Wedding Invitations Part 1 - Envelope Liners

I am smacked dab in the middle of making my invitations, this weekend will be the assembly line/ sweatshop. I have enlisted the help of my future mother-in-law and maid of honor, I will let them have lunch breaks and if they ask real nice maybe some water.

I have been trying to get all the little parts of the eventual whole, together before my peeps come over.

As I slowly learned about wedding invitations, and all the fun things you can do to them, and dress them up. I kind of decided I want to do everything possible. Everything. I had never heard of envelope liners before I started looking in to doing my wedding invites. I immediately thought "Ehh, thats unnecessary". Here we are 8 months later and they are so necessary, well maybe not. I will tell you why I think so.

First we have to start with Paper Source, have you heard of this place, have you been here? I ran across the website and all the awesome resources here, I especially love the outline of all the possible tools and things to do and use for your invitations.

I will go over every step in creating my own invitations, and I will give you my review at the very end. Worth it or not worth it? Time will tell my blog friends time will tell.

You can use anything to make envelope liners, scrapbook paper, glitter paper, fine handmade papers. This Napelese paper is gorgeous, absolutely to die for, sadly it is way out of my price range. I still like to admire.

 

I love this paper but I would have needed a whole lot of it.

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Bridal Shower Hostess Gifts

For some reason I stressed out so much over what to get the hostesses of our shower. I scoured the internet, nothing seemed suitable. After all, it takes a lot of time and money to put on such an event and I wanted to my gift to show how much I appreciated that. Finally Gaty explained to me, you can't pay them back. It's not about trying to reciprocate, which I guess I got caught up trying to do. It's about giving them something nice and thoughtful. I have one more shower to go and hopefully I will not be stressing so much about what to get although these shower throwers have a different age range--eek. I kept thinking bath and body works, I dont know about ya'll but I get that kind of stuff all the time. I feel like every time I need to get a gift for an older lady in my life that's my go to. I wanted to step outside of the box a bit.

My FMIL and I were headed to dinner and right next to the restaurant was an anthropologie store, we popped in just to take a look around. I don't know why I had never thought of it before. We found all kinds of neat stuff for gifts.

I ended up getting them a monogramed mug, Now, I want one! My mama always taught me not to buy things for yourself when you are picking out gifts for someone else.

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Co-ed Everything? I Don't Think So.

I will be the first to admit I am a traditionalist in most areas of my life and wedding. I cut loose and had a couples shower, which is something I never thought I would do. Having men involved in a wedding shower is more appropriate because there is alcohol and tools and all kinds of different gifts that would be interesting for men to see. What I do not understand is men at baby showers? Say what you will, argue all you want but MOST men do not care about breast pumps and crib bedding. I went to a baby shower a few years ago and it was co-ed more in a sense of grandpas and uncles were there, not so much young dude friends. It worked pretty well besides the fact that there were just too many people there.

Where I absolutely draw the line is, co-ed bachelor and bachelorette parties. I know I am ruffling some feathers here, but hear me out. The whole purpose of a bachelor/ette party is so go "sow your wild oats" so to speak. If nothing else then to just get away and enjoy being just you and your friends before you get married. So when did this happen, that it was okay to party together when the whole point is to be separate? Are these people so attached to their spouse that they can't be apart for a night? What does that say for the rest of their lives? They have the whole wedding weekend to be all together with your friends and wedding party. Plus isn't going out with your man and your friends something you all do throughout the year? On another point--what does it say about the trust in the relationship? If neither person is comfortable being away with their friends for one night then why are you getting married? Am I way off base here? Did you have a co-ed bachelor/ette night and it had nothing to do with anything I listed above?

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Love Birds Couple Shower

In October I got a phone call from my fiancé Casey's Aunt saying that she and her sister (my Casey's other aunt) would like to throw me a lingerie shower. I was immediately panicked. An underwear shower, with my in laws and my mother? HELP!

It was such a conflicting feeling, I felt so grateful and excited that they wanted to gift me with a shower. I also felt horrified at the thought of opening edible body chocolate and see through nighties in front of the people who had changed Casey's diapers. I think the days or receiving nightgown and dusters are over, or are they? How are things done in your community? Would this be a normal occurrence, a shower including the whole family even grandma with no naughty gifts in sight; or would you be stuck with all eyes watching as you unwrapped leather crotch less panties?

Luckily, I have been blessed with the best in laws of all time, and the lingerie shower became a couples shower. For the longest time I had been a strict traditionalist, girls only at showers. In recent years I have seen how a couples shower is more like a cocktail party and can easily and seamless involve both sexes. I still stick to my ladies only at baby showers and bachelorette parties rule (that's a whole other blog post). I thought it would be nice having Casey involved, especially since it was his family throwing the shower. Who doesn't like a cocktail party with gifts?!

On our way to the shower all of the sudden Casey started to get really nervous. "What do we say after we open a gift? Thanks it's just want we wanted? Well of course it is, we registered for it!" We went back and forth on what were some appropriate responses. He was starting to make me worry, but when we got there and had a few glasses of wine it felt natural and not at all awkward.

We had a fantastic turn out, it felt so fantastic to be surrounded by our friends and family, just a little taste of what the wedding day will feel like. On the downside of that it felt like poo that we had all these people here just for us, but couldn't spend a lot of time with each person. I know it will feel like that times 100 the day of the wedding.

They had my favorite cake flavor red velvet. 

The other usual suspects too of course; chocolate, strawberry and vanilla

 Look at the shimmery fondant B's! Adorable

They gave me all the cute love bird decor. 

Cant wait to decorate with it next valentines day!

This is the favor/guest book table

They made little love bird pin cushions for the girls...

and tape measures for the boys

Gaty made this guest book for us.

We had BBQ at the shower which was so perfect for our crowd.

A towel cake centerpiece! Have you heard of a diaper cake? At baby showers someone will make a "cake" make of cloth diapers, baby clothes and accessories. This is the wedding shower spin on that.

Stacy my former roommate and bridesmaid, and Mimi my maid of honor!

This is one of my most treasured gifts. 

Casey's mother, Gaty, made this quilt for us. 

Her very first quilt, and she made it for us! 

Another one of my most treasured gifts. 

My mother put together a gorgeous bag filled 

with sunscreen sunglasses, flop flips, waterproof cameras THE WORKS! 

And a fantastic contribution towards our honeymoon.

We have the best families.

My beautiful mother and I.

Bride and Groom

It was such a lovely time, I highly recommend having a couples shower. I love that it helped Casey feel apart of it all, and now he knows what this whole shower thing is all about.