly went over the 1 ounce mark for 45 cent stamps) but overall, I'm extremely proud of the way they turned out and the cost. Even though it took me what seemed like forever to get them done, I would do it all over again in a heart beat. 

Invitation Reveal

Now that the invitations have gone all the way out to Arizona, I figure it's ok for me to show the rest of the world without ruining anyone's surprise.

Unfortunately I had to blur out some of the person information in the last two pictures for the sake of privacy. 

I loved the linen paper. It had such an amazing texture which I feel really added a lot to the invitations.

I'm so happy with the way they turned out. I feel like they've very person, give our guests all the information they could possibly need and were cheaper than anything I found pre-made or made when ordered. I've gotten good responses from our guests so far!

Bridal Blunder + Yay!

On Thursday, May 4, we finally finished and mailed most of our invitations! I say "most" because I still have about 12 to make for Keegan's co-workers that he will hand deliver at work. I ran out of double stick tape, however, so I can't complete them until we run to the store.

All of my lovelies in a bag on their way to the post office. 

Anyways, before the wonderful day of sending my packets of joy into the world, I made a bridal blunder. You see, when I had the invitations about 50% completed, I weighed them on the mail scale we have at work. They weighed half an ounce. To use the regular 45 cent, or "forever" stamps, your letter has to weigh under 1 ounce. I figured that adding our RSVP cards and envelopes couldn't possibly put us over the 1 ounce mark, so I went ahead and purchased 6 sheets of the "Love" forever stamps from USPS.com to total about $57.

Do you see where this is going?

One day at work, I decided to bring in a completed invitation to weigh once again just to make sure we were still under the 1 ounce mark.

I set the invitation down on the scale and 1.1 ounces flashed up at me. I take the invitation off and weigh it again. 1.1 ounces.

Crap.

Long story short, I had to go to the post office, have them weigh it to make sure we were actually over 1 ounce and then buy $75 of the 65 cent wedding cake stamps.

We figured that it was cheaper for us to use one 65 cent stamp per invitation as apposed to two 45 cent stamps.

I suppose our water, gas, electric and mortgage companies will think we love them whenever we send in our bills.

Future, (or current) brides, take it from me. Double, no, triple check how much your invitations and save the dates weigh before buying postage. It'll save you from having your electric company thinking that you love to give them your money. 

Etsy Is My Best Friend....

....and my worst enemy.

Over the weekend, I made a hair flower that I'm thinking of wearing after I take off my veil for the reception.

(If anyone wants a tutorial, just tell me. It basically involves a lot of petal stripping and hot glueing.) 

Anyways, after I made my hair flower (of course) I decided to check out Etsy to see if they had anything that might interest me. I didn't look at Etsy before making my flower because I figured I wouldn't find anything or everything would be out of my price range.

Boy was I wrong.

First I started out with maple leaf hair thing-ys (yes, that's the technical name.) 

Found here. 

A little out of my price range ($51,) but amazing nonetheless. 

Found here.

Much more in my budget and so cute! 

Found here.
Want.

Next I moved onto clover/shamrock hair thing-ys

Unfortunately, a lot of them were made out of ribbon which was too much of a hand-made feeling for me, but I still think they're cute. 

Found here. 

Found here.

Only $4!

Found here, again only $4. 

Maybe I could wear a leaf in my hair and Keegan could wear a clover as a boutonniere?

Anyone want to help me convince Keegan that I need one of these since I already made my hair flower?

Edit:
Scratch all those, I want these:

Found here.

These are more than I would pay for hair flowers ($39), but they're so pretty! And they look so much more put together than anything I could make.