Love mini bunting almost as much as I love full-size bunting, and we’re planning to make paper strings to decorate the food stations at K + C’s wedding. Kate, bless her heart, cut out hundreds of small paper triangles when she visited last week. Now, to find some twine (a yellow and white striped version, anyone?) and string everything together…

Top two photos by kzphoto via Once Wed; bottom photo by Scott Clark and styling by Jillian Event Design, via 100 Layer Cake

Finally, we’re ready for the big reveal of the last few months’ labor of love! As with most DIY undertakings, we thought this would be a fairly simple process.

It wasn’t. (Surprise, surprise.)

But, after five months, about 23 proofs emailed back and forth, and a few emergency add-on info cards later, here are the save the dates for K + C’s wedding! Let me give you the tour…

The envelopes are the A6 navy version from Paper Presentation (love them!). The stamps were standard USPS fare. Our original plan was to write out the addresses in white ink, but we decided to save that for the actual invitations. Instead, I wrote each address in navy on an office-supply store white label. We stuck those labels on top of rectangles we cut from old nautical charts.

The return address stamp was from RubberStamps.net, and the service and price were great. It was a bit difficult to position the stamp since it came on a solid wood block, but other than that, no complaints.

The envelopes were also lined with nautical charts. Having a father who teaches at the Coast Guard Academy is a boon when planning a sea-worthy wedding! We chose charts from the Bay Area, as C grew up nearby.

The entire suite: chart lined envelope, save the date, wedding website card, and second reception card (which was only sent to some guests).

As you may remember, our design was inspired in part by one seen here. I designed the cards in Microsoft Publisher (often comes with the standard Microsoft Office suite and is very easy to use). We printed the cards at UPrinting, and though the quality was good, I was a bit disappointed when we got them back and saw there was less white space on the top and bottom than I expected. Oh well. It was likely my fault.

The rope heart was hand-drawn by my best friend, a multi-talented furniture designer at RISD. Thank you, Wanda! We plan to use it throughout the wedding. The cards were printed at Vista Print.

And that’s that! Here’s the cost breakdown, for those who are interested:

150 envelopes (plus s&h): $36*
White labels: $2
Return address stamp (plus s&h): $17.90 (we needed priority shipping)
Charts: $0 (Dad!)
Rope graphic: $0 (BFF!)
Printing of 100 save the date cards (plus s&h): $35.78
Printing of 250 reception cards: $13 (s&h)
Printing of 250 website cards: $4.99 (to upload custom design) + $13 (s&h)
Postage: $39.60

TOTAL: $162.27, or $1.80 per suite (We sent 90 envelopes to 184 guests)

Please let me know if you have any other questions!

*We could have saved here if we hadn’t over-estimated the quantity. But we’ll be using these in the future, so I don’t consider it a loss!

{photo by Sarah Maren}

{photo by Max Wanger}

{photo by Floataway Studios}

{photo by Jeanne Ciasullo}

BUNTING! I sure seem to write about bunting a lot, don’t I? Sheesh. My apologies if it’s not your cup of tea, but it certainly is mine. Anyway, we’ll be making a whole lot of the stuff for this summer’s wedding. Yes, a whole lot. We’re going to deck the whole weekend in bunting.

I do have one question for y’all before we begin construction. I don’t like the look of pinking shear edges, but I’m worried about fraying if we cut the triangles with a straight edge, wheel, or scissors. I’ve heard that soaking the fabric in a flour-water (or maybe sugar-water?) mixture and then letting it dry before cutting will help, but I’m not sure. Does anyone have a great solution to this problem? Any tips? Is this flour-water hocus pocus totally bogus? PLEASE weigh in!

We’re most likely going to be using bamboo utensils for K + C’s reception, and though we’ve considered bundling sets together with baker’s twine or string, it had never occurred to me to add text before I saw this image on Weddingbee. I don’t have a Gocco, which I think would be the best tool for this project, but what do you think about a custom rubber stamp? One of those could work, as well.

Another question for you: on a more existential level, would this begin to cross into the territory of “whoa now, it’s just one day, let’s cool it on the detailing”? I’m conflicted. Thoughts?

P.S. You can also buy a 36-piece set from Neiman Marcus ooo la la!