Inviting the VIPs: An Update!

Remember when we invited the president, the pope, and Mickey Mouse to our wedding?  And we heard back from both Walt Disney World and Disneyland?  Six months later, I had begun to give up hope on the president, when I found this in our mailbox the other day:

Not sure if you can tell by the photo, but the return address is printed via thermography.  The text is beautiful and raised.

We opened the envelope to find this lovely piece of card stock:

Just The Obamas wishing us a happily ever after...no big deal.

If anyone else wants to give it a shot, the address is:

The Honorable and Mrs. Barack Obama

The White House, Greetings Office, Room 39

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, District of Columbia

20502

Anyone else heard back from their VIPs yet?

One Last Invitation Reveal

We're having a traditional Cuban pig roast, called a caja china, for our rehearsal dinner.  The decor of the restaurant is bright and tropical, mostly with shades of red and turquoise.

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When we designed the invitations for our rehearsal dinner, we wanted to incorporate this tropical color scheme, but we also wanted it to go along with our invitation suite.  It seemed like a stretch, but then we found one element that could carry over.

The carving on the tree!  Now, how could we make an oak tree tropical?  By turning it into a palm tree of course!  Without further ado, here is our rehearsal dinner postcard invitation:

Does your rehearsal dinner have the same theme as your wedding?  If not, did you carry over some elements from your wedding into your rehearsal dinner?

Lioness Invitations: The Breakdown

Now that you've seen the final reveal of our DIY invitation suite, I wanted to break them down for you!

Here's what we bought:

Materials for the Invitations and the Response Cards

• 78# Luxe cover weight bulk cardstock in fino cream - $39.00 for 100 sheets at Paper Source
• Squeeze punch - 1/2" rounded corner - $11.99 at Paper Source
• Fiskars 12-inch personal paper trimmer - $14.99 at Michael's

Materials for the Information Tags

•  80# PS Collection text weight paper in pool - $3.99 for 10 sheets at Paper Source
• 2" tag punch - $18.00 at Save on Crafts
• Fiskars Hand Punch - 1/4" heart - $5.69 at Michael's
• Custom Stamp - $8.00 from Etsy seller drumchick99
• Embossing Powder in clear - $7.95 at Paper Source
• Watermark Inkpad for Embossing - $8.95 at Paper Source
• Embossing Heat Tool - $23.75 at Paper Source

Additional Materials

• Green Bakers Twine - $12.00 at Divine Twine
• Avery White Mailing/Shipping Labels for Inkjet - 8 1/2 x 11" - $13.95 for 25 at OfficeMax
• A7 envelopes in gravel - $4.25 for 10 at Paper Source (x10, so $42.50)
• 100 postcard stamps - $28.00
• 100 standard stamps - $44.00

I had already bought many of these materials for our Save the Dates.  After subtracting those previous purchases, the grand total we spent on our invitations was $210.12, or $2.10 per invitation.  Please note that this total includes postage, but does not include ink.

Here's how we put them together:

The Invitations and the Response Cards

After Sister Lioness worked her Photoshop magic, we scaled the design so that several would fit on one page of cardstock.  The invitations were 5 x 7", so we could fit two on one page.  The response cards were 3 1/2 x 5", so we could fit four on one page.  We then printed for several hours and had a cocktail.

Then, we used the paper trimmer to separate the invitations and response cards.  This part required several cocktails!  My advice (and I can NOT stress this enough!) is that if you are going to design and print your own invitations, do not choose a design that bleeds.

As you can see from our design, the grass goes all the way to the bottom and the tree goes all the way to the top.  This required some pretty precise trimming, and resulted in one massive headache!

Finally, we rounded off the corners of each card with the corner punch.

The Information Tags

We were able to fit ten tags on one sheet of paper.  We printed out several sheets, and started punching with the tag punch.  We then used the little heart punch to create the hole in each tag.  Then, we embossed the balloon on the edge of each tag.

Then, we used about a foot and a half of baker's twine to tie the package together.  We only had one spool of baker's twine, and we still had some leftover after 100 invitations!

The Labels

We were able to fit five wraparound labels on each full sheet of labels.  We printed, then used the paper trimmer to split them up.  We placed them on each invitation, stuffed the envelopes, and sent them on their merry way!


We probably spent about two full days putting these bad boys together.  They were our most involved DIY project yet, but they were totally worth it!  I'm really happy with how they turned out, and they definitely came out under budget.  What is/was your biggest DIY project?

Lioness Invitations: The Reveal

Since all of our guests should have received their invitations by now, I figured this would be a good time to share them with you!  But first, let's backtrack a little.  Our invitations journey began months ago when Sister Lioness designed them for us after scouring the internet for inspiration.  Then, we bought a lot of paper at Paper Source, the same way we did for our Save the Dates.  It took a while to assemble everything, but we were pretty psyched with how they turned out!

The front of the envelope included a wrap-around label in our wedding colors:

 

Our guests opened up granite-gray envelopes to find this little bundle, tied together with bakers twine:

The invitation read:

"Since you have shared in our lives through your friendship and love, we, Miss Lioness and Mr. Lion, together with our parents, invite you to share in the beginning of our new life together as we exchange marriage vows."

