This is anel1987's Blue Wedding!

We're having a small wedding, and so we are able to meet with most of our guests to give them the invites.

But because, I'm juggling school, work and this planning, I'm busy almost 24/7, while my FH has 9-5 work, which is awesome, and his evening and weekends are always free. Our schedules are so different and we barely see each other, and now that the time came to hand out the invitations, I have no time to do it =/. He's been handing out invitations at work, and a couple of friends of ours, and comes home all excited how people liked them and everything...

May be I'm just over reacting, but I've spent so much time putting those together, and I really really want to see how people react and if they like it or not and etc... But now because I have no free time and most guests are from his side, it just makes me sad that I miss out((((

My Last post for today will be about our Photgrapher.

We have seen him work at our friends' wedding, and we saw their pictures from the engagement photoshoot and we just love them.

He is creative, fun and loves his work. His packages are amazing prices, and each package contains a free engagement session and a custom made & designed guestbook.

We've also ordered a wedding album with him.

We're having a photoshoot engagement with him this Friday. So excited to work with him.

He's truly passionate about what he does, and he's very professional. After every meeting he emailed me with summary of the meeting, to make sure we agree on all the points, and there aren't any gaps or unanswered questions.

Like many brides out there I've decided to make DIY Wedding Invitations. In this post I will try to be as detailed as possible about this project.

I think I spent almost a month browsing everything out there, and I finally settled on a kit from Michael's, but with our own touch ups.

We bought the Silver and White Pocket Invitations(by Gartner Studios, item # 77588) http://bit.ly/erSvJV, which really does have everything you need stationary wise for 30 people/ box and is about $50/box but Michaels has at least 40% coupon every week, some times I was able to find 50% -60% off.

To be more precise the box contains:
- 31 invite,
- 31 response card
- 31 direction cards
- 30 silver precut ribbons,
- 30 jacket
- 31 tags
- 120 double sided stickers to stick invites to the inner of the pocket

The reason I say it's for 30 people but then put that there are 31 invites and etc, is because smartly enough the company has provided you with 1 extra of everything for the purpose of printing testing. Which was a blessing!!!

After choosing the set of invite, it was time to choose how to do my own twist on it. Since I wanted to do something simple but nice, and to represent the time of the year of our wedding, I've settled on Martha Stewart Crafts 60 pcs Jem stickers and a ribbon which I found in the seasonal section at my favorite Michael's Store.

Once the layout and everything came together, it was time to make the sample, and here's where trouble started, at least for me.

Firstly, we only have a B&W printer in our house, which at first we thought would work, if we decrease the density of the colour. But it didn't, so it was time for me to research printers.

After Googling for good hours, and finding many great choices, I've concluded that it's best to print with InkJet printers and not laser, because of the way the ink comes together on the cardstock paper. The next challenge was to find a printer which can support sizes 5.88inches by 5.88 inches. Did you know that most printers only support 4 by 7 inches?

The reason you have to be precises with the size of paper, is because when you put it into the printer to print, if it's too short (5.88 and not 7inches) the paper would fall through at the end for printing and it would smudge the bottom, because the printer assumes it still has 2 more inches of paper to hold...

So based on my research, for my wants and needs I've settled on Canon Pixma MX 870 which runs about $199 at our local Future Shop Store, but also it does go on sale often for $150 or even cheaper. If Canon is too pricey, you can go with Epson Workforce all in one printer, which runs for around $150, but you can find deals on it for $100 or even under!

Since we're inviting, I went for a very standard text going like this:

Name of the Bride
Names of Parents of the Bride
and
Name of the Groom
Names of Parents of the Group

Request the pleasure of your company
At their marriage

On date and month
year
time

Venue Name(we're having ceremony and reception in one place)
Address

Reception to follow

Once that was all printed up, it was almost smooth sailing, we had couple of spelling misprints and such,but it was alright.

It took another 3-4 hours to put it all together, stick the jem stickers and tie the bows, but it was well worth it.

Another modification that I`ve done was I`ve combined the RSVP with Directions.

In RSVP I stated the date by which we would like our guests to RSVP, and provided our contact phone number and email(we`re int technological age, do we really need to spend more time and money on post office and stamps and such?)

The little card which were intended to use as RSVP, I've ended up making place setting out of them. Just flipped the direction of the text and played around with spacing.

The ribbons and the tags, that came in the set, I haven't used those yet, but I'm thinking of using them to personalize our favours.

Sorry for the picture quality of the last 3 pics, cell phone camera isn't the best, but if give you the idea any way.

As little girls we always dream of those magical moments of the perfect proposal. For some those come true, for others not so much, and for us we just came naturally to it, that we didn't even need it.

We've been together for a while, and by being together, I mean we met and started living under one roof within 3 weeks. After a couple of years of closet and bathroom sharing, and kitchen messes and cooking experiments, personality crashes and learning, and so on,we grew closer and closer each day.

So when the time came, we had no proposal, we just started thinking of the date and time and location. It just made sense, and nothing needed to be said or proposed.

We also forgone the ring, due to number of factors, primary the finance, but also ladies do we need that huge rock? Aren't you scared of wearing and loosing a 20K+ ring? May be it's just me, but I'd be totally terrified. Also why go bankrupt for this small piece of jewelry, before the wedding, which is not cheap. I say we're young, we're free, and we can get all the kind of pretty and big rock bling bling in couple of years when we've settles, and careers have started and so on.

As an alternative to the expensive ring, we're currently are thinking of buying a nice Swarowski ring. It shines just as well if not better :) and who can tell a difference?

We're a young couple 23 & 27, from Toronto, met totally unexpectedly, and I can't say we clicked right away, because we didn't. But somehow that non clicking transformed into us into inseparable within just couple of weeks.

We've been together since March 2008, living under one roof and everything. Had many high and low experiences and adventures. Whatever life threw at us we dealt with it, grew closer and moved on.

And now here we are, planning our wedding.