What I never guessed when i embarked on this wedding-planning lark was just how amazingly exciting the little things would feel: how a small milestone could give us a rush of unadulterated pleasure!
Last night, on the way home from the movies, Rooster and I stopped in the dark and slipped our 135 envelopes into a red postbox: a silly, small thing, but how we giggled with glee…
Those invitations. Despite the last-minute breaking of the round corner punch and despite Rooster nearly loosing the invoice so we nearly couldn’t get a replacement and the resultant abundance of vented emotion as i was running late to catch my plane to Jozi on Friday afternoon, we finally got those invites in their envelopes and they’re hitting the post office today!
Werewith, the story of our invites:
Step One: Rooster and I took a whole lot of close up pics of fynbos flowers at every opportunity we had. Some we took on weekends away, some on evening traipses on table mountian, some in our garden, some (even) of cut flowers in our home. All in all, we ended up using 56 of our favourite shots. These formed the front side of the postcards that made up the invite, as seen below en masse
Step two: We thought up some savvy copy for our invites: we wanted something quite casual and we also wanted to remind our guests that we have different activities happening on each day. We enlisted the assitance of our beautiful graphic designer friend to help us make the invites look a little more like postcards. We think she was brilliant! And please note the cockerel stamp – in line with Rooster and my agreement that my family emblem would become our family emblem!
The main invite: please excuse the scrappy gold blanking (I’m not sure how effective it was in any event!).
The invite for the braai competition (complete with South Africanisms – apologies to foreign readers).
The invite for Friday Activity Day.
And the invite (to closest friends and family) for the traditional post wedding prawn braai!
At this point I should note that we have purposely misspelt “prauwne” – the story goes back to a trip to Mozambique a few years ago where they pronounce the shrimp-like crustacean just like it’s spelt above. To my delight, I once spotted a sign from a street vendor with that spelling and have not been able to call them prawn since!
There was one typo mistake: on our “admin postcard” (not pictured) we did not include the full number for De Hoop (for the purposes of booking accommodation)… We didn’t think it was too much of a train-smash as we also included glossy brochures for the reserve (to give people a taste of where we’re headed) in the invite and all the relevant info is on our wedding website!
Step three: Practical stuff. We got the cardboard (recycled card) printed at rooster’s dad’s company for free (Yay!), cut into postcard size for free from the paper shop where we purchased the card, we cut the millions of rounded corners with our old and our new round corner punches (see how cool it looks!) and secured the bunch of random photos with a funky paper clip.
Step 4: I hand addressed the invites and envelopes in gold pen. Our envelopes are black and long enough to accommodate the glossy De Hoop brochure and in a flash of inspiration (gleaned from the brilliant brides in internetland) we had stickers printed with a mosaic of our pics so that the colour would *pop* on the black!
The envelope waiting to be stuffed and addressed (and a bit over-exposed)!
All our little babies waiting to visit the post office and beyond! (If you look closely you will see the little white bird-like corners lying around after much corner punching.) The great new is that the SA Post Office has recently issued fynbos stamps: bloody perfect…
We are thrilled and can’t wait for feedback from our mateys once people start receiving them! Our invites are exactly as we hoped they would be: beautiful, simple, bright, relaxed and memorable. Yay…
Nope, despite taking boxing classes, I’m not referring to any type of jab, hook or uppercut: the fabulous contraption we purchased to give our postcard invitations a rounded retro feel has given up the ghost mid-punch… bugger! And even though the instrument professes to have a “lifetime guarantee”, we doubt we will be able to have it all patched up and snipping beautiful corners by the weekend, because, really, it is time to send those invites out!!!
The thing is, we tracked down that corner punch and found (what we believe) to be the only one in CT… And given that we are putting 4-5 postcards in each guest’s envelope, we have a lot of corners to punch. Oh: and they must be punched, because half the invites (i.e. pages 1 and 3) are fully rounded, while just under half of the others (i.e. pages 2 and 4) still have spikey corners – there’s no mixing of spikey and rounded. Hmm.
Oh the joys of not living in a country where they make and sell crafty stuff in profusion. Don’tgetmewrong, there are many perks to living in SAfrica (beautiful landscapes, cheap labour, cheap other stuff (i.e. that really poor people can buy), amazing music, fabulous culture, etc etc), but just for today I wish i could walk stroll own a first-world sidewalk and into my local craft store and exchange my broken corner punch for a swanky working one!
I have phoned the paper people and they are onto it… buggery bugger. There has GOT to be another solution. Even though I am loathe to purchase another rounded corner contraption due to the ridiculous cost. And the fact that i should get a fixed one at some stage due to that lifetime guarantee.
