Invitations (take 2)....

I was able to salvage some of my post with the invitation pictures so I am going to try this again. Invitations are arriving at peoples' homes today! SO EXCITING!!! It was such a great feeling to drop them off at the post office but I couldn't help but feel nervous. What if we spelled something wrong? What if we put the wrong time or place? What if we put the wrong stamp on them and they all get returned? (I actually had that dream last night!) I am pretty positive (about 99%) sure that none of those issues will be a problem but I guess we will find out soon! Here are some pictures of the hardest (but so worth it) project of our lives!!!

First, we cut large pieces of black paper into long strips and then folded them to create our tri-fold. (Oh, I forgot...usually when I say "we," I mean "just Mike." I did help on most parts but I can't take credit for most of it!!!)Next, Mike (with my help and OPINIONS!) created the design for our invitations. This was stressful since there are so many wording options out there. When we finally decided on the design and words, we decided that we wanted thermography. Ellen's invitations were amazingly beautiful and she pointed us in the direction of Shamrock Printing. We were so happy with the quality and the great price but decided to save money by having them only create 1 thermography plate. This choice=HUGE PITA!!!
This required us to cut out all of the parts with exacto knifes. Seriously, I felt like a moron. This is so much harder than it seems. I think I ruined more invitations than I cut out correctly! Cutting in a straight line is hard!!! Once all of the components were cut, we were ready to start assembling. We even got the whole family involved!!!
This is where the details start to get tedious. My sister was putting stamps on the RSVP envelopes, I was cutting 6 1/2 inch long ribbons, my dad was removing excess sticky stuff from the edges of our green cardstock, and Mike was centering our invitations on the green cardstock and then centering those on our black tri-folds!!! (EDIT...I cannot believe that I forgot to mention my mom! She took this picture but she did so much work! The worst part for her... licking all 134 of them. Thanks, Mom!)

SOOO...we just went into work over load to get them all finished. It was actually fun when we figured out a system to make it go faster! When they were all finished, Mike even did all of the amazing calligraphy. I am so impressed...they are beautiful!

Here is the front with the guest names in calligraphy...

Here are the inside components...
And the final product...
Oh...and how could I forget our fabulous Zazzle stamps...
I hope that you like them! If you see a mistake or error...PLEASE DON'T TELL ME!!! Thanks:)