It’s not the quantity, nor is it the quality; it’s the amount of quality that you get with a large quality that matters when you’re talking about wedding invitations. Planning your wedding invitations is much of the same breed as attempting to find the perfect mathematical or scientific equation for balance. In this cause it’s: (quality + quantity = success). You want to be able to make sure that all of your friends and loved ones receive invitations that express how important they are; at the same time you want to make sure you can afford all of the invitations that you want to send people. I’m going to use Long Island as a location and example of the best wedding invitations that are both affordable and beautiful. Below are things that these wedding invitations take into consideration:
1) How many colors do you actually need in your invitation?
This is important because the more colors that you have on your invitation, the more expensive it is. Most print shops and print services charge considerably more for four color process printing rather than two color printing. If you can limit your wedding palette to two specific colors that you and your spouse agree on (aside from black and white) you’re well on your way to saving money. Using less colors makes it easier for your wedding invitations to carry a symbolic message rather than have a myriad of colors that don’t make much sense when put together on an invitation.
2) Do you want to use photography in your invitation?
Photography is a double edged sword with wedding invitations. Sometimes the use of photographs as a collage for wedding invitations give a cheesy and very impersonal attitude. However; when done correctly, a single photograph of either an iconic scene in regards to the couple getting married, or perhaps even a picture of the couple itself taken by a professional photographer, can serve as an excellent wedding invitation.
3) Where are you getting you invitations printed from?
This also has to do with the printing process once more; the type of paper that you decide to get your invitations printed on will affect the price. Most private print shops I found in long island would make an attempt to get you to buy over priced paper. To avoid this situation, you should find a student graphic designer or print designer from an accredited design school and ask them to make and format your invitations. This way you can take them to a staples or a kinkos and have them printed on the same quality paper at a considerably lower price.
4) Are you buying a stock set of wedding invitations from a company?
Also a double edged sword, buying stock wedding invitations can save you the trouble of sizing and printing your own invitations, but you lose the ability to customize them to make them personable; however I found that some services of wedding invitations in long island offered a large variety of creative invitations so that finding something personal was easy enough.
Though this article is based largely on my experience of wedding invitations in Long Island, it applies to wedding invitations everywhere and if you’re going to get married you should take all of the points in this article into account. Good luck and lead long happy marriages!.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Getting Invitations Ready for your Wedding in Long Island
Long Island Wedding Invitations: Get ready to send them out now.
With the summer already upon us (and dwindling for a few of us), we find ourselves in all sorts of predicaments. These situations range from silly things such as making sure to visit a water park before the fall comes, all the way to getting your wedding in order at the last minute. Personally, I’m not getting married, however my older sister is slated to get married by the end of august and she’s freaking out. Oddly enough, she came to me to help her pick a location for her wedding, and with little knowledge of anywhere beyond the east coast, my answer was simple, straightforward, and accepted with little argument. I suggested Long Island.
Now you might be wondering just why I suggested Long Island of all places instead of one of the other many beaches along the east coast; I.E: more notable places such as Miami, Daytona Beach, Myrtle Beach, etc. And when questioned by my sister I responded by explaining that unlike the other locations, Long Island is by far less touristy because its hard enough to drive to, and most people staying there are ritzy New Yorkers and people from New Jersey who keep to their oversized beach houses and leave you alone. The beaches are well kept, and there are more than enough wedding companies and services in Long Island that you won’t have to worry about getting your wedding over with (not that you want it to just be ‘over with’). Of course, once you pick the spot, and the wedding service, it’s time to send out your Long Island wedding invitations; choosing a company should be easy enough and once you get your invitations out, you’ll be well on your way to a breeze through wedding. That is saying of course there are no crazy ex’s in your life that vowed to ruin it.
With the summer already upon us (and dwindling for a few of us), we find ourselves in all sorts of predicaments. These situations range from silly things such as making sure to visit a water park before the fall comes, all the way to getting your wedding in order at the last minute. Personally, I’m not getting married, however my older sister is slated to get married by the end of august and she’s freaking out. Oddly enough, she came to me to help her pick a location for her wedding, and with little knowledge of anywhere beyond the east coast, my answer was simple, straightforward, and accepted with little argument. I suggested Long Island.
