Pyramid Invitations: How To

Thanks for all the love on the invitations!  We've been getting some great feedback from our guests on them too, which makes all of the hard work worth it!  I don't know if I'd go all the way into the whole "labor of love" territory here - they took a lot of time and effort, but the whole process was much easier than I expected it to be!

So to close out the invitation posts, I wanted to touch on the process of putting this assembly together, along with a few tips learned along the way, to hopefully make it easier for you too!

First, let's talk about the wording.  This was probably the area that gave me the most frustration when searching online and in stores, since I couldn't find something that felt just right.  For the main invite card, I started with the basic formal wording for a Catholic nuptial mass, and made a few changes.

Mr. and Mrs. Pyramid Dad

Joyfully Request the Honor of Your Presence

At the Nuptial Mass Forever Uniting Their Daughter

Pyramid Middle Last

&

Sphinx Middle Last

Son of

Mr. and Mrs. Sphinx Dad

Saturday, the Thirty-First of May

Two Thousand and Fourteen

Seven O’Clock In the Evening

Saint Francis of Assisi Catholic Church

631 State Street

New Orleans, Louisiana

Dinner, Dancing, and Happily Ever After to Follow

I was adamant about using the "&" instead of the word "to," along with using my last name.  This is one of the last times I'll be using my name publicly, I didn't just want to put my first and middle!  I also added in the words "joyfully" and "forever" - which no one else at all will likely notice, but I liked the tone that it gave the invitation.  And I love the last line, which I stole from somewhere on the internet, and it's perfectly fitting for us.

I didn't want to include the reception info on the main card (which the invite store owner was trying to force me to do), because I thought it would look to busy, but I wanted to hint at it.  This made the wording of the reception card a little difficult, because I didn't want to repeat myself, so we just went simple and I like what we ended up with.

Celebrate

Immediately Following the Ceremony At

New Orleans

Board of Trade

316 Magazine Street

New Orleans, Louisiana

Closest Parking is at the Corner of 

Poydras St. and Magazine St. 

For the RSVP card, I wanted to make sure that the number invited was clear to our guests, and that the returned cards would give me the information I needed.  I searched around and found this example on Etsy, and based my wording on that.

The Favor of a 

Reply 

is Requested by May 9th

Name___________________________

O    Accepts with Pleasure 

____ of ____ Guests Attending

O    Declines with Regret   

I went with the "Name" instead of the traditional "M," since I've personally never seen the "M" used, and figured this was the safer route.  We did number the back of the RSVP cards with a pencil (invisible ink was a bit too hardcore), but haven't had to use it as all cards have had a name!  

We stayed traditional and put my parents' address on the return flap of the main envelope, but the response envelopes were addressed to me because I like getting mail!  I also wanted to be able to keep my response spreadsheet updated each day, and not have to make my mom keep track of them.  So far, this is my favorite response: 

This was by my grandpa's friend, and I can't tell if he was joking or not, but it still cracked me up.

Next up: design!  

Now, I am not a designer, I am not artistic, but I figured that I could see what would look good by putting it all next to each other in PowerPoint.  So here was my first pass using all of the elements I thought I wanted to include:

Most important blur: the inner envelope to avoid spoilers for those of you who haven't gotten to the end of the 3rd season or book.

And it was busy.  Several friends looked at it and told me I needed to chill out with all the designs (oh dear friends, thanks so much for not getting annoyed with all my requests for feedback).  Initially, I was concerned with having the invite card look too boring. But once I put it all together, I realized a simple invite card was just fine.  I removed some of the details, had my fun on the reception card, and it all flowed together.

I initially put the three fleur-de-lis on the main card, but it was J's idea to include them on all the cards.  And you know what I forgot about until after we finished the design?  This is the flag of the city of New Orleans!  

City of New Orleans flag./Photo via Nola.com

Didn't even plan that, but a trio of gold fleur de lis is so appropriate!  

I was crazy pick about fonts (imagine that!) but once we found "Penabico" on dafont.com, I knew that it was perfect - and free!  The ampersand is Edwardian Script, though, since I didn't like the Penabico one as much.

