Woe is me. I’ve unfortunately never been the “crafty type”. I’ve envied those creative mavens who can take a tin can & make a beautiful couch out of it. They can make home-made drapes, fancy outfits, pillow cases, invitations, & cards out of like a toothpick. No darn it, I have never been blessed with this gift.

Trying to produce an unforgettable wedding on a shoestring budget calls upon the DIY (do-it-yourself) ability of even the most craft-challenged bride. In my universe, I CAN make those dazzling flower arrangements I saw at Joan Rivers’ daughters wedding all those years ago on tv & dreamed about ever since. I CAN tie lovely ribbons & wield a glue gun with the best of them. I CAN invest in a pretty DIY wedding invitation kit, because the clock is ticking & we don’t have the 682 weeks it takes to wait for custom invitations to arrive without a 900% rush fee. We CAN do it… and it will be faaabulous, or so I thought.

Actually, I was QUITE pleased with the original result!

I had been inspired by a “love letters” giveaway I saw on a wedding blog. I didn’t win the giveaway (and $1400 for 100 invitations wasn’t in the budget!) However I came away inspired to write a heart felt & unique love letter invitation, DIY style.

I quickly learned that writing a letter vs. more traditional invitation wording presented its own challenges, not only in light of the short time frame we had, but also in terms of the STYLES of invites available, as we needed a large open canvas void of flowers & the usual frillies to fit in all the wording!

Finally, we found a DIY style I not only liked, but kinda’ sorta loved! It seemed original, had a bow (for whatever reason I had my heart set on a bow), accommodated all of our text from the letter, incorporated at least ONE of our wedding colors, and only took about 15 hours (literally- did I mention we’re no DIY experts?) to align, print, re-align, tie, glue, fashion and mail:

Wedding Invitation freshly tied, before being adhered to the envelope/pocket

Invitation inside pocket/envelope w/reception card & response card in tow.

Argh mail-that evil word...that’s where the trouble started. After an entire week of preparing, wording, re-wording, gluing & primping these little suckers, Josh took them to the post office to finally weigh & send, only to be told by the post office that the folded flaps would be RIPPED open by their machines if they weren’t securely TAPED down.

Now mind you, amidst this process, I’ve been BURIED in planning all things wedding, AND ailing in the past few days so consequently, I’ve been not fully in charge of my faculties. For whatever reason, when Josh returned from the p.o. disappointed by the news, but showed me the invitation with the sides taped down, I was relieved as you could barely see any evidence of the tape.:

Towards the top left of the photo you can see one of the areas the p.o. said might get caught in the machine unless taped down. What you're seeing s is taped & APPEARED to be harmless...(There is a clear address sticker which you are supposed to see. Wasn't our fave either but acceptable, as the whole pocket couldn't make it through the printer). (Courtesy of my not well set cameraphone)

Wedding planning must have dropped both our i.q.’s down to -6, because IT NEVER OCCURRED TO US to open any of the invites to SEE how the crazy mandated scotch tape looked once the pocket was opened BEFORE they were sent. Behold the DEVASTATION:

Invitation Tape Disaster (Caught on my seriously lacking cameraphone). Death to Smoochy!

Is there a DIY 101 common sense wedding planning keep your sanity class at any community college close by or something because they should enroll me for free. Tears I tell you, tears were shed over this one. Jeepers! C