Beach House Porch, Mantel & Jen's Wedding Invitation

Day 84 - Here's my little beach cottage - and I do mean little...couldn't get great photos today but I think you can get the idea...

We'll have frames with fabric creating a topless tent { I didn't want a tent tent }to give us privacy, even though the neighbors are coming, market lights strung from the trees on the street to the porch in a triangle pattern, up lights on the trees and a Chandelier above the dance floor.  I'm standing on the driveway which is lined with topiaries that will have twinkle lights in them, and that will be our bar and hight cocktail tables area...

When you walk in the front door, the first thing you see is the fireplace mantle - I never ever know what to do up there, but I looked at some of my favorite books, and checked out some blogs and took all the good ideas that included stuff I already had, and came up with this - it'll do for now -

The pink rose is from my neighbors garden, and the twigs are from the walnut tree next door -

Today I found the bottle on the left end of the next photo - I was so happy because I was on the hunt for exactly one like this one for the marriage ceremony.  It's the perfect old aqua message in a bottle with an old metal stopper at the top.

When we started to look at invitations I fell off my chair a few times at the costs - wow, I really got a quick education in the whole printing world.  It ain't cheap.  Nothing is. Even if you do it yourself on the computer you've got to buy the cardstock and the ink or toner, the envelopes etc. or pay Kinkos to print each side, including return addresses.  No matter how you look at it, it's going to cost - so for us, after we went round and round, pricing out DIY and going to 4 different stationers and through probably 100 books, we found this one that we loved and went with it.  We were thrilled when we got them, and I figured we were VERY lucky to find something we loved for not that much more. No printer jams no ink problems, just order, pay and receive.   For me, A Bargain -

I had to take the photos of the invitation outside so you could see it - the heavy card stock has a pearlized effect that I love, the inside card is white that reflects silver, and the wrap stock is like heavy matte gold that reflects like platinum. 

Bottom left corner says shoes optional

The response card is also white with a little silver reflect -

So, what do you think?

They haven't gone out yet, so you're getting a sneak preview -

Next we're making Beach Parking passes, tagging flip flops, Program fans, wrapping silverware etc etc etc etc etc.

See you tomorrow -

I'm hooked up with asoftplace - check it out, you'll be glad you did -