Celebrity weddings and glamorous bridal magazines are a lot of fun, but nothing’s more helpful than learning how real brides plan their big day.
Meet OWD's Real Brides: real OurWeddingDay.com Brides-to-be sharing their experiences. It’s not about the “right” way to plan; it’s about each bride planning the wedding that’s right for her.
Amanda from Pittsburgh writes:
I never really understood the point of a guestbook for weddings. Most people, it seems, just sign his/her name. That’s it. Very few actually leave a message. Are you supposed to? I think writing a little note to the couple serves more of a purpose. How many couples actually pull out their guestbook and reminisce about the wedding? What does a guestbook offer for reflecting back on the wedding day? The guestbook is just a list of names.
When I first started window-shopping for stationery items, I came across something inspirational at Hallmark. The store had a box of mini books for guests to fill out that requested a wedding wish for the bride and groom. My fiancé was with me and we spent quite some time looking over these notebooks wondering if this is something to consider. This box of wedding wishes books was a perfect idea to counterbalance the negative feelings I have towards guestbooks.
I mentioned this inspired me. Originally, I just wanted to go out into the world of wedding paraphernalia, find things I liked, buy them, and have all the accessories done and over with. But that is so cookie-cutter. Granted, cookie-cutter works very well with many couples and that may be what some women dream of since they were little girl. I, however, did not fantasize about my wedding from a young age. And after I got engaged and starting thinking about how I wanted my wedding to look as a representation of my fiancé and me, cookie-cutter just does not work.
By using my creative side, my fiancé and I sketched out a “Save the Date” design. Then we decided to buy a DIY invitation kit, which was a struggle because he decided to be picky in this area. Favors were simple: custom golf balls. We both really enjoy the game of golf. It just seemed appropriate. Naturally, I want to design my own “logo” for these (a process I haven’t quite gotten to yet).
But those wedding wishes books... How does that concept tie into my “theme” of “DIY with Elegance”? They didn’t. So after brainstorming, and a lot of Photoshop, my fiancé and I agreed on creating our own. It just seemed to be worth the extra money to pick what really suited us. So the design ended up being a 4”x6” card saying “Wedding Wish: Share a wish or memory for us to treasure.” The background was a faded-out golf score card that I created in Photoshop, thinking this would tie in well with our golf ball favors.
The cards use my wedding colors, lavender and aqua. Instead of fooling around with my home printer and buying the ink and pre-cut paper, I decided to outsource this DIY project through PSPrint. For how little the project turned out to cost, I am happy with my decision so far. And the company has been very helpful.
Just one tip for all of you: You’ll hear or read this everywhere when it comes to DIY invitations, programs, etc. Proofread! Seriously, I am not trying to be redundant, just speaking out of personal experience. My education is in newspapers. I worked several semesters in college editing the school’s weekly paper. Proofreading was my life then and still is. After I sent the artwork to the printing press, I opened the file just to take one last look to enjoy the satisfaction that the cards were almost finished. It was then that I realized I spelled “treasure” as “treasure". Even after having four different sets of eyes approve my design, the spelling error slipped through. In a panic, I called customer service. They were able to cancel the artwork before printing began by a mere one hour. The “Wedding Wish” cards were very close to becoming either wasted money or an embarrassment.
If you have the talent, knack, or passion for DIY projects, go do it, and enjoy yourself! Just make sure you proofread. If you are worried about something like this happening to you, read the text backward word-by-word. It works.
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