It was 104°F yesterday when I went outside for lunch. Got up to 114° in some spots around here. I’m all for the summertime heat, but this week has been exhausting! I’m sure many of you are feeling it where you are too! Makes me think back to the summers I worked outside building docks right across from the movie theater where all of my friends worked in the nice, cool air conditioning. ha! Loved that job, but now that I’m older all I can say is how glad and thankful I am to have an indoor job! :)

On to it! Our save-the-dates went through SO MANY revisions (this was version 10) :) because I’m picky and I waited until the last minute to send them. I originally wanted to have a picture of us on there but we ended up having to push back our engagement photos a few times (rain, etc…) so instead the pups got to be center stage! Because, well, look at those faces…

I used the same photos of the pups from our Christmas cards a few years ago because A) I was too lazy to take new ones, and B) the pups look basically the same anyway (except maybe an extra few pounds on that little boy on the left) ;)

We got them printed as 4×6 photos, then used these peel and stick magnets to turn them into refrigerator reminders :) Apparently they were a little confusing, though, because multiple people told us that someone looked at it on their fridge and asked if it was a dog wedding. Really, guys… really? lol

For the invites, I ordered invitation pockets, envelopes (these and these), and linen cardstock from Cards & Pockets. I thought about getting one of their kits, but decided I didn’t want to deal with printing on all of those individual small pieces of paper. Instead, I saved a little $ and spent a lot more time (ha!) to cut all of the inserts myself. And by ‘myself’, I mean ‘with the help of this lovely crew’ :)

It actually went a lot quicker than we were expecting once we got going!

For the tri-fold A7 pocket/envelope combo, I used the following size layout to include the invite, 3 different height inserts, and the belly band to go around the outside. I tried to maximize my paper and reduce the number of cuts we would need to make with this layout. If you happen to be making your own invites and find this helpful in any way, CLICK HERE or on the image below to download the Word file!

For the design, I used this blue watercolor image file from Essem Creatives. By cropping out different sections of the image, it made each piece look unique but with the same color and feel. Had a little trouble getting the color right with my printer, but I finally got it all figured out. A word of probably-obvious advice, always print your colors first since they never look the same printed as they do on the screen. ;)

All images below are credited to Brooke Beasley Photography. She got some beautiful detail shots :)

Fonts: Stylish Calligraphy (available here) and Malgun Gothic (standard Word font)

 

My accessories were all handmade, just not by me. :) The earrings and bracelet are from Jam Jewels and the hairpin is from Powder Blue Bijoux.

My mom got me this beautiful sixpence charm which was such a fun way to incorporate her in my outfit, especially since I didn’t end up using any of her wedding dress… and it covered my something old, new, borrowed, blue, and the sixpence in my shoe! Although I didn’t wear it in my shoe… I attached it to my bracelet. ;)

Speaking of shoes…

 

Those were my wedding shoes :) Ahh, I still love them both so much. I changed halfway through because, you know, dancing :) You would not believe how dirty those sequin Keds got though… they are now more of a silver/brown rather than white and I have no idea how to clean them! :/

Stay cool out there! :)

Until next time,