Wedding Paper ... And How Much I Paid

When planning for our wedding, I wanted every aspect to be just perfect.  I am very detail-oriented, but I also consider myself to be cost savvy!  This bride was on a budget, and I tried very hard to find creative ways to cut costly corners but still get everything I wanted.

I looked into a few options for programs but I needed 150 and I was finding many in the $2-3/ea range.  Instead of spending $300-$450 on programs for our (much appreciated) 20-minutes short ceremony, I decided to get crafty.


Ceremony program

As you may know, my wedding colors were grey and yellow.  A co-worker found the perfect heavyweight grey paper available in a huge ream for only $4.99.  One ream should have covered me, but I ended up buying another ... hang tight for that story.

So for the program, I kept it very simple.  Instead of listing all of the songs that would be played, I left them off.  Our harpist was flying in the day prior from France and we weren't sure what she would like to play.  I purposefully left the songs off so that she wouldn't feel confined to playing any songs during the prelude or processional that she wasn't comfortable with.  The back of the program included the names of our entire wedding party, the minister, our parents and grandparents, the attendants, ushers, harpist, and wedding coordinator.  We also had a note of appreciation from us and our new home address.  I didn't want any ribbons or bows on it, but I did have that fabulous monogram at top.  I found the most wonderful Etsy seller, Amy at Studio Gabby Girl, who helped me to create a custom monogram used on all of our paper products and also the grey koozies we had for our guests.

Escort cards

After the ceremony ended upstairs, guests took an elevator downstairs to the reception, where they took their escort card off of a board backed with the same fabric used for the table runners.  The front of the card had the person's name and table number, and their individual seat number was on the back so the wedding coordinator's team could help them locate their seat.  Using the same paper, my co-worker cut out these shapes for me and I did the names in calligraphy.  Tented placecards with the person's name were at each seat arrangement.



Here you can see the table numbers, placecards, and menu cards.

Aren't the tables gorgeous?!  They are everything I wanted them to look like.  There were 4 long tables and the table numbers were in the middle on the runner held up in silver stands.  They looked like this:

Table numbers

They were also created from the same logo from Studio Gabby Girl -- I just used Microsoft Paint to replace the letter "R" in the wreath with the table numbers.

The delicious menu

And in each napkin was a menu for the evening.  Yes, you are reading this right -- we had a formal sit-down dinner with Southern comfort food!  Our passed hors d'oeuvres were mini eggrolls with collard greens, tasso ham, roasted chicken, and a peach chutney.  To die for.  Dinner was pulled pork barbeque, mac & cheese squares, haricots verts, and cornbread muffins.  We had lemon and vanilla cupcakes passed out afterwards by the servers in lieu of a massive wedding cake (more on this later).  Our custom monogram was atop this menu card as well.

The last thing that I did that I don't have a picture of are info cards that were given to each out-of-town visitor that checked into a hotel.  The info card had a note from Ian and myself as well as all of our favorite Columbia restaurants, bars, and pubs.  Of course they had our custom monogram at the top.  :)

Can I just brag on Amy at Studio Gabby Girl a little bit more?  She emailed me a few days prior to our wedding to pass along congrats and best wishes for our wedding and marriage.  Seriously ... above and beyond.  And just in case you are wondering, this is not a sponsored post ... I found Amy on my own and paid her for the logo. 

So to wrap this long post up, I'm going to tell you what I paid to have all of this done.  As a recap:
- 2 reams of heavyweight grey paper
- 100 hotel info cards for out-of-town guests
- 150 ceremony programs
- 150 escort cards
- 150 placecards
- 150 menu cards
- Custom monogram logo from Etsy

All of this ... I paid $50.

It's true.  Here's the breakdown:
- 2 reams of paper: $5.00/ea = $10.00
- 150 escort cards cut out in shapes: I paid my coworker for her time = $20.00
- 3 packets of tented placecards: $5.00/ea = $15.00
- Custom logo, rounded up = $5.00

I got all of my printing done for free.  I created my own programs, menu cards, info cards, and table numbers using Microsoft Word.  I put it on a thumb drive and had it all printed using the grey paper at a big-box office supply store.  It was already one week prior to our wedding, and I was feeling major pressure from procrastinating. 

WELL - the guy completing the order accidentally cut my programs too short and cut out some of the wording on the back.  He felt absolutey terrible.  He wouldn't even look me in the eyes and was just apologizing profusely.  I told him not to worry, that we'd get it right, but that I needed to go buy more paper.  He offered to print my entire print job for FREE.  That's right ... I had tons of two-sided programs, menu cards, info cards, and table numbers all printed and cut to size for no charge.  It was a major stressor for me so late in the game but getting it all at no cost was definitely worth the worry.

Sorry for the (again) long wedding-related post ... can you tell I am obsessed with all of our wedding details?!