Our destination wedding invitations

This month marks our one year wedding anniversary, and gives me the perfect excuse to feature posts about all the DIY projects and preparations that went into our Cancun destination wedding, last September.

One of the items I knew I wanted to devote the most DIY time to were the wedding invitations. I felt really strongly that when you’re asking friends and family to travel to see you get hitched, the invitations have to set the tone for what your guests can expect, and provide thorough information without feeling like you just delivered a 100+ page manual.

Destination weddings also require that your guests devote their vacation time and money to your wedding, so I wanted the invitations to feel and look like we were inviting our people on a great adventure they wouldn’t regret.

After our save the date post cards [ see the post here], I thought it would be perfect to keep with the destination theme and create a passport invitation. My talented friend, Jehoaddan Kulakoff designed our custom invitations. The passport route allowed me to have several pages of information delivered in a unique way without overwhelming the guests.

Each page delivered focused content, and helped us provide details we couldn’t fit into a standard one-page invite. There are tons of online tutorials that helped me figure out what information was important to feature and also how to assemble the passports. (These one, and two were particularly helpful, and even featured instructions on how to DIY the passports entirely on your own, at home.)

For the passport we had a total of six pages to work with, and we were really diligent about carrying the passport concept throughout. The cover featured our wedding logo, which we then emulated in other details. The first page resembled an actual passport with a photo and our information listed similar to a real passport. I especially loved the small details, like the passport number on top was disguised as the date of the wedding.

Then Jehoaddan created a themed header for each page, this helped anchor the content. Next page included the wedding events, which highlighted not only the actual ceremony details, but also a few things we planned for our guests.

Because we were inviting close friends and family and asking them to travel, I really wanted everyone attending to feel like they were going to be a part of our celebration.

Our wedding invitations asked all guests to wear a shade of purple to our wedding, so on one of the pages we titled “the dress code,” we featured a color palette to help guests identify a family of purple shades. Ultimately, this turned out so beautiful and although some folks felt like we added extra pressure, having everyone in our wedding colors looked exquisite and I would do it again, in a heartbeat.

Our RSVP card was created to look like an airport ticket. I hoped it would help the guests build on their excitement for the trip.

Once Jehoaddan designed the invitations and the RSVP card, I had them printed at a local print shop, with a perforated edge to make it a standard postcard, so guests could simply drop it in the mail.

Then the real work began. To help transform the printed papers into an actual passport I bought a puncher from Michael’s to make the corners of the passport rounded, like the real thing.

Next, was scoring the pages. This is a super important step that I learned about through the tutorials above. It helped the pages have a professional looking crease. The printers also offered that option, but I had already splurged on expensive paper, so I saved a couple hundred bucks and DIY’d with another friend. ( I was so lucky to have friends that agreed to help in exchange for small gifts and mostly wine.)

Jehoaddan was really insistent on adding a liner to my envelopes. Truthfully, I have never heard of such a thing, but after some research and browsing, I decided it would really help create more drama around the design of the passport. You can easily buy already made liners, but I couldn’t find a pattern I liked, so I DIY’d them. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have. It took forever mostly because I refused to buy an envelope liner kit and made my own. Don’t do this. Buy the $13 kit and save 6 hours.

Instead, I found this paper and cut each liner by hand and glued it to the envelope. It really helped transform the simple envelopes and made them look special and unique.

To assemble, I bought a purple ribbon and a friend and I spent an evening stapling the passport together and then adding the ribbon to help hold the RSVP card in place.

This was definitely a labor of love, but I enjoyed every minute of it, (well maybe not every minute), but it was well worth the effort and we were excited to send these out into the world. [ If you missed the other wedding posts, you can see them here and here.]

Besos,

Alina