Now you might be wondering just why I suggested Long Island of all places instead of one of the other many beaches along the east coast; I.E: more notable places such as Miami, Daytona Beach, Myrtle Beach, etc. And when questioned by my sister I responded by explaining that unlike the other locations, Long Island is by far less touristy because its hard enough to drive to, and most people staying there are ritzy New Yorkers and people from New Jersey who keep to their oversized beach houses and leave you alone. The beaches are well kept, and there are more than enough wedding companies and services in Long Island that you won’t have to worry about getting your wedding over with (not that you want it to just be ‘over with’). Of course, once you pick the spot, and the wedding service, it’s time to send out your Long Island wedding invitations; choosing a company should be easy enough and once you get your invitations out, you’ll be well on your way to a breeze through wedding. That is saying of course there are no crazy ex’s in your life that vowed to ruin it.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Why Birthday Invitations are Becoming Obsolete.
Found this article written about Birthday Invitations, of course it can also be applied to wedding invitations as a creative way to bring people to your special party:
"The title says it all; how many people above the age of thirteen actually use birthday invitations? Not many. With the advent of email, less and less people are actually using real mail (snail mail) to invite their friends and loved ones to their birthday parties, shindigs, bashes, and get-togethers. So what does that mean? People are still throwing huge parties which means that everyone is still getting their invitations somehow. Sadly, it was social networking and web 2.0 that gave the finishing blow to paper, personalized, birthday invitations. Things like Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, all have built in applications to allow a user to invite large volumes of friends to an ‘event’. There’s no need for personalization, a simple webpage is made and a link is sent to a number of recipients. Simple, cold, and completely impersonal, but effective. And the age is continuously shrinking for those that subscribe to the traditional way of inviting people to their birthday parties.
So what is a person to do? How does one of traditional tastes survive in this expanding digital world? A simple fusion of both tradition and personalization with technology. But how?! Here’s an example that I’ve tried, tested, and found to work to a great degree. If you have access to a video camera, or a web camera, all you need to do is set yourself up in a relatively quiet room (for audio recording purposes) and then give a short testimonial for why you want a specific person to come to your birthday party. This will take time, a little bit of technological know-how, but it will be worth it. You can then ship off each movie either on a CD/DVD to your respective friends, or you can email each one separately. This will not only make your friends realize how much you care about them, but you can keep up with the technological curve."
"The title says it all; how many people above the age of thirteen actually use birthday invitations? Not many. With the advent of email, less and less people are actually using real mail (snail mail) to invite their friends and loved ones to their birthday parties, shindigs, bashes, and get-togethers. So what does that mean? People are still throwing huge parties which means that everyone is still getting their invitations somehow. Sadly, it was social networking and web 2.0 that gave the finishing blow to paper, personalized, birthday invitations. Things like Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, all have built in applications to allow a user to invite large volumes of friends to an ‘event’. There’s no need for personalization, a simple webpage is made and a link is sent to a number of recipients. Simple, cold, and completely impersonal, but effective. And the age is continuously shrinking for those that subscribe to the traditional way of inviting people to their birthday parties.
So what is a person to do? How does one of traditional tastes survive in this expanding digital world? A simple fusion of both tradition and personalization with technology. But how?! Here’s an example that I’ve tried, tested, and found to work to a great degree. If you have access to a video camera, or a web camera, all you need to do is set yourself up in a relatively quiet room (for audio recording purposes) and then give a short testimonial for why you want a specific person to come to your birthday party. This will take time, a little bit of technological know-how, but it will be worth it. You can then ship off each movie either on a CD/DVD to your respective friends, or you can email each one separately. This will not only make your friends realize how much you care about them, but you can keep up with the technological curve."
Cyperus Personalized Wedding Invitations: Creative ways to invite the people you care about.
It’s crunch time, your wedding is coming up within the next three months, your husband is slacking off and you still haven’t sent out your wedding invitations to friends, family, and loved ones. Suffice to say, what you need to do is somehow come up with creative, affordable, and memorable invitations to send off to the invitees before you’re forced to buy a stack of hallmark cards and end up as the laughing stock among your group of friends. By the end of this article, you’ll have found at least three different ways to construct invitations that you can send off to your friends and loved ones feeling reassured that they will enjoy the heartfelt sentiments behind something made by hand that will give the recipients the feeling that you made the invitations from the infamous Cyperus Plant.
