Wedding Invitation Central

I've talked about Tina on my blog before.  She is our Admin Assistant at work.  She does a LOT for me and even far more for her own boss.  She has a happy disposition and is fun to be around.  I am really happy for her because she is finally getting married.  She is 39 and has never been married before.  About a year ago, she met Cody and they hit it right off.  She is more grounded now and it's been a joy to watch her progress through this journey called love.  She recently asked me if I would help her with their wedding invitations.  I was glad to oblige!

Now, anyone who knows Tina, knows she LOVES BLING and PINK.  And, she loves them TOGETHER and she loves them SEPARATE.  And she like A LOT of them.  Well, you know me...I've only just recently started to like pink at all and I do love bling, but in moderation.  So....I was a little nervous as to how this was going to work out for the two of us.  Would I just "give in" and "let" her do what she wanted - it IS HER wedding, not mine, you know.  Or, would I be the forceful one and "make" her go with what I wanted for her like some of the moms on Say Yes to the Dress?  Or....could I take her style and what I envision for her and mesh the two of them together to create something we'd both be pleased with?

I was kind of nervous.

Tina arrived around 1 p.m., after Holly had already finished cleaning and gone home, and Melon Man was sleeping.  She and I worked together in front of the computer for about 2 hours, designing, re-designing, printing, re-printing, etc.  Finally, it was time to print the invitations.  I think we were both quite nervous about actually finally pushing the button.  But, soon we were on our way and the invitations were rolling off the printer! 

She had purchased some pre-embossed invitations and RSVP cards so we had to work with the spacing that imposed, but it turned out just fine.  We added these very simple but darling bling rhinestone hearts to the outside of the envelope, near the return address label.

Next, Tina added a simple, single bling rhinestone at the top and at the bottom of each invitation, as well as one at the bottom of the RSVP card.  I then backed the RSVP card with a simple piece of her hot pink cardstock so it gave a small border at the top and bottom of each card.

We then laid the RSVP card on top of the invitation and wrapped a simple gold bow around the two pieces to hold them together.  They looked like a little package!  I was unsure about using the gold because the pearlescent embossing on the invitation, along with the rhinestones, made me think the gold would feel out of place.  But, once wrapped around, it really did work and it pulled the whole thing together.

The finished product, ready for loading into the envelopes once they've been addressed:

Tina needed to buy more gold ribbon so we ended up not getting all of them finished, but enough that she could start addressing them and get them out.  We had a fun time laughing and working together and they really did turn out nice!