Blackfire5th's Bio

Invitations

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Our invites read:
Dad and Mom Bride
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Bride
to
Groom
son of Dad and Mom Groom
on Saturday, the eighteenth of July
Two thousand and nine
at one-thirty in the afternoon
Saint John the Evangelist Catholic Church
1730 West 12th Street
Loveland, Colorado


The invites.  I don't remember the site we ordered these from, but when I do, I'll be sure to post.  It might have been Invitations by Dawn.



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Reception cards

Addressing the Invites

I printed the address onto the envelopes.  It took me a little bit to figure out how to get it to work.  I had to partially shove the envelope into the printer for the address to be consistently centered.  I did a lot of practice runs with font size and type on a normal piece of paper that was cut to the same dimensions as the envelopes.  
invite_print-_front_bio.docx
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invite_print-_back_bio.doc
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invite_print-_inner_bio.doc
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Response Cards

I made our own response cards using the Avery Postcard templates that you can get at most stores.
response_card_back.doc
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response_card_front-_diy.doc
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Accommodation cards

We used two hotels.  There was enough family in the area that no one had to get a hotel, but here is a template you can use.
acomodation_card-_loveland_fort_collins_altered.doc
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Menu Cards

I thought it would be nicer to give our guests a better description of what they were eating rather than just "Chicken,"  "Fish," etc.  A lot of people told me these were very helpful.
menu_card.doc
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Photoshare Cards

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Photoshare cards made on marketsplash.com


We made a site on shutterfly.com, but no one uploaded any photos.  Guests either sent me a disc or put them on facebook.

Letters from the White House

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Letter received from Vice President Biden

I sent the invite to:

Mr. Joseph and Dr. Jill Biden  
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW 
Washington, DC 20500


I also sent one to President Obama and his family, but they just sent a generic congratulations card.  I used the same address as above.

Guest Book

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Here is a link to a guest book similar to the one we created on shutterfly.  We used our engagement photos (and a few others) like this person did and got this for free with a coupon.


http://tinyurl.com/yjujayr

Programs

We tried to make our programs very detailed for those who were not Catholic.  This isn't the final draft, but it was pretty close.  This PDF is set up in order of how you would read it.  I don't know why the map got messed up in the PDF conversion.
wedding_program.pdf
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Here are all the templates:
cover.doc
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page_1_10.doc
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page_2_9.doc
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page_3_8.doc
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page_4_7.doc
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page_5_6.doc
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DIY that I have found from other Knottie bios

Thank you parasol

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Embossing

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I think this is really cool and wish I had known about it!  I've seen other's use this for their invites.


http://brideonbudget.blogspot.com/2010/01/embossed-cocktail-napkins.html

Table Runner

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Waterbottle labels

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101 DIY Projects and Ideas website

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Hanging Initials

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I'm not really into these, but a lot of people like them, so I thought I'd put up a link.

http://brideonbudget.blogspot.com/2009/08/diy-door-initials.html

Personalized Hangers

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Instruction taken from:  http://danielleandjoe.weebly.com/bride-attire.html

You can see what I had originally made below but after reading Michelle's idea on my club board I decided to add wood to make them stronger...oh and we had a MSP knottie DIY GTG that I thought would be perfect for this project so I got them all done in one fell swoop! 

I got the hangers in packs of 5 at target. I went with the cherry wood color.

I bought the wire from Michaels - 12 gauge. I then used mainly my hands to twist the wire and using a needle noise pliers to tighten some spots - for ex. the top of a "l" or "k."

I took an electric drill and drilled holes 1 inch up on either side of the hanger with a 5/64 bit. If you drill in at an angle they stay in really well....none of those pictured are glued in and they are all hanging in my closet right now just fine...although I will glue them cuz at this point you can move it around if you push the wire.

Timelines

I thought these timelines were really cute!

Head piece

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I love the headpiece that TideTravel wore for her wedding.  You can find them at  www.medievalbridalfashions.com

DIY Flowers

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TideTravel also has a great section on DIY flowers.  Here is a link to her site: 
http://tidetravel.weebly.com/diy-flower-hints.html

vistaprint.com -A Bride's best friend

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Taken from TideTravel's planning bio (http://sites.google.com/site/tidetravel/):


VistaPrint deserves a page all to itself...  sign up for the site's emails and get offers ALL THE TIME for free stuff...  all items below were created using vistaprint and were bought on sale for free (just pay for shipping.) 

Vistaprint Hints:

1)  You can substitute any picture on most items for another "stock" picture...  if you find a layout that you like, open the item, click on "advanced editing" and then click on upload image from library

2)  When using advanced editing, do not feel like you need to insert the text where the fields tell you to.  Cancel out all text boxes and pictures, and then insert your own.  You can move and color the text however you want to from there.

3) Usually on free sales, you can only get 1 order of a particular item for free.  However, you can order multiple free items at one time and the shipping will be combined.  For example, I ordered: 50 free rack cards, 1 free custom pen, 10 free thank you notes, 10 free note cards, and 1 free small car door magnet all on one order...  and my shipping for the order was $7.54.  For the BMs, I created a stationary set:  each order was for a different BM, and each contained 1 pen, 1 notepad, 1 sticky note pad, 1 box thank you cards, 1 desk calendar, and 1 address stamp (all FREE items) .   Shipping came out to about $10 per order.  

4)  Chose the slow shipping option, unless you REALLY need the item, like, now...  All my stuff came in 7 -14 days with the slow shipping. 

5)  Most "expiried" coupons don't expire on the expiration date.  As long as you open the webpage with the expired coupon, it will probably work, at least for a couple months.


Music

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Having and iPod reception or just trying to pick out your must-play and do-not-play lists? Check out the links below (all links taken from http://toomuchfundj.com/).

Top 200 most requested songs at weddings for 2009:
http://www.mobilebeat.com/top-200/

Best First Dance Songs:
http://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-songs/first-dance-music

Great Garter Removal Songs:
http://toomuchfundj.com/greatgartersongs.html

Silly Songs, Fun Stuff, and Group Songs:
http://toomuchfundj.com/sillysongs.html