I do!

I have to admit I’m a terrible graphic designer.  I’m slow and I don’t know illustrator, so I have to do everything by hand and then in Photoshop.  With that being said, I’m also stubborn and know what I want, so I would hate to be that pain-in-the-ass client to anyone else but myself.  So when it came time to design my save the date and wedding invites,  I could at the very least be realistic and know what I was in for.  The agony of myself.

Our style definitely leans more modern than rustic, but our sentimental venue was totally rustic.  We had to come up with a compromise that fit us as well as the space we were working with.  We also knew that we were working with a super tight budget and most of the decorations were going to be DIY.  Green is our favorite color (I suspect Ryan, my husband, cares a lot less about this than I do) so that seemed like the natural starting point.  In addition, i can get a lot of OSB (oriented strand board) for free from work, as it comes with pallets and we just recycle it.  So that was the starting off point, and then I made an inspiration collage (I loathe the phrase ‘mood board’) to get going.

Hooray! Off to a good start!

We knew we wanted to do something a little more sustainable than flowers.  What’s great about the Craspedia (Billy Balls) is that they have this lovely mustard color and look just about the same dried as they do freshly cut.  It also ties in nicely with the natural tones of the wood.  We knew we were not going to ask our bridesmaids to wear matching dresses, simply wear the green dress of their choosing…any shade!  So that helped establish the rest of the colors.  We wanted to work with succulents as the green variations help further the color wave, and they could live on after the appointed day.  Now it seemed like enough to get started on our invites and save the dates, and here, for your viewing pleasure, is the result.

I figured I would share something I learned the hard way.  The size of the envelope is just as important as the weight.  The manilla envelopes I chose were 1/8″ too wide, so that managed to double my postage.  OOF!

We used a lot of rubber stamps, washi tape, and imagination for the result.  A huge thank you to my ladies for helping me assembly line the production of these…you are all handy bitches! :)