But the invites are looking AMAZING. Rooster and I even did a little jig of joy as we were punching and sorting last night (prior to breakage)! Will post pics once the process has been completed. Hold thumbs, Internet!
In other news: I have put myself under enormous pressure to complete a draft affidavit by the end of today. Ha! And this afternoon (two hours on the plane) I am going to Jo’burg for a symposium being held tomorrow. Ha! Even though it is not really in Jo’burg, but inconveniently OUTSIDE of Jozi (so I can’t see my Jozi-mates). Ha!
Not all is gloomy, Internet: last night Rooster and I accompanied two girls (out of 65) to the circus as part of the Sisanda Day of Fun: the idea is that there are a whole lot of children in CapeTown who do not get to enjoy the fun and amazing things there are for children to enjoy in and around CT because they are orphaned or abused or have run away from home for whatever reason. In steps the brilliant ladies behind Sisanda who have organised sponsorship, at least one outing a month (they rotate the “beneficiary homes”) and a hoard of volunteers to look after the kinderen on their day of fun. Needless to say, the circus was a whole lot more fun when watching it with a smart but shy 16 year old refugee and a loving and funny 12 year old girl who has run away from home to escape abuse and drugs… In the greater scheme of things, a round corner punch isn’t that important!
(1 hour later…)
UPDATE: The local paper shop JUST HIS MORNING received a shipment of round corner punches from the u-nited states: we can take our broken punch in and exchange it for a working one 
The gods are clearly on my side – now let’s see if i can finish my affidavit before my plane takes off…
Yes eastsidebride! Yes Meg! Yes Accordions and Lace! How clever and articulate you ladies are. I have been mulling over your posts on wedding budget and this is my take on how we’re spending money:
Rooster and I consider ourselves extremely lucky to have a decent budget to play around with for our wedding because, simply put, we love to throw a party… and we are, for 200 people! All things considered, we probably have exactly the right amount. If we have more, we’d probably bank the cash (and buy a new car or travel or a little holiday nest in the mountains or something) and if we’d had less, we’d just be a little less hospitable (as explained below).
We’ve approached our spending with a tight-fisted ”spiral” philosophy: the smaller or closer it is to us or our wedding venue, the happier we are to spend money one it. The further away or bigger, the more we try to avoid it. In other words, we have tried our darndest to spend small and close with those in our immediate community. For example:
As a result of this philosophy, a few very awesome things have happened: friends have offered to do things for free or have offered us amazing discounts. Locally sourced products and vendors (already cheaper) have offered to let us use their products at a discounted rate. And for the bulk-buys, we’ve been able to hunt for bargains (because I love a bargain…). So, we’ve saved LOADS of cash compared to the same wedding if our philosophy was any different. Yay…
For the most fleeting of moments, we thought about holding onto the cash: perhaps even being “responsible” and investing, but it occurred to us that we could share the love a little more! So we subsidised accommodation at De Hoop for all our guests. We’re paying for accommodation for our close family, the wedding party and their partners! We’re also paying for the accommodation for the wedding fairies who are helping us for free! And my aunt (my dad’s only sister) and uncle who were recently laid off and have both had to settle major medical bills recently: we can pay for their accommodation too!
We’re still trying our hardest in these times to scrimp and save wherever possible and we do have moments of unease where we worry about how much cash we’re spending on just one party (at least it’s a WAW so it’s a whole 4-day vibe…). But actually, what good does it help to splurge on the silly things at our wedding, then pass the cost of travelling and accommodation onto our guests? Times are tight for everybody and it is a real privilege to be able to treat our guests, even if only a little bit.
Hurrah! We got our test print back for the invites and they will be just grand! Rooster and my aforementioned love for fynbos was always going to feature prominently in the wedding planning and one of our first ideas was how to work that into our invites: close-up macro photos of fynbos flowers and pretty leaves from our walks.
