April Projects: Invitations, Favors, Cupcakes

Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 9:20 AM

First things first: I'm boycotting Michael's Arts and Crafts, and I invite you to join me! I used to love this store, and I guess I still do, but I've found them incredibly unhelpful wedding-wise. Most recently, a 4 for $1 sale on scrapbook paper sent me scurrying to their Laurel location full of hope - I'd finally be able to get started on my invitations! After spending a full 30 minutes color-hunting in their paper aisle, I marched to the counter with supplies for about half of my invites (I was so sick of thinking about these things, I was willing to risk not having all of them match just to get 50% out of the way ASAP). I whipped out a $20, expecting a total of around $15. Balance due? $67.52. Turns out every sheet of paper that I'd picked out had been mis-shelved and was actually a full $1/sheet. Fine, simple mistake; I just wish the cashier hadn't been so rude about it. Needless to say, I left emptyhanded and disheartened. (From here on out, I'm sticking to AC Moore or specialty arts stores like Pearl.)

Just wanting it to be over, I went straight home and ordered pocketfolds, envelopes, and response envelopes from Paper Source (highly recommended if you can catch a deal - customer service is top notch!). Everything was on sale, with an additional 10% discount for bulk purchases. Total for 110 of each: $147.98, including shipping. They arrived yesterday, and while they're slighty less vibrant than I pictured ("Curry" and "Chartreuse" from the supplier, I've since renamed them "Mustardseed" and "Split Pea Soup"), they'll do. The full invitation suite that we mocked up last night actually looks pretty good, and the muted colors might actually be a blessing in disguise - neon brights might not scream "traditional wedding" to many people. I'll post pictures once I have a final.

TBD: calligraphy vs. labels; RSVP wording (mom doesn't like "be there/be square" in place of the traditional "will/will not attend"); postage. (Last bit of invite minutae: The First Class USPS rates go up 2 weeks before I ship and there's been no news about upcoming $0.44 designs. Instead of that god-awful Forever stamp, I'm leaning towards using two fruit postcard stamps - at $0.54 it would be more expensive, but at least they wouldn't totally clash with the envelope.)  

Alright, on to favors... Those margarita glasses have been a huge thorn in my side ever since I realized that there was no way in heck I could give them out as-is; without boxes, half of them would shatter at some point. Not to mention how long it would take to set up a table with stacked glass favors! I bought 2 cases of 6 x 4 x 4 kraft (brown cardboard) gift boxes and a 10 lb box of lime green shred from Paper Mart for about $70 including shipping. Again, an added expense - but boxing the favors means that I no longer have to worry about filling them with candy/cookies/tulle/whatever - so I'm probably saving a few bucks overall. Plus, the extra boxes can be used as guest take-away containers for leftover cupcakes and treats.

With the packaging taken care of, I decided to stress over how to customize the glasses. Etching cream didn't work - it just looked ugly, and it would have taken forever. I tried embossing our initials with translucent powder, but that didn't look quite right either. We finally decided that a) no one's going to care and b) people will be more likely to actually use the glasses if they are distributed sans-personalization. So, the glasses will be left plain, then individually boxed and tied with tulle, affixed with a small tag ("thanks for sharing our special day. cheers! amy & erik") and stacked by the exit. One down, 149 to go!

And lastly, a brief cupcake update: My company has asked me to bake cupcakes for an all-staff meeting in mid-April. (They're even paying me!) I think it will be a great dry-run for me to see how long making 75 takes me (times that by two and we've got a pre-wedding timeline!), how they all look when displayed on the cupcake trees, how easy (or hard) they are to transport, and how they hold up to hours of room-temp. I'll post pictures and lessons-learned after the meeting!