In our circle of friends, weddings seem to come in spurts, and this year Jo and I have three good friends getting married. They are all crafty, and they created beautiful handmade wedding invitations that I want to share with you. They really show that simple techniques can result in exquisite results!

The booklet invitation

For Dana’s wedding, she took my project idea for making a booklet wedding program and turned it into an invitation. She followed my assembly instructions, but just changed the text on the pages. I love how clever she was!

The booklet idea ended up working really well for invitations, and allowed her to customize it for each guest, and save money too. Here are some of my favorite aspects:

• The first page of the invitation has the guests names on it. This serves the same purpose as the traditional inner envelope, but saves the expense. And I felt very special to receive an invitation that had my name custom printed on the first page.
• There’s a page that talks about the rehearsal dinner. This page can be inserted just for those who are invited.
• There’s a page that shows a map to the ceremony site and gives directions.
• There’s an RSVP page. Dana and Jon decided to do e-mail and phone RSVPs (saves on postage!), so their page had contact information on it. If you want traditional mail-in RSVPs, though, you could easily create a cardstock page and run a perforator tool across the top, creating a tear-off RSVP postcard that’s pre-addressed and ready to mail!
• This is so customizable that you can add as many pages to the booklet as you want. I really love that.

The folded invitation

Our friend Mags created her old folded invitation design using red cardstock and gorgeous gold accents. The whole thing folds up into a beautiful package, and when you open it up you get the main invitation in the middle, and all the extra information cards in a pocket on the bottom.

She did such a great job that I actually couldn’t tell they were handmade when I received mine! Here are some general instructions from Mags on how to create these beautiful invites.

• Cut large cardstock sheets into 5″ x 20″ strips and use a bone folder to score at 4.5″, 11.5″, and 17″ from one end (a 24″ long clear quilting ruler and a rotary cutter are invaluable here!)
• Fold the 4.5″ flap up and secure on either side with long strips of double-sided tape, forming a pocket.
• Cut some decorative paper into 1.5″ x 11″ strips (she used Japanese Chiyogami paper). Wrap the strip around the top end (opposite the pocket you just created) of the cardstock, securing in place with a small piece of double-sided tape, and allowing the ends of of the strip to overlap.
• Tie a piece of ribbon around the decorative strip.
• Print the invitation on nice cardstock and cut to 4.5″ x 6.5″. This size will fit nicely in the 5″ x 7″ area in the middle of the invitation, leaving a 1/4″ border on all edges.
• Print RSVP cards and any other inserts you want to include and tuck them into the pocket on the bottom of the invitation.
• Fold the invitation up and you’re done! It should measure 5″ x 7″, which is the perfect size to fit in a standard A7 envelope.

Mags also suggests that you can adjust the measurements and the folds of the invitation to suit your style (for example, to create a square invitation), but just recommends choosing the envelope first, so you can make sure they fit!

The bundled invitation

Erin created her invitations in a bundled style, with all the parts stacked together and wrapped with a gorgeous wide ribbon band, personalized with the guests’ names.

I just love this pretty little package so much I almost didn’t want to take the pieces apart to read them! Here are Erin’s tips on creating these adorable invites.

• To make the purchase of cardstock and envelopes easier, she started with a few packages of blank greeting cards with envelopes, which gave her matching cardstock and envelopes that were already the right size.
• Since she didn’t need the cards to fold, she was able to print the invitation design twice on each card and cut them out. Then she matted each one on some pretty blue textured cardstock that was cut to the right size to fit into the envelopes.
• With the extra cardstock she didn’t need for the invitations, she made the reception cards and the name tags. What a great way to use up the whole kit!
• For the RSVP cards, she bought a similar card kit in a smaller size.
• The names tags had the guests’ names on them (once again avoiding the cost associated with an inner envelope!) and she cut two slits into them so that she could slip it onto a wide, brown, satin ribbon.
• With everything printed and stacked, the ribbon was wrapped around and secured in the back with double-sided tape.

Have questions?

I hope you enjoyed these brief summaries of our friends’ inspirational wedding invitation ideas. If you have questions about how any of them were made, just ask. I’m sure Dana, Mags, and Erin will be happy to help!

P.S. All three of my bride friends suggested taking advantage of the professional cutting services available at your local office supply store. A few quick, straight cuts made by them on your stack of paper can be an affordable way to save LOTS of time instead of you cutting each one by hand!