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My DIY Projects

I fancy myself a fairly crafty person, but I’m also a fairly busy person, so I didn’t figure on incorporating a lot of DIY projects into my wedding preparations. Making table numbers and creating a guest book in Blurb with our engagement photos were definitely the easiest things I did myself. But the bigger projects I took on — our save-the-dates, invitations and favors — saved us a lot of money and went a long way toward personalizing our big day, which is what DIY is all about, isn’t it?

Save-the-dates

I saw our save-the-dates as an opportunity to set the tone for the occasion as well as make a statement about who we are, so I wanted them to be fun and super cool, like us! I remembered that an artist friend of ours had recently posted on Facebook that she needed subjects for a drawing portfolio project, so we  asked her if  she could create some Kathleen & Jon artwork for our save-the-date. Technically this is more of a DIT (do-it-together), but I commissioned the artwork, laid out the postcards and had them printed, so I’ll count it in this category. Here’s the ridiculously awesome save-the-date we came up with:

save_the_date_final
{artwork by Larissa Erin Greer}

Invitations

In recent years I have become sort of a paper geek, and I’m particularly enamored of letterpress printing. I knew how expensive letterpress invitations can be, but I really wanted letterpress, so I determined that I’d just have to take matters into my own hands and do it myself. I googled Atlanta letterpress classes and discovered a local printmaking studio with a course over the summer. My parents paid the registration fee as my birthday gift. After eight weeks of class I had the process down; I just needed some help with designing the invitations. Conveniently, I had to do some professional development for my communications job, so I enrolled in an introductory InDesign class. I finally got into the studio to print in February of this year. Check this out:

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{invitation bundle, ready to be sent}

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{thank-you note}

I budgeted paper for 250 sets of invitations with a reception card and a double-sided RSVP postcards, about 50 announcements and 360 thank-you notes. If I had ordered a similar suite from someone, I would have spent probably $2,000 more than I did. I seriously can’t remember being more impressed with myself than I was when I finished printing all of these!

Favors

The favors were something we actually did back in the summer of 2009, around the time of my letterpress class. Let me tell you, it was so nice to have that out of the way early on! My dad is a lawyer by profession but spends most of his non-office hours maintaining his garden and tending to his beehives. Yep, beehives! My dad has been keeping bees and handing out honey to clients and friends for more than a decade now, so honey favors were an obvious choice. Frankly, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with favors if it hadn’t been this easy or inexpensive. Once we decided to do this, I hunted down inexpensive glass jars in bulk and Dad bottled 228 mini jars of honey from his hives at the end of the summer; most would double as escort cards, and the rest would be extras free for the taking.

Honey-Favors
{Our Labor of Love}

Not only were all of these projects a big hit with our guests, I picked up a few new skills (like letterpress and InDesign) in the process! Just goes to show that even a little DIY goes a long way.

What DIY projects are you undertaking for your wedding?