The Invite Card - rambling rambling...

I'm designing my wedding invites, it's more or less done. Just need to talk to the printers and look for the right paper. I'm going to fold and cut up 500 pieces of flowers. Between me, my cousin and several other people, it is possible. I just need to find the right paper, cut up into squares and fold them up into triangles.

Mom has been reminding me to keep the card simple. Just make it a regular card she said. No need for the fancy shmancy pop up she said. I'm not going to make a fancy shmancy pop up. Even I know I don't have the power to make a fancy shmancy pop up in the time that is left. My cottage factory only exist when the need arises and even then they can only do so much.

I made several mock ups. The first one, I was like, yeah, this is it. Simple, nothing to it. That was the inside, open up the card and a heart pops out, text all laid out on either side. Then I did the outer part of the card, family list, cover. Thought I was being clever with the rounding off one end of the rectangle. Then I stepped back and realised it looked like a giant silhouette of a tampon

Scratch that.

Fortunately, the fiance's invites were already done. They were lucky, the place where they're having the do is packaged with the invitations. I like the typeface it had. I went back to mine and rid of the fancy shmancy curly type I had earlier, it was just messy as there was so much text to fit in. The malay language just have too much protocol.

Following the steps of the other half I did a simple layout with an overhead fold (A4 folded in half). Arranged the text to one side leaving space for the flower. Made a mock up and it worked. There's an empty space at the top left corner and I don't know if it's something I should fill in...

I tested out the mock up and my subject, aka sister, was suitably impressed. Hence, the plan will continue. Meeting printers next week, in the mean time, will look for suitable paper for flowers. It has to be red, as the card will be on pearliest white with black print. I shall live up to my motto, make do with what's available locally and maximise on it.

There are also mini invites for the other two functions, since those will be in a smaller run, I feel that it's easier to print them out myself. And it's designed smaller still, it'll be on an A6 format. So 100 pcs = 25 print outs... (4 per sheet of A4).

and the other one 50 pcs = 13 print outs on A4.

I just need to buy a pack of scented rose print on white for about... how much did I buy for a pack of 100... less than 40 bucks that's for sure.

If I buy them 40 cents per sheet that's... 25 + 13 = 38... multiply that by 0.4 = 15.20 bucks... oh, much much cheaper... if I buy stack, I could always use the rest for other projects... will have to think about that one.

Still have to factor in how much the printing of cards is going to cost at printers and how much the sheets of red paper is going to be. I'm aiming wrapping paper, that'll be about a dollar per sheet at the most. Just need to know how many squares I can get out of a sheet. A ballpark figure of maybe 12 squares at a dollar per sheet will give me.... 40 bucks! That's a lot to spend on wrapping papers...

And if the printers are going to charge me say, $1.50 per card that's another $750 for 500 invites. Shit that's expensive... work out each invite is going to cost $1.58. And if it's the one with the extra invites that'll be $1.78. When you break it down to unit cost that's cheap.

But I haven't factored in the, will we be using envelopes? Are the envelopes thrown into the price or is that an additional price? The pizza to be ordered for the flower making crew and assembly? And the glue used for assembly, not counting time and effort put in... My cousin and I have been brain storming this, when it comes to the planning and doing, she and I are gold.

I think I can keep it well below $800.

Must take pictures of mock ups and final pieces when ready... if I remember to charge up my camera.

This is going to be fun

I'm curious, how much did your invitation cards cost?

Oh gosh, I just remembered, I have to do 50 handmade invites for a friend's wedding!  

they changed their mind, they want a guest book now...