Wedding Update and Invite Reveal!

Happy Tuesday! A slight change to the schedule today because it’s high time for another wedding update and our invite reveal! My last update was a while back, when we sent our Save the Dates and you can learn more about our decision for going abroad to get married in this post.

I was so happy with how the invites turned out. I used Vistaprint (not sponsored, just love them) to print the invites and they were quick and everything was great quality. I went for simple, clean and elegant with little gold embellishments.

I designed everything myself and the design evolved over a few weeks. I had a general picture in my head, but once I got started on Photoshop, it did change a little and become simpler in some ways and a little more gold in others!

Here’s the main invite: (white blocks mean I’ve covered something for privacy reasons!)

I had a couple of stamps made from this amazing shop on Etsy. I ordered a monogram and an address stamp because I did not have the time/inclination to hand write our address tens of times over! I ordered the RSVPs for the party at the same time and stamped all the envelopes, so that’s one less thing to do when we have the party invites printed.

Here are the RSVPs:

Lastly, I made a details page with information for guests about the nearest airport, hotels, how they can contact our wedding planner etc. I thought about just printing these off myself, but then I thought no, I really want them to match everything else.

Now, onto the party…

I need to look for a few more party venues, but my heart is set on this one beautiful place half way between us and my parents. It’s just perfect, it’s a small barn that fits with our theme perfectly.

However, because we aren’t having a proper reception, I’ve been finding it difficult to find venues. To begin with, I just looked at halls to host parties, but they were just not special enough for a wedding, so then I started looking at venues who do receptions…. but they all want you to book a full reception and pick from a menu etc. We literally want a casual party, with a buffet and some music. There will be no speeches, I’m not wearing my dress. In fact I already have the dress I’m going to wear and it’s not even white!

So, if anyone knows of somewhere around Watford/St Albans/Hemel Hempstead that will host wedding parties, but not a full reception and has character, then PLEASE let me know!! 😀

Mind you, the guest list keeps getting shorter as more people show their true colours… so maybe we won’t need a venue at all! Just cakes and food round my parents haha!!

A while back my dad’s family did one too many things to piss me off, so I took great pleasure in scribbling their names off the list. And now… every time I hear more things they’ve said/done, I feel even more justified with my decision. There’s no way I want to look back on my wedding party and remember having people I don’t like there. People who are self centred, judgmental and think they are above us. No thank you, I want to look back and have nothing but happy memories when I think of my wedding.

Mum is completely with me on not inviting them. They don’t bother talking to any of us, don’t invite us to things, (apart from one time after the invites went out, they invited my brother, but only if he was a taxi service to my nan) they only phone dad when they want something and then they bitch about us behind our backs.

They have also been wholly inappropriate and rude over some news they got over Christmas, made remarks aimed at my parents and have acted as if they know nothing to my brother. WHY would I invite negativity to my own wedding?!

Dad… sometimes agrees with Mum and I over not inviting them, other times he’s like “you should invite immediate family on both sides” and I’m like “absolutely not!”

I think Dad feels bad sometimes. He gets pissed at the stuff they do, but sometimes he thinks I should invite them. At these times I like to remind him of all the things they’ve done recently.

Anyway, Mr AN and I have some great ideas for the party; at first I was going to make cupcakes as wedding favours because I’m a baker and it wouldn’t be my wedding without some sort of cake. But, recently we were like “how about a “pimp my cupcake bar?!” – so I make vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, then we buy lots of decorations, leave frosting and piping bags up there and then everyone can make their own cupcake!

We’re also not having a traditional guest book. I don’t know about you, but I never know what to write in them. So, we are going more towards having a board and a Fujifilm Instax camera and everyone can take a picture of themselves and pin it to the board! Then we’ll always have this cool memento that we can put up somewhere in the house.

We also feel it’s very important to have Poppy and my Granddad involved in the party even though they’re no longer with us. I think we’re going to have a candle and then photos of them both somewhere in the venue, so that they are there in spirit. It just wouldn’t feel right to me to not have our dog daughter there. We are planning on taking her paw print cast with us to Lapland so she’ll be at the wedding with us. We honestly thought that she’d be at our wedding, but I guess she couldn’t hang on any longer… it breaks my heart that she didn’t get to see us married.

We will be making all the decorations ourselves because I want to be really involved in the wedding, I could just buy all these things, but I feel like it will have more meaning if I make them myself. I’ve started collecting bottles and jars, I’ve bought some glitter to roll the jars in, we’re hopefully having our tree cut down this year and I want slices of it for the party… I’ve also bought an old book and a heart paper cutter to make table confetti.

Next up is to sort out the bridesmaids dresses and suits. I’ve picked out the bridesmaids dresses, but just need to measure my bridesmaids so I can order them!

Stay tuned for another update soon; 8 months to go!

You can follow wedding updates on Instagram too with the hashtag #anniesnomswedding