 The time and place followed, and the invitation finished up with "lunch an laughter to follow at same location."  Ah, I love alliteration.

The response cards included little icons to indicate meal selection.  Adults had a choice between chicken or fish, but the guests bringing children also had a little dinosaur icon to indicate a kid's meal.  The bottom of the postcard reads, "Please use the reverse side of this card to provide marriage advice, whimsical doodles, flattering caricatures, and/or well wishes."

The bundle also included a little information tag:

And, of course, our balloon motif was present throughout the suite:

{all personal photos}

One of my favorite parts of the invitations was the green-ness of it all.  Of course, if we had wanted to be really environmentally friendly, we could have done something electronic.  But since I insisted on a hard copy, I compromised as much as I could.  All of our paper was made from recycled material.  Additionally, we chose to forgo using backing and enclosures, which not only reduced our total paper use, but it also cut back on cost!  It also cut back on postage cost, as our entire suite was light enough to weigh in for the standard shipping rate of 44¢.

My other favorite thing about our invitations was how unique they were to us.  They were designed to fit us and to fit our theme, and I think they reflect that well.  How do your invitations represent you?

Inviting the VIPs: Two Down!

You may recall that we sent out a few wedding invitations a little early.  We sent one to the President, one to the Pope, one to Disneyland, and one to Disney World (addresses available here).  We received a very prompt response from Cinderella and Prince Charming at Disney World, but we were still waiting on the other three.  Well, Hive, I have good news and bad news.

The good news: We got a response from Disneyland!

The bad news: They got my name wrong!

Our invitations (to be revealed at a later date) list our full names: Julia Elizabeth Lioness and David Alexander Lion.  I was very excited to receive a package in the mail from Disneyland, but I became a little concerned when I noticed that it was addressed to "Elizabeth Lioness and David Lion."  Maybe that's just the address label.  Maybe the actual response inside will be addressed correctly, right?  Wrong.  I opened the envelope to find a black and white photograph of Mickey and Minnie with "Elizabeth and David" written in Sharpie.

The way I saw it, I had two options.  I could keep it like this, and it would make for a funny story.  Or, I could add in my first name (um, I have Sharpies too), and it would make for a funnier story!

{personal photo}

On the bright side, at least I got a response.  And a button!  How cute is that?!

Still haven't heard anything from the President or the Pope.  I'll keep y'all posted!

Inviting the VIPs: Batting .250!

Good news, everyone! (Did you say that a la Professor Farnsworth?  You were supposed to.)  You may recall that we sent out a few wedding invitations a bit early in order to provide ample opportunity for our VIPs to send us some brag-worthy responses.  Well, that didn't take too long, now did it?!  I opened our mailbox the other day to find this:

Figures.  Disney World is the first one I get back.  It's like they know me!

I ignored the fact that it was all bent up and shoved into our tiny mailbox (despite the "DO NOT BEND" in red ink) and hastily opened it to find this!

You called it, Miss Giraffe!  Why, thank you Cinderella and Prince Charming!  We're very much looking forward to happily ever after.  The only problem?  We invited Mickey and Minnie, not Cinderella and Prince Charming.  Um.  Awkward.

{all personal photos/screencaps}

Will we hear from the President, the Pope, or Disneyland?  You keep checking here; I'll keep checking my mailbox!

Inviting the VIPs

Of course, all of our wedding guests are VIPs!  But the people I'm talking about here are the ones who don't fall under the "family," "friend," "coworker," or "strange neighbor" categories.  I'm talking about the people who are invited but who are not exactly expected to come.  Mrs. Lemon previously discussed inviting the president, among others, and we decided to do the same.

The White House apparently has a separate greetings office that deals exclusively with invitations and announcements.  If you send your wedding invitation to this office, you may receive a personal greeting from the president.  I don't believe it's guaranteed, but it's certainly worth a shot!

So why is an April bride blogging about this in October?  Well, upon further research, it seemed that brides who successfully received a White House greeting sent their invitations approximately six months prior to their wedding date.  Sister Lioness designed our invitations and we're printing them ourselves.  We were putting off the daunting task of printing until just before sending them out in January, but we figured we could assemble some a bit early.  I wish I could show y'all the whole thing because I'm so psyched about Sister Lioness' fab design, but I gotta let the guests see them first.  Til then, enjoy these gray envelopes with wrap around labels!

{all personal photos}

As you can see, we chose to "invite" four households: the President and First Lady, the Pope (you may recall that Mr. Lion is Catholic), and Mickey and Minnie.  Okay, that's really three households...but we sent one to Disney World and one to Disneyland.  We figured this would help increase our chances of getting a response!  Here are the addresses in case you're interested:

The Honorable and Mrs. Barack Obama

The White House, Greetings Office, Room 39

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, District of Columbia

20502

Pope Benedictus XVI

Prefettura della Casa Pontifica

00210 Citta del Vaticano

Italia

Mickey & Minnie Mouse

The Magic Kingdom

1675 North Buena Vista Drive

Lake Buena Vista, Florida

32830

Mickie & Minnie Mouse

The Walt Disney Company

500 South Buena Vista Street

Burbank, California

91521

I'll definitely keep y'all posted if and when the responses come in!  Who would you invite?  I considered adding one more person to the list, but I wasn't sure Mr. Lion would approve...

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