Ahhh… finally, INVITATIONS!

Here we are, months after our Positano wedding and I’m finally bringing you the details of our wedding invitations.

Better late than never?…

Sometimes it just takes me some time to think about what I want to say and how I want to present it to you all. And yes, as every bride knows, invitations are an extremely important part of a wedding.

I mean, invitations as a whole set the tone for any kind of party really. Whether it’s a  birthday or retirement party, a Christmas or engagement party, invitations give guests a sneak peak into what a party will actually be like.

When I see a formal invitation in dramatic dark colors I think dramatic tones, fancy clothes and no children (LOL). If Anton and I receive an invite with a red barn on it we think casual jeans, blouses or work shirts and country fried foods (so I come prepared with a salad in hand haha). If the invite has costumes, ghouls and gobblins I automatically go costume shopping for something out of the ordinary and sexy.

You see what I’m getting at?

Invitations really set the stage for the type of party you’ll be rsvping to. What to wear, how to behave, what to bring and what to expect should all be surmised by looking at an invitation.

Now I totally don’t think it matters whether the invite is sent via an email or the USPS, what’s very important to me is that the invitation accurately reflects the host and hostess’s party vibes. I always want to make sure I’m dressed and ready to party according to the vibe my host wants!

Oh and I know this brings up an entirely different issue of whether or not it’s tacky or classy to send an invitation via email versus the USPS first class mail. Well, who invented any supposed ” invitation rules” anyways? Whoever did had either way too much time on their hands or way too much money to spend on paper invites lol.

I mean seriously, have you looked at invitation prices lately? They’re freaking expensive! Letterpress versus foil? You’re looking at thousands of dollars for nice wedding invitations. And don’t forget you have a slew of other invites to send… engagement, bridal shower, bachelorette, wedding events… the list is endless and costly.

Okay I KNOW it’s your wedding here and money shouldn’t necessarily be a deterent in getting what you want. But let’s be logical. Let’s be PRACTICAL. Who actually saves their friends’ wedding invitations? NOT ME. Heck I put the date in my iphone calendar after I rsvp and recycle the dang thing. Not that I don’t LOVE my friends, I’m just ocd as you know and hate a bunch of papers and things lying around the house!

And now we must talk PLANET EARTH. Do you know how many invitations are thrown into the trash each year? Not even into recycling!! It’s millions and billions and trillions of papers.

SUCH A WASTE.

And those poor animals who find the waste, either digesting it or getting entangled in it. Come on guys, let’s be real and compassionate here!

SO why not join the 21st century and get with the program of recycle, reuse and use your computer? I believe that in the next 100 years paper mail will be obsolete anyways.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our packages could be sent via teleportation?

Anyone else?

Was I this practical and kind when I started my own wedding invitation process?

HECK NO.

But if you have to do paper invitations, definitely check out the site tinyprints.com. What attracted me to them in the first place was my guilt over using paper invites. No joke. I actually googled environmentally friendly wedding invitations and Tiny Prints popped right up with a few other sites. I chose these guys because as luck would have it, they give a percentage of their profits to the Deschutes National Forest tree planting program. Since I grew up in Oregon, riding horses in that forest, I thought it was perfect. Divine intervention hah!

Of course I found my colors or as close as I could find. The blue green ocean color, cursive, white font and classy style caught my eye. Our party, incase you havn’t read my blogs yet, was a dressy cocktail reception with blue and white accents everywhere. So my invitation totally resonated what kind of party we would be throwing.

Next up, our Save The Date announcements. So basically I progressed from a paper company whose proceeds benefitted tree planting to their sister company Wedding Paper Divas who as I happened to discover, make magnetic Save The Date’s!

I thought this was totally practical. Not that I wanted everyone to plaster our faces all over their refrigerators HAHA, but I thought it was a cute idea. People could place them on the side of the fridges or on the garage fridge and NOT FORGET OUR DATE. See, I told you guys I was practical. 🙂 🙂

At least in my head people wouldn’t just quickly read over the announcement and throw it away (like I do LOL). I should probably ask our guests what they did with those magnets but I’m afraid to know the answers… so I’ll assume they used them!

And as you can see here, I found our turquoise color with a white background. We even dresed in white and blue hues with our Yorkies for the photos. Since our wedding was to be at a villa in Positano Italy, we wanted our announcement photos to feel inviting and friendly. We wanted people to feel the vibe of “welcomeness” and “celebration.” I wanted us to show everyone that our wedding was going to be FUN! Since they were travelling half way across the world, it better be fun. Right?

