Lets Talk Invitations! Okay, Invitations are well in my past- but I put SO much time, energy, and funds on this project that I want to show them off a bit!
Here's what you need to know... Before we decided on the
DCL wedding, Michael and I were planning on getting married at the Orlando Science Center with the reception on the terrace overlooking the downtown skyline and the reception indoors in the Dinosaur room... Would've still been an awesome wedding, but it was going to be more expensive in the long run. Michael and I are both a wee bit nerdy (him moreso than me!) and we both LOVE Doctor Who, so we were planning on having a bit of a Science Fiction themed wedding at the Science Center... Well, that's not happening, as we all know! But we'd already had the ideas in place for the invitations, so we went forth with the original plan for invitations... TARDIS invitations, to be precise! (Time And Relative Dimension In Space, aka, an alien time machine... I warned you, we're a bit nerdy!) So the doors of the Tardis "pull to open" to the invitation, which is "bigger on the inside".
Here's how it was done:
I purchased a beautiful Doctor Who papercraft print "Danse Avec Moi" from Etsy, and I traced the pieces and re-created the entire piece by hand to match colors we preferred. I scanned it, did a little editing on photoshop, and took the file to Kinkos and had 50 printed. I custom ordered a chandelier stamp (also from Etsy) so I could use embossing powder and a heat gun to emboss the chandelier on each print. Next I made "Mickey Medallions" - I got a piece of sturdy silver paper and went to town with a circle hole punch, and I glued rhinestones into Mickey Silhouettes on the silver circles. Then I did all the folding- a major pain, since I had to measure EVERYTHING so precisely. (I used a WDW pen to make the creases- no need for a $10 bone folder from Martha Stewart!) Glued the ribbon, glued the medallions, punched a bazillion blue squares, and glued those too. At home, I printed the "confetti" glitter vellum paper with our formal invitation (found my font on DaFont.com), took those to Kinkos to have them cut perfectly down the middle, then hole-punched the top and tied ribbon bows to hold everything together! Then I dug through my crafts and found a stamp that says "And they lived happily ever after" so I made the executive impulse decision to stamp that on the back of each invite.
Wow, it's exhausting me all over again just thinking about it
Many Many Many Many hours went into these invites, and so much love- but I'm so glad they're done! Though, it's nice knowing that they're so completely unique! Anyways, enjoy the pictures! I am the queen of everything that sparkles and glitters, so notice that the blue paper shimmers and, of course, that confetti vellum!
Danse Avec Moi: the inspiration piece
The Front- YES, it's being photographed on top of my DCL DFTW packet!
The Inside
Underneath the Vellum (notice the embossed chandelier!)
The Back
I thought long and hard about the wording of the invitation. I didn't want it to feel too stuffy, but I still wanted it to sound formal. I couldn't exactly copy typical invitations, since a cruise wedding is anything BUT typical! Here's what I wrote:
"We are delighted to invite you to set sail aboard the Disney Dream to celebrate the wedding of Jillian ... and Michael ... departing from Port Canaveral, Florida on the Thirteenth of September 2012 and returning on the Sixteenth of September 2012. Allons-y!"
We booked the wedding cruise in early September and mailed invitations shortly afterwards to give our guests time to mull it over and book their vacations! We honestly weren't expecting many guests to join us, but our guest list is already up to almost 50! And I know that not everybody has booked yet! We're getting married onboard, so that means we have to get married in one of the lounges instead of in the deck 14 Outlook
I am thrilled to see more and more of my loved ones join us to celebrate our day (our weekend, really!) but I really loved the look of the Outlook!
It appears that my DF has fallen asleep on the couch next to me, so I suppose I'll put down the laptop and take him to bed! Have a great big beautiful tomorrow!