The Invites - Phase 1

I've mentioned before how I ADORE all things paper, making invites possible the most exciting part of this whole wedding shebang. However, I completely underestimated how time consuming the hunt for the perfect invite would be! From the very beginning I wanted my invites to be DIY. I envisioned an assembly line of my crafty family putting together some beautiful concoction that my brilliantly creative mind thought up. I also got one of these beauties for Christmas from my mom, and I was bound and determined to use it for all of my paper-related ventures.

Source

Well...

It didn't quite happen that way.

I had the best of intentions, but I just couldn't figure out a design I liked. I purchased the Wild Card cartridge and experimented with a few designs. I didn't want anything too floral or cutesy. Josh and I prefer more a more modern look, so I threw together a few experiments:

 

I liked the idea of an argyle-ish design. It has clean lines and no flowers, and is pretty unique. But these experiments of mine were just... well... ho-hum. I wasn't overly excited about either of the color combinations, and these two things took about 20 minutes to do! Multiply that by the 170+ invites we're sending out and... ugh. That's math that my English-based brain doesn't want to think about.

Plus, it was quite a mess...

My sister was helping me, and she didn't know I took this pic. Sorry Linds!

So, we were back at Square 1. The DIY option  was looking less and less appealing to me, so I set off to Etsy to look for some inspiration, and maybe a vendor. That's when I figured it out - DUH! Why didn't I think of this earlier! I could design our invites in Photoshop myself! I've got about a year of graphic design background under my belt (it was my first major in college... needless to say, it changed).

So, I started designing. Want to see how it turned out? Stay tuned...

Did you DIY your invites or pay someone else? How did you come up with a design you liked?