The Castle Invites!

Invitations are out! RSVP's are coming in! And that means that I can finally show them off!

Personal Photos / Putting the invites in the mail. The second photo is my "artsy" shot... or just my crummy cell phone shot...

First let me tell you how we found these beauties. After hours of searching on the inter-web, I decided to narrow down my search by using words that fit our "theme." I used, "Broadway," "Playbill," "art deco," and "theater," as my key words while searching on Etsy. It was very helpful to use these key words, and it lead me to a little shop called, Little Owl Lettterpress.

Image via Littleowlletterpress.com 

When we first started looking at invitations, Mr. Castle kept saying, "I really like the look of letterpress invitations." I thought, yeah don't we all... I kindly explained to him that letterpress invitations can be very expensive. I tried to squash the idea from his brain, but I couldn't ignore that fact that I was drawn to them as well. When I found Little Owl Letterpress I decided why not check out their website. They awesomely list their prices on their website (A big plus in my book), and while more than I wanted to spend on invitations, it was not to far off. I contacted them and got the ball rolling. They were AMAZING to work with, so friendly and accommodating. When the invites finally arrived at our door I was blown away. I never thought I would LOVE our wedding invitations this much. I thought I would just settle for something that looked nice and move on. I had no idea that they would turn out to be so beautiful! I was afraid to put them in the mail for fear of them getting beat up! But a Bride's gotta do what a Bride's gotta do...  So with out further ado, here they are!

 Our Invitations! Sorry for the blurring, have to keep some level of mystery....

Our Post Card RSVP 

We added this little "website" card

The full set!

We have gotten such amazing feedback about our invitations. In fact we even got a wedding crasher! OK only semi-serious, a friend's husband can't attend and when a mutual friend saw the invite asked if he could be her date. Lol. He was really impressed by our invitations. 

What about you? Did you fall in love with your invitations once you had them in your hands?

Getting the words just right

Sort of continuing with my last post... I have found that with divorced parents you have to think about certain things differently. Or maybe just with super sensitive divorced parents. We had to keep this in mind when choosing the wording of our invitations. We found our invitations from a seller on Etsy and were super excited to get the process going. We loved the style and design of the invitations, but we thought we would probably need to make some changes to the wording. The way the sample was worded is like this:

Together with their parents

Mr. and Mrs. Brides Parents

&

Mr. And Mrs. Grooms parents

Sharon and Jeff

Invite you to join them as they unite in marriage

Date time

Location

Address

Diner, Dancing and a lifetime of happiness to follow

This wording looks really good with the over all design of the invitation. I wish I could show you... but I want to keep it a secret for now. There were a couple problems with this wording. First, it implies both set of parents are hosting the wedding, which is not the case in our wedding celebration. Since my Dad is the one hosting I asked his opinion and didn't really have a strong feeling about it. He definitely leans towards being more traditional about things but says it's our decision in the end. I felt that it should be clear in our invitation that he is hosting. We are so thankful to him and we want to give him all the credit he deserves!

My other issue was how to word the invitations with my divorced parents. My Mom is no longer a Mrs. so I decided to do some research. I know we are not the first people to have this question and indeed there is a lot of information out there about it. Martha Stewart says this about divorced parents, "Names are listed on a separate line, and Mom comes first." Well that doesn't work with our invitation design, their names have to be on the same line. And I also feel that my Dad's name should come first since he is the one hosting the affair. Sorry Martha. I looked further and found some other information saying divorced parents can be listed together separated by an "&" and the brides mother becomes a Ms. instead of a Mrs. That sounded good to me.  So here is what we decided on.

With Joyous Hearts

Mr. Brides Dad & Ms. Brides Mom

Invite you to the wedding of their daughter

Sharon Last Name to Jeff Last Name

Son of Mr. & Mrs Grooms parents

Date, Time

Location

Address

Diner, Dancing and a lifetime of happiness to follow

I thought this was a pretty great compromise. We got the sample pdf from our designer and it looked great. We approved it and moved on with our lives. Until my Mom saw them and got a little upset...

She didn't like being a "Ms." When I asked, well what should I have put? She said she would have rather left out the Mr. and Ms. all together. I told her that etiquette and the formality of the event require the Mr. & Ms. She eventually realized she over reacted and said it was fine later that same day. It's one of those things that while I don't want to upset my Mom or hurt her feelings, this is how we want it to be. We spent a great deal of time researching things and going back and forth deciding what would be best for ourselves and our parents. Thankfully she got over it fast. I think in her mind it was another reminder of the fact that she is divorced and separate from my Dad.

Even with that hiccup, I am really excited about our invitations. I think they look beautiful and the wording we chose were the right way to go. Once more rsvps come in I can show you how awesome they are!

How did you word your invitations? Did you go with traditional wording or non traditional?

Invitation Inspiration!

With our save the dates taken care of, it was time to start thinking about our invitations! While Mr. Castle did an amazing job designing our save the dates, I didn't want to pressure him into designing our invitations. If he really wanted to do them I wasn't going to say no... but he wasn't jumping at the chance. The closer we got to the wedding, the more projects we already have to work on and we both don't need that DIY invitations stress.

So I started searching for some invitations that caught my eye on Etsy, Minted, Weddingpaperdivas, and more. Here are some of my favorites!

Image via Etsy/ seller LetterBoxInk

Image via Etsy/ seller dearemma

Image via Etsy/ sellar goldenrectanglepress

Image via Minted

Image via Weddingpaperdivas

Image via Rifle Paper Co. 

I know that last one is a save the date, but it's so cute! I think it could work as an invitation. I am looking for a way to incorporate our kitties....

I wish there was some sort of overall theme to theses invitation examples, but as you can see these ideas are kind of all over the place. We definitely favor the old Art Deco/Broadway "playbill" style invitations. Simple elegant design, but not too serious, and a touch of orange wouldn't hurt...


Did you design your own invitations? Was your decision difficult to make? 

The death of a Mac Book Pro

There has been a sad loss in our household. Jeff's trusty five year old Mac Book Pro has bit the dust. And I feel especially bad because I was the last person to use it.... It was definitely on it's way out, but after I used it I asked, "should I turn it off or just close it?" Jeff told me to just close it and I really feel if I had just turned it off it might have lasted a little longer... I could have saved it!

Image from American Dad!

The death of his computer comes at a really bad time. Jeff is a graphic designer of sorts and uses his computer for work. We also were working on building our wedding website on his computer, plus our save the dates and invitations. Why can't we do that on my computer you ask? My poor computer practically predates the internet. I had my first AOL account on this computer. It simply doesn't have the computing power to support Photoshop and the other software Jeff uses.

The other major bummer is we can't really afford a new mac right now. When you're saving for wedding related things an added expense is never good news. But a lot of our wedding DIY projects were going to be accomplished on the now dead computer so a new computer is kind of wedding related... And the thought of having to wait to finish some of these projects are really stressing me out!

I think we are probably going to see if we can finance one and hope that works out. Jeff really needs a computer for work (and is kind of a nerd and definitely wants a new gadget), and our household needs a better computer than mine. So maybe it's time to pool our pre-marital finances on a computer that will hopefully carry us through our first several years of wedded bliss.

It may not be as beautiful or thrilling to me as wedding dresses and decor, but it is nonetheless a vital component to our wedding planning.

Image via apple.com

 
What about you? Any fun or tragic stories about unplanned setbacks leading up to your special day?