Let them come......

You have the basics nailed down, man, place, dress, food. Now you need to let the masses know where this grand event is happening and when. This is the thing with weddings, apparently e-mail and e-vite won't hack it! So off you go to the stationer's for invitations.

This is when you learn that you don't just need to let people know when and where, they must RSVP and/or choose a meal! They need a map and directions to the place and if you have out-of-towners you want to include an accommodations card as well. The more you have in your invite, the more it costs. Oh, and that'll up the postage too :) Isn't this fun?

My solution for this is to DIY. Or find someone with a home business that will DIY for you. If you take the 2nd route, you will find people on www.theknot.com, www.weddingchannel.com, and www.ebay.com. There are other sources out there I'm sure but none that I've used nor are willing to endorse.

If you are going to make them yourself, start........say it with me........with online research. This will accomplish 2 things, you can find a design and come up with wording. Do you want a gate fold, a z-fold, do you want envelopments, plain and simple invite? Next, do you want to list the parents? Which set of parents? Are they divorced, re-married. It gets complicated pretty fast. So do your research. Invites are subjective, so I'll leave that up to you in terms of design, where to find amazing paper at dirt cheap prices? I've got you covered.

www.paperandmore.com (my absolute favorite paper supplier)
www.paper-source.com
www.remoteassistance.com (they seem to have relatively well prices envelopments if you're not inspired to make your own)

Now for the wording: www.verseit.com
www.crane.com will give you great etiquette tips as well as answer those ever pesky questions on how to address envelopes to 2 professional adults, living together but not married :)

Making your invites is a built in excuse to have a girls night. Martinis, wine, each girl mans a station and come the end of the evening, you have fully assembled invites. This is also your chance to involve your fiance - who had until this point been under the misguided impression that all he'd have to do was show up, ha! Give him cutting or stuffing duty since these can be done before or after the girls party. This will help him feel involved and know he's needed. Awwww.

Invites need to be addressed and this is where it gets touchy. There are those of the school of "handwritten or calligraphed only" and then there are those who believe printing on the envelope is an acceptable alternative to calligraphy (because lets face it, you don't want to fork over $300 for calligraphy when your trusty HP works just fine!), but then there are those that will stick an address label on it and call it a day. Even I can't quite bring myself to agree with that last one. However, I see nothing wrong with printing the address directly on the envelope, you fancy up the font and its better than the guests and the post office trying to decipher my scrawly little chicken scratch!!