I like kids. Chet likes kids. However, we had not intended on kids coming to the wedding. There a multiple reasons for this, some being that we’re having the whole shebang in a historic building with historic, expensive, breakable things. We also felt that it’s hard to have an intimate ceremony when kids are running around and being kids.

Hear that: they are just being kids! We just didn’t particularly want that at our wedding.

Well, we were over-ruled. And, that’s okay I suppose. This was one of those things that it was easier just to say bring the kids and we’ll get over it.

So, now I am trying to figure out how to keep the kidlets occupied.

One bride posted some great pictures and ideas:

1. Cover their tables in butcher paper so they can color on the table.
2. Coloring books (to be used with colored pencils – must not ruin your dress!)
3. Fun stickers
4. Pipe cleaners
5. Puzzles

via: landlocked bride

Minus the “must not ruin your dress” comment, these are some good ideas. And cheap, because that is really important to me currently.

Thoughts? Ideas?

We used Budget Savvy Bride’s idea and turned it into our own, much like we’ve done with everything else.  While I don’t always agree with her ideology, she is super creative.

Anyhow, here is our finished product:

I am super proud of them. See those birds? Those are hand-stamped, by moi! As are those vines, but that was a bit easier. They were also cut and glued by hand by myself and my maid of honor, as well as Chet. Chet did the labels, see that thing in the back?

Man, that was hard work. But I think they ended up being worth it.

We started out on Thursday night rolling the RSVP’s. See those vines? That actually took about an hour to do for the 80 or so we did.

Then, on Friday, we started stamping birds.

This is the Darth Vader trick. It’s patented, taught to me by Charlotte.  See, when you color the birds red, you have to wipe off the feet and the beak and color them yellow. By that point, the red ink has dried a bit, so you must blow on it. That’s right. Blow on it. The heat from the air re-wets the ink and thus, you get to stamp them. By doing that, you get these adorable invites…

Tell me those aren’t adorable! If you don’t like them, well, don’t talk to me.

Now, onto the envelope wrappers. I wish I could remember where I found them, but I can’t currently. Shoulda bookmarked it. Anyhow, we ended up doing these becuase my wonderful friend Charlotte, who had volunteered to do calligraphy had something come up and she couldn’t do it. Well, I can’t do calligraphy, and neither can Chet. So, we opted to use our great stamp as well as my handwriting. It was a pain in the butt, however, it turned out lovely.

Charlotte also paid for the paper as well as the bird and vine stamps plus ink. That obviously was a huge cost reduction for us. In total, we paid for the stamps to mail out (and purchased them when they were only .42!).  We also bought the sticky paper for the envelopes and I paid to have them printed in the design center by my office.

Let me pause here: stamps. Sara, over at 2000DollarWedding at one point in time said that she was upset because they couldn’t afford photo stamps for their invitations. When I read that, I thought to myself “Are you crazy? That’s what you’re worried about?!” I was definitely quick to judge. Then, I had to send out our invitations. I had these beautiful things, gorgeous, really, and I had to put those ugly forever stamps on them. While they weren’t panther stamps, I still was not please, at all. It was kind of like the brown lace. However, this time, I couldn’t change it. It’s still driving me crazy.

Moving on….

Personally, while I think it was cheaper to do them myself it was a pain in the butt. Honestly, if I had to do it over again, I would set aside more money for sending the invites out to be printed. It would just be better. I am not a crafty lady, so this was just too much for me. Yes, they are adorable. No, I would never, ever, ever, do it again.

But then again, should something happen to me and Chet… I wouldn’t plan another wedding. Nope. Sure wouldn’t. But that’s for another post.

Sources:
Envelope Mall for the RSVP envelopes and the mailing envelopes. We had originally intended on doing postcards, but the font was too small. Oh well.
Stampin’ Up! for the stamps and the paper.
For printing, cutting, and gluing, we used stuff around my parents house. My mom is a super crafty lady so she has lots of neat things.

Phew. That post is done.

Okay, there was no fighting, but there were some raised voices as I explained that I didn’t feel that he was helping me, nor did I feel like I was getting help from anyone. And he apologized, and promised to help me more. I told him that I felt a bit left to the wind on Thursday when he sat silently allowing the guest list to grow bigger and bigger and bigger.

So. Our fourth option is this:

We stick to our guns. We keep our guest list at 122 [again, knowing that 22 of them won't come]. We have it at Austin Hall [which will probably knock it down to 50]. We do what makes Chet and I happy. We will give in and have concessions; that’s bound to happen. But we have decided that we will not make concessions about this. This is the key part of our wedding.. and we don’t want a circus.

Ah… I love soul searching at midnight.

Oh, what a long week. Last week just seemed to drag and drag and drag on, which is why I didn’t blog, though a lot happened.

I was in Austin for our quarterly board meeting [which is my last *sadface*], so Chet and I thought we would have a sit down with my parents to go over the guest list. Now, remember that we had our list of goals as I tell you this story.

Last Monday, we sat down and made our list of friends and family we wanted there. It came out to 114, which was more than we wanted but we knew of 22 who wouldn’t come because it just wasn’t plausible for them too. So, that brought it down to 92 which is below our 100 people number that we had wanted. Perfect! We were thrilled because this definitely was in line with Goal #1.

Lovely! So, Thursday night, we meet with my parents to make sure we have everything together. Now, Chet and I have a disagreement in this situation. My parents are putting a good amount of money toward this wedding and I feel that they should have a say in who’s invited. Chet is on the fence about it, leaning toward the “Oh no they don’t!” side. So, anyway, we’re at my parents house, and I have the list out and we’re going over it. And my dad starts adding “and this person, and this person and this person” until we are now at 199 people!! Yeah, that’s right, we jumped from 114 with only 92 maybe coming to 199. And now it’s at 218. This was definitely not in line with our goals.

So, we’re stuck. We’ve come up with a couple of options, but March is almost here, and we have to get going. I mean really. We need to get going.

So, our options:

1. We forgo the goals and invite all 218 to our wedding. And have the big traditional lavish wedding that we didn’t really want.
2. We have a very small ceremony here in Huntsville (with less than 30 people) and go to dinner on the 20th. Then, on the 21st we have a huge traditional wedding/reception and that way everyone is happy.
3. We go to the Justice of the Peace.

We talked to my parents about the Option Number Two and he liked the idea. We talked to Chet’s mom about Option Number Two and she did not.

No one is ever happy … when it comes to weddings I think.