Okay, so we made it through a few major pieces of the puzzle. With the engagement and announcement invitations out of the way, that left us with our wedding invitations. (Btw my sister got me some really cute blue and white, classy bridal shower invites but since that was her decision, I’ll forgo talking about those since at that point I was ready for evites hahaha!)

Thanks to the beautiful Lauryn Evarts and one of her blogs at The Skinny Confidential, I fell in love with Bliss & Bone. Their site, their invitations, really their everything! The only problem I had was with their pricing 🙁 .

Of course I wanted the most expensive of everything LOL. Story of my life. What I really needed was a sponsorship of just about everything haha. Well, lucky for me I discovered their “online” invitations.

And guess what? Their online invitations are the same as their paper ones. Same colors, themes, fonts, etc. And the owner was amazing! She personally called me to go over everything and helped me design and lay everything out. She even helped me word my invitations in what I call a very “modern, classy way.”

Or so I hope, HA!

Here’s a sneak peak at how we did our wedding ceremony and reception invitations.

I wanted a very dramatic invitation with blue and turquoise colors reflecting the theme of our wedding. Even though we were going to make it fun and comfortable for guests, Anton and I wanted to make sure people would dress appropriately and be prepared for an elegant evening of ceremony and reception, wine, dinner, dancing and more after partying!

I mean, with all the effort I was making to ensure the entire evening was as amazing as I had hoped for all to enjoy, I really wanted people to dress the part.

PHOTOS! Oh and let’s not forget photos. We “requested” that everyone wear hues of grey or silver. Why? Because I’m kinda crazy and wanted some really beautiful photos of everyone in similar shades. The worst is when there’s a group photo with that one person in neon orange who stands out.

I wanted everyone to stand out!

And speaking of photos, I’d say our colors blended right in with our decor. I even found some adorable blue place cards with lemons on them representing a truly Positano theme!

Did I have menus? NOPE. First of all, I was on a roll of less is more phase supporting Mother Earth when it came to anything wedding and paper. Second, I think menus are the worst at weddings. I mean seriously, if you have a choice, you make that choice when you rsvp, right? So your food isn’t going to change when you sit down. The menus get food and drinks stuck and spillled all over them and they generally make the table look messy and unclean. Then there’s that awkward moment when guests have no idea where to put the menus when they’re food arrives.

See where I’m going with this? I’m so over menus at weddings and events and it shows, LOL. I mean, Italian food is pretty amazing and transparent if you ask me! 🙂

So once again, we saved the environment from more waste. We also saved some extra cash.

We used our invitation budget to treat our guests to something way more fun than paper invitations anyways!

I’m fairly certain our guests enjoyed their excursion in a luxury boat to Capri WAY more than they would have a pretty, “tossable” invitation.

Oh and without a doubt, I totally had some judgement coming my way from family members. And even a few invitation comments of “oh online.” But you know what, it was my big day so I did things my way. I didn’t need tradition to tell me it’s classier to go with paper and create more waste. I went with my environmental ethics and growth as a person and honestly, I just love our invitations!

As you can see above, our itinerary was done a bit less dramatically in white and turquoise. We wanted both invitations to match in font and turquoise color, but the itinerary to read something lighter and brighter and more casual in describing the week’s festivities. I guess I really wanted these invitations to spell CLASSY FUN FOR ALL.

Or something like that!

At the end of the day, I feel really good about being more environmentally friendly. Even the little things add up and make a difference!

Our wedding was everything we wanted it to be and I have zero regrets about going paperless. I think our paperless invitations helped people see our vision and plan ahead for the big week.

Really a wedding is all about two people, you and your fiancé! Everything else will fall into place. I’m all about details and oftentimes I get caught up in them. I actually wrestled with my paperless invitation decision for a solid three months.

Now, I know better and feel so good about our paperless decision.

SO come on, take the plunge! Dare to be different. Defy tradition! Your day, your way no matter what anyone else makes it about, it’s all about YOU.

Now I’m off to organize for a Fall clothing shoot. I feel like we are totally heading into Fall at a fast pace with this cooler So Cal weather 🙁 and I’m not so sure I’m ready for it! How about you?

xx Shanna