I’m going to run you through one quick project that will give you tons of ideas for future wedding invitations, or even invitations to your future baby shower. You’re going to need a 3 foot by 4 foot piece of heavy, white, matte paper which you can buy from any store you like. For the next step you’ll need a few cans of spray mount, which is essentially spray-able glue which you’ll then spray the entire white space of the matte paper. The next step is to get a large amount of leaves, make sure they are completely free of dirt and then lay them out on top of the matte paper until you can’t see anymore white space. Go out and buy glossy, clear finish paint and go over the entire white board to give the leaves a shine. You should now have a beautiful, natural mosaic. Grab your knife, scissors, or cutting device of choice and slice up the mosaic into rectangles the size you want to mail off. Viola! Just write down a personal message to your guests and you’ll have personalized wedding invitations with minimal costs and half a day’s worth of effort.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Top Five Wedding Blogs of the week #1
Hello everyone, I'm reporting in for my daily update. I've got a list of five of the Must-Go-To wedding blogs of the week for those of you who are thinking about getting married, going to get married, or are just finished with your wedding and you're wondering how you could have done a better job.
#1 Style Me Pretty
"Style Me Pretty is really all about wedding inspiration. It’s about helping brides to design their own unique and personal wedding style. Whether they are inspired by a particular color palette, a beautiful reception venue or even by something as simple as piece of jewelry…Style Me Pretty is about translation your inspirations into a cohesive look and style for your own wedding."
#2 Offbeat Bride
"Ariel, author of the book Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides. This blog is just the tip of the offbeat iceberg — for the whole story you'll need the book, which is half memoir, half tipster handbook. I also blog at Electrolicious. "
#3 Wedding Bee
"Weddingbee is a wedding blog updated daily by 20 real brides across the US and Canada. We feature wedding inspiration and ideas, diy projects, product reviews, vendor spotlights, advice and news, with a core focus on real brides’ wedding planning journeys from engagement to “I Do” and beyond. The site is updated up to 20 times a day and is read obsessively by brides, grooms, bridesmaids, women, wedding vendors and industry insiders alike."
#4 Wedding Fanatic
"WeddingFanatic is the ultimate resource for brides to keep up on the hottest wedding trends!"
#5 Wedding Mapper
"Founded in January 2007, Wedding Mapper has become the premier online destination for couples to create an interactive and fully customizable wedding map. The Wedding Mapper map allows couples to share a large amount of detailed information such as ceremony and reception details, lodging, travel logistics, popular tourist sites, and places that are important to the engaged couple through markers on the map. Personalized descriptions and photos can be attached to each wedding map marker. Guests can use the map to plan their travel itinerary, get driving directions, and familiarize themselves with the wedding location. Whether a bride and groom are creating a hometown or destination wedding, Wedding Mapper makes planning the wedding, sharing information with guests and trip planning easier than ever."
#1 Style Me Pretty
"Style Me Pretty is really all about wedding inspiration. It’s about helping brides to design their own unique and personal wedding style. Whether they are inspired by a particular color palette, a beautiful reception venue or even by something as simple as piece of jewelry…Style Me Pretty is about translation your inspirations into a cohesive look and style for your own wedding."
#2 Offbeat Bride
"Ariel, author of the book Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides. This blog is just the tip of the offbeat iceberg — for the whole story you'll need the book, which is half memoir, half tipster handbook. I also blog at Electrolicious. "
#3 Wedding Bee
"Weddingbee is a wedding blog updated daily by 20 real brides across the US and Canada. We feature wedding inspiration and ideas, diy projects, product reviews, vendor spotlights, advice and news, with a core focus on real brides’ wedding planning journeys from engagement to “I Do” and beyond. The site is updated up to 20 times a day and is read obsessively by brides, grooms, bridesmaids, women, wedding vendors and industry insiders alike."
#4 Wedding Fanatic
"WeddingFanatic is the ultimate resource for brides to keep up on the hottest wedding trends!"
#5 Wedding Mapper
"Founded in January 2007, Wedding Mapper has become the premier online destination for couples to create an interactive and fully customizable wedding map. The Wedding Mapper map allows couples to share a large amount of detailed information such as ceremony and reception details, lodging, travel logistics, popular tourist sites, and places that are important to the engaged couple through markers on the map. Personalized descriptions and photos can be attached to each wedding map marker. Guests can use the map to plan their travel itinerary, get driving directions, and familiarize themselves with the wedding location. Whether a bride and groom are creating a hometown or destination wedding, Wedding Mapper makes planning the wedding, sharing information with guests and trip planning easier than ever."
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