Or so several of our guests have reported, since I did finally get them sent out.

When last we talked, my mock-up was looking like this:

But now they’ve got some color to them and are looking more like this. Exactly like this, in fact.

Once I made the decision to go ahead and have them printed elsewhere it was a no-brainer to work shades of our wedding colors into the mix. I’m admittedly proud of how my vines all turned out, and the hand-drawn frame will be showing up again on the invitations and our table numbers, too!

Since I had to place a reorder of bookmarks at Overnight Prints and had been very happy with their print quality before, I went ahead and piggy-backed the StD order onto that one. They have a lovely matte finish and the texture overlay I added to the final design showed up very nicely when all was said and done.

We did end up with more cards than we needed (the minimum order was 25) but I’m thinking I might trim out our picture and use those in some of the table decorations just so they don’t go to waste. Might as well, right?

Now, OP does offer corner rounding for a nominal fee (it was going to be like $2 or some such) but I saw no reason to have them do it when I have a corner rounder of my own, so that was the only finishing I did besides addressing the envelopes.

Speaking of envelopes, I designed these cards to fit into standard #10 envelopes, though I did pick up a pack of the nicer stationery-style ones instead of plain white. To address them I didn’t even bother with calligraphy (which I’ve been dabbling in since I was 11 or 12), but I did make this handy guide to keep my lines straight.

I don’t know if they still do it or not, but the larger wedding paper suppliers used to include a similar guide with their orders and I just thought it was the neatest thing. If you’re going with a lighter-colored envelopes it’s pretty easy to make your own out of an index card (or two and some tape) and a black marker.

While printed envelopes and fancy labels are becoming more common, hand-addressing envelopes is one of those old traditions that I think is worth keeping alive. It’s just so much more personal.

Of course, if you are using a darker or more opaque envelope and still want straight lines to work from, you can use this trick from those Medieval scribes that spent their days hunched over parchments. Using a straight edge and a pointed instrument of some sort (the tip of a bone folder, the back of a craft knife if you’re careful, etc.) to lightly score a line across your paper. If done just right, you’ll be able to keep your letters on the straight and narrow without your recipient knowing your secret.

Sure beats the flat-bottomed look of writing along a ruler, right?