We Did It: Invitations

Wowee, wedding season is in full swing among my friends and peers! Shoutout to a good friend (no really, her family adopted me for a summer while I was an intern in her hometown) and fabulous fashionista "seester," Annie White from Success on Stilettos on her recent engagement. I can't wait to see the beautiful wedding look she will undoubtedly put together.

On my end, the moving-induced wedding-planning hiatus is officially over, and boy does it feel grand! We have been in our new home near Milwaukee, WI for two weeks now and are really enjoying the landscape and location. I have never been so excited to see pine trees - I hadn't even realized I missed them! The way-of-life and culture here is much more similar to St Louis and Cleveland than in Oklahoma, so Ben and I think we fit in quite well.

While there are many small tasks we managed to check off before the packing and moving began (wedding bands! engagement photos!), I want to first jump back in with a quick post about our invitation approach. Since most of our family and friends are internet-savvy, we decided early on that a cost-effective way to handle Save-the-Dates and invitations would be to utilize Paperless Post, a website that allows you to design custom invitations to send via e-mail. You really must see one to understand how cool this service is; upon opening the email, the recipient (for an additional charge for the sender) views an interactive envelope addressed with your name on it. Click on the envelope and the invitation pops out as if it were in your own hands. A simple click enables you to RSVP, which is linked back to and tracked by the sender's account. No addressing envelopes, buying stamps, or keeping track of paper RSVP cards. In my opinion, this concept is a win-win-win: environmentally friendly, convenient, and low-cost! Plus, as a guest with a smart phone, you always have the invitation and wedding information at your fingertips and don't have any guilt about eventually throwing away the bride and groom's invitation masterpiece.

This is what our tech-savvy guests will receive in their email. Navy-and-natural!

However, there are a few family members on our guest list (love you, grandmas and grandpas!) that will require paper invitations; of course, we'd like some printed ones for pictures and posterity as well. Paperless Post allows you to order any invitation or card designed online as a paper version, but we found this to be too expensive for the relatively small number we'd be ordering. So instead, I picked up some plain white printable invitations at Target on clearance (30 invitations and envelopes for $15) and poured my wannabe graphic-designer soul into creating a modern, casual invitation design. Let me tell you, I spent HOURS playing with different font families - I chose the ornamental one after my photographer posted it on Pinterest (thanks, Amanda)! Despite the bit of extra time and effort, I really like how they came out. Sure, the mismatch between the online and paper version bothered me a tiny bit at first, but it was kind of fun to design two invitations. Plus, if you're using The Knot's website builder you can even import a Paperless Post theme, so I'm appeased that our online invitations match our website.

Sorry about the photo quality, but trust me- they came out great!

Would you ever send online invitations? The most common criticism I've heard is that online invitations don't abide by etiquette, but to that I say, Welcome to 2014. ;-)