The Invitations
When we first got engaged, the two things I immediately started thinking about were the dress (natch) and the invitations. I started looking in stores, online, everywhere I could think of, and yet nothing jumped out at me. I had an idea in my mind of how I wanted them to look, and I didn't want them to cost an arm and a leg (I'm sorry, but $3 apiece for a folded piece of pretty paper is a bit much). After a particularly rough day in which I dragged Troy to a paper store and tried to get him to help me pick out a pre-designed invitation, I gave up the hope of finding something pre-made that I'd like, and decided to make my own.
Then the real trial started. My theme is circles, and I cut up some index cards to make mini-invitations to test out some ideas I had for shapes/folds/designs. After deciding on a general idea for the invitation, the hunt began for paper that had circles printed on it. Easy, right? Not so much. Well...maybe if I had an unlimited budget. But, since that's not the case, the hunt for circle paper was a bit disappointing. Until one day I stopped in at Michael's and found their new "deals" section. They had 4-packs of paper, one sheet of each design, for $1 a pack, and amazingly, two of the designs were circles--one was blue paper with white and black circles, and one was white paper with blue and black circles. My colors?! In my design?! I should have been thrilled. Except I went all nit-picky and only bought one pack because I couldn't commit.
The more I kept looking for better circle paper, though, the more I realized the paper at Michael's was going to be perfect for what I wanted. So then the hunt for the proper cardstock started. None of the craft stores in my area had paper in the color I wanted...all the shades of blue they had were much too pale, or green, or purple. Nothing was right...as an aside, I'm still a little shocked that not a single craft store carries simple, normal royal or navy blue cardstock.
My mom understood my frustration, and went with me to Michael's in hopes of finding a decent compromise color. She pulled down a pack of jewel-tone paper (30 pages, 6 colors) and there, in that pack, was the exact shade of blue I was looking for. It sparkled, it was royal blue, it went well with the colors in my circle paper...it was perfect! Except...there were only 5 sheets of it in a $10 pack, and I would need at least 25 sheets of it. So I bought one pack, and kept hoping some other store would have that color paper.
For weeks I looked, kept hoping Michael's would have inventory of that blue cardstock in individual sheets, but to no avail. But, one day at Target I was shopping for shampoo and toothpaste, and on a whim decided to go to the complete opposite end of the store and look at their scrapbooking supplies. Much to my surprise, they had packs of cardstock...and not just any cardstock. My blue cardstock! In a pack of 30 sheets, 10 each of sparkly blue, sparkly white, and sparkly silver...all three of my colors. With no extraneous colors. And they had exactly three packs of the paper. Fate? I think so.
Once the detail paper and cardstock had been found, the real work began. I bought myself a circle cutter (at the time of designing the invite, I thought "Oh, this won't be too hard a shape..." *sigh* I was so naive) and later a straight line cutter that came with a scoring blade (best thing I ever bought! haha) and sat down and made my invites.
Now all that's left is to play with wording, and how the final product will actually look. But, I can show you a general idea of how they'll look. It's the least you deserve after reading my ramblings about paper haha. 
The blue cardstock with the white circle paper
The white cardstock with the blue circle paper.
Expect more pictures once I finalize wording/layouts!
