We know it is unusual for the groom to take care of the wedding invitation design but we decided that Geoff would be the one to design the wedding invitations in Australia and mail the completed invitations back to Marissa so she can send them to her friends and relatives in the Philippines. This decision was reached because Geoff has a computer and printer at home and easy access to things needed for designing the card economically in a short amount of time.
Designing our wedding invitations did not come without a few challenges that had to be resolved. The wedding is going to be held in the Philippines so we did a card in the way wedding invitations are done in the Philippines. There is a lot more information on wedding invitations in the Philippines than you would find on most Australian invitations so we where restricted to the type and size of the card we could create.
The first challenge was selecting the type of card cover for these invitations. Geoff really liked a smaller type of card cover but they would have made it difficult to fit all the content on paper inside it neatly. After looking around at invitation stationary shops and with input from Geoff's mother, it was decided that a C5 size card with a window on the front was the most suitable size for our invitations.
The second major challenge was how we where going to lay the card out to fit all the content required neatly. We decided to print the content on blue A4 size paper. We had to fit it on three pages and leave room on the front page for the photo of us that people could see in the window when they first look at the invitation. Coming up with the layout for the card content took a few attempts and we even had to get online so Marissa could make some final changes to the text and the way I had set things out. We finally came up with a layout that looks neat and fits all the content on three pages. We have made an easy to read invitation to our Philippine wedding.
As part of the printing process to get the layout right we where also testing the location and size of the photo which was printed on the first page of the invitation. We had to make sure it would align with the window on the front cover. This also took a few attempts but we finally got it right.
The rest of the challenges where mainly how to assemble the invitations and attach the printed inserts to the card cover. Geoff's mother came up with a clever way to punch holes in the card and tie the paper insert to them using the blue ribbon while keeping the photo printed on the front page aligned with the window on the front cover.
We decided to decorate the Antique White Mist card to make it look less plain on the outside. We used a decretive hole punch and punched some hearts into the top and bottom right hand corner of the card at the front to give it a decretive look. Geoff's mum decided to cut out two different size hearts and stick the small one on top of the bigger one. This was then used on the bottom right corner of the window to create a corner frame enhancing the photo.
The end result is a nice looking invitation that was economical to create and matches the theme we will use for the wedding.