Since our engagement we have taken hundreds of close-up pics of pretty flowers and leaves on our walks around the peninsula and beyond. We walk on the mountain quite a lot because we need to exercise ourselves and, importantly, our pup-o-love (as I call him). Here is our dog Cowboy (he is a boy and he looks like a cow) who needs a lots of walking otherwise he gets pretty energetic (like, too energetic):
(As a COMPLETE aside (and don’t tell anybody): we have got special permission for Cowboy to be allowed to be at our wedding – he may or not be the ring bearer (but Rooster and Scissor think that’s REALLY dorky, and I’m coming round to their p.o.v.), but the most awesome thing is that he will be there. We thought he wouldn’t allowed to be because De Hoop is a nature reserve with loads of real live animals, but the wedding area is fairly cordoned off so we are allowed to bring him! Our fantastic leather-artist friend will make him a fancy collar. Bless…)
Back to invites:
So we have decided to use the pics of proteas (etc) that we have taken and use them as our invites… and our welcome notes, and our order of service and our name cards and our thank-you notes! While each card will only have two close-up pics (front and back), by the time people arrive at the Reserve (or at the ceremony or at the reception – depending on how savvy they are!) they will discover that all the pics form a kind of giant tapestry of our walks together! We think we’re very clever
We are also lucky enough to have access to a high-quality printer (Rooster’s family business prints catalogues), so our already thrifty invites (no designers or letterpress or fancy paper – only locally recycled) have become a million times cheaper!
Today we received the first two test sheets with our flowers printed on recycled card paper with a white border. Our consensus is to make a folded card (with a flower pic on the outside of either sheet of the card), make the corners rounded (for a retro feel) and have the text printed in grey inside.
Interlude: I frikkin love the round-corner punch. LOVE. I think i may never tire of punching round corners on our invites. Good Luck to Rooster if he wants a turn punching rounded corners… okenoughofthat!
While the invites will be about postcard size, we need longer envelopes as we are sending our guests glossy brochures about De Hoop (so they too can start to get excited). We’re thinking black or grey envelopes around which we will wrap a paper band of fynbos flowers (they will really stand out on the black) and we will write the addresses in gold ink (I love a gold pen). I really couldn’t be bothered about calligraphy. My experience is that people tear open the envelope and never give it a second glance…
With a “destination wedding” (I really feel uneasy using that term. How about a “weekend away wedding”?), we obviously have a lot of admin that our guests will need to know. Therefore, we have set up a Most Useful Wedding Website with all kinds of useful hints and tips (like, the plan for the three-day wedding (not all are invited to the post-wedding prawn braai) how to book accommodation and, importantly, how to get there). Our invite will refer our guests to our online tome.
In order to diminsh the overall environmental footstep of this wedding, and to keep costs and (really important) admin down, we’re asking people to RSVP via e-mail or phone. We also sent our save-the-dates by e-mail and we have set up a dedicated gmail account for all wedding admin. In all my nearly 30 years (and a good 5 of them attending weddings at least semi-regularly) I have never really got round to posting a reply to an invite (even if postage is included and even if i really liked the idea at the time). Really – all the bride needs to know is who’s going to be there: does she really need a whole piece of (postage paid) paper telling her that?!?
For now, I’m afraid you will have to make do with my verbal description… I promise to post pictures when they are less in a “test” phase and more in a “sending” phase. Promise.
Some stuff that I can tick off after this weekend:
1. First registry items! Rooster and I got to shoot that gun at @Home on saturday morning. Ridic fun! I think we got some goodies… Yippee yay.
2. Round corner cutter. When our invites are printed (hopefully soon!) we will want to give them round corners becuase I think round is prettier. On saturday we tracked down (what may be) the Only round corner punch in CT. Hurrah for us! Tis being delivered to our nearest store tomorrow. Hopefully this will be followed closely by our invites which are being test printed as I type!
3. Flower girl dresses!!! Well, we found the fabric. Rooster’s mother is a fabric artist and some years ago was given an enormous box of indian silk from an international quilter friend. We found it while enjoying father’s day at their house yesterday afternoon and went a little beserk. The Most Beautiful fabrics. In keeping with my desired theme of kititng the kiddies in same-same-but-different dresses, we selected six of my favourites that are mainly green, but feature pinks and blues and whites and yellows as well and set the three bigger girls onto them.
Flowergirl 1 (age 8) chose wide pink stripes alternating with candy stripes on white. FG 2 (age 6) chose similar fabric, but with more blue. FG 3 (age 4 – I’m her fairy godmother) chose a pale yellow with large colourful checks. Mother of FG4 (age 1 1/2) chose a white with pink and green checks. Tiny FG (current age 4 months – she just gets a frock!) got the smallest piece and remaining FG is left with a multicoloured checked fabric.
We stopped off on the way home at my folks and raided my mum’s patterns and found the patter that was used for HER flowergirls when they wed in 1978. Per-fect!
Fabric, pattern and measurements will be given to an amazingly talented refugee seamstress to do her magic. Fantastic! And the remaining fabric will be worked into our wedding quilt…
A weekend well spent