Finally, our assembly.  My biggest word of advice - prep everything that you can before the final assembly process to make it much easier.  Our items with the longest lead time were the calligraphy and the printing of the cards, so we had to wait on those.  But since I had my mock-up, I knew the other pieces that I had to order and could work on those while waiting.

Several of you asked about the wax seal process, and fortunately we took a (slightly goofy) video!

The referenced "Waterfall Method" of course refers to Mrs. Waterfall's suggestion of making all the seals on a plate to ensure that each one is quality and that we don't mess up the envelopes.  We recorded the video to show it to her, since she was nice enough to provide some advice on her experience with the seals. Thanks, Mrs. W!

You probably couldn't tell in the video, but we used about a nickel-sized amount of wax.

So we made all of the seals beforehand, and found they came out much better this way.  To affix them to the envelopes, we used a healthy amount of wax on the envelope and pressed each premade seal onto the hot wax.  Hand canceling is the way to go to ensure the seals make it to their destination.  We sent a test envelope to ourselves without hand canceling, and the seal did not survive.  I'd heard that it is best to bring them in during a slower time at the post office, so Momma P brought ours in on a Wednesday and we've heard of seals making it the whole way on both sides of the country!

Another prep was cutting the envelope liners.  I made the pentagon shape on the computer, printed it out, and traced it onto a manila envelope that served as my template.

I played around with the placement of the liners, to ensure that I was getting the most liners out of a sheet with the least waste.

I also used a corner rounder on the top of each liner, so that it would match up with the curve of the envelope flap, as recommended by Mrs. Lobster.  This was a pretty minute detail, but since I was prepping everything so early, it was something I could fit in.  When we secured these into the envelopes, I found it easiest to just use a glue stick.  This paper was very soft, and a glue runner caused some tearing.

In general, here was our assembly process:

This picture depicts what's going on in step 4-8 of the list below, besides taking over my dining room.

Prep: cut liners, make seals, punch holes in Moo cards, cut ribbon into 1' sections, write return address on RSVP envelopes and attach stamp, sort spreadsheet by # of guests invited, and assign a number to each address.

(1) Round corners of all the pieces - this only took one night!  I was preparing myself for worse.
(2) Fill in number of guests invited on the RSVP card and write the guest list number in pencil on back of all cards.
(3) Stack invite card, reception card, reply card, and envelope.  Thread a Moo card onto the ribbon, and wrap around the stack.  Attach with a glue dot (much easier and thinner than tying a knot). Complete all of these and keep in order.
(4)  Line the inner envelopes.  Arrange in guest list order.
(5) Stuff the packet into the lined envelope; close inner envelope with glue stick.
(6) Stuff inner envelope into outer envelope; close outer envelope with glue stick.
(7) Attach premade wax seal with more hot wax.
(8) Stick on postage stamp.
Repeat 143 times.

I used sticky notes to keep the RSVP cards in number order, then all the tied-together packets were kept in order in a box.

If you're going to number your RSVP cards, it's important to make one list and stick with it.  I sorted our guest list by the number of guests invited, to make it easier when filling out the blank on the RSVP card.  I saved that list separately, to ensure that I wouldn't accidentally mess it up.  Then it was all about keeping the cards and envelopes in the right order.

Another bit of advice: order lots of extras!  If they don't get used, then you can hopefully return them or repurpose somewhere else, but it's better safe than sorry.

And I'd highly recommend including the return postage for your RSVP cards.  I've received some comments from guests that it was a nice gesture, but I consider it to just be courteous.  And hopefully it will mean a higher rate of return on those replies!  We've received about half of the cards back in the mail so far, and we still have about two weeks before the return date.

Thanks for sticking with me through the invite posts!  I'm just so excited to finally be sharing them with you, since I've had to keep them under wraps for so long.  As you can see, I've got a lot to say about it all, but I hope it was helpful to someone.

Anyone else have any good advice for others on wedding invitations?