DIY Wedding Revisited: Program Templates

Due to the amount of requests for my template for these programs I have decided to provide the template FREE to all potential brides who want to recreate this look for their special day! 

Before this template will work on your computer you will need to download the following fonts: Splendid ES and Calabri. You can get Splendid ES free from here, and Calabri is typically found on most computers.

Then, click HERE to get a copy of the template.  This link will take you to the Google docs version of the template.  The template fonts WILL be screwed up, but since you have downloaded these fonts in your computer and loaded them into Word (you can use a tutorial like this if you are unfamiliar with the process) once you download the file the fonts should be correct.  Next, download the file onto your computer and it all should be good to go for you to put in your own information!

If you want to know more about how to assemble to programs go here to the original post!  Measurements and further instructions for assembling are included on the template.

Happy crafting!


P.S. my blood, sweat, and tears went into these programs and they are the sole design of Ann from the Domestic Domicile.  I have no problem sharing my templates with all those amazing brides out there, but this template is designed for personal use only.  It is for kick butt DIY brides and the reproduction of this template is not to be used for profit.

DIY Wedding Revisited: Place Cards

A big decision for a bride and groom is whether or not to have assigned seating.  There are pro’s and con’s to each.  For us, the pro’s of making sure that everyone had a place to sit with people we thought they would mesh well with was worth the con’s of the extra time and energy of designing place cards and figuring out the seating chart. 

We crafted two shallow boxes out of “old barn wood” that my hubby actually ripped off an old shed at his parent’s house….that they were still using.  We had to calk the edges of the box so we could fill them with sand and the boxes would actually hold the sand.    

As the reception was on a tent on the gorgeous Lake Vermillion where we both grew up, and I love me some sentimentality, I decided to name our tables after the islands on the lake.  They had beautiful names like strawberry island, blueberry island, and sunset island so I just couldn’t resist.  This adds a tricky element into the place card element.  Typically tables are numbered and guests figure out the numbering system and find their table.  To make it easier for the named tables I created a table chart so guests could visually see where their table was in relation to others.  I also had my host couple on hand to guide those who were lost to the correct place.       

When designing the place cards I wanted them to stick right up in the sand.  I simply printed out cards with the person's name and table name and matted the names on two sheets of cardstock in coordinating colors.  I created customized table names that looked similar to the place cards…which the wind promptly blew over.  You win some, you lose some!        

*Pictures of the wedding day were taken exclusively by Amber Asman of asmanphotography.  In short, she rocks.

DIY Wedding Revisited: Programs

Your programs will set the stage for the ceremony and are the first thing the guest pick up when they arrive.  They are also something a guest will read out of interest or boredom while waiting for the ceremony to start.  I DIYed my entire programs from creating the graphics and design to, with a little a lot of help assembling these babies.  I choose to do a light aqua cardstock backing with four tiered overlapping sections.  The first section was a graphic of our names and included our wedding date and church name.

The second portion was acknowledgements where we thanked everyone for their support, especially our parents.  We had remembrance lilys at the altar for those special people in our lives who had passed before us and the acknowledgements was where we choose to explain this remembrance.    

The ceremony part is pretty self explanatory.  Depending on your religion or the type of ceremony you are having it guides guest through the experience.  This may be important if you are deviating from tradition, if some guests are from different religions or cultures and aren’t familiar with the ceremony, or just for guests to follow along.     

We also choose to include the wedding party in the program.  We had the traditional bridesmaids and groomsmen, but also included personal attendants and a little tradition we have up north called “host couples”….who really are your wedding day slaves and have to schlep your presents around and attend to your needs.  We love host couples.      

I will not lie.  These programs were a beeyotch to make.  I ordered the cardstock and paper from paper and more, a fabulous paper store online with great rates.  To optimize paper I cut the cardstock in half lengthwise (so I could make two programs per sheet) and then used that width to dictate the width of my paper.  I created the graphics in word and power point. 

**Update: After I took some measurements again and ripped apart one poor program I made some new discoveries.  Since all the text was too wide I had to go with one sheet of cardstock per program.  Also I discovered that I stapled all the tiers together at the top!

It is tricky to get all sections to be of equal width and also to get your tiers to line up perfectly so all of the footers are showing and your “wedding party” section isn’t half covered up by your “ceremony” section.  Needless to say there were a lot of test pages printed.  Then I measured them out and put them in a word document so I could get as many sections per paper as possible.  After that I headed off to Office Max with the files in the jump drive and a song in my heart.  I then took several trips back to Office Max so their computer could read my files.  I choose Office Max to do my printing so it would be of higher quality and I could save on my ink.

After all was said and done, everything was printed, all the materials were gathered I headed off to my Mother-in-laws house to assemble.  I used the cheap thin ribbon from Michaels to assemble this thing and a X-acto knife to cut slits to thread the ribbon through. The key to making sure the top part of the cardstock stays creased (to hide your top edges) is lots of pressure on the crease and hot glue.  Then cut, thread, and tie. 

My mother in law, a friend, and myself started out in the morning and after 3 hours of assembling these babies we called in the reinforcements.  4 more helping hands showed up it only took us eehhh 2-3 MORE HOURS to get them all assembled.  There was a slight oversight on my part of the actual time commitment, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing. They were prefect and I loved them so much that all the blood, sweat, hot glue burns, and tears were worth it! Due to the amount of requests for a template for these programs I have provided one here!      

We put them in a basket on the wedding day and they looked amazing!  This was definitely a DIY triumph!

*Pictures of the wedding day were taken exclusively by Amber Asman of asmanphotography.  In short, she rocks.

DIY Wedding Revisited: Invitations

You are cordially invited to revisit the wedding of Ann and Reid!  Our wedding anniversary is August 28^th, 2010 and on our anniversary week (okay well technically a week and a half) I wanted share the triumphs and tribulations of a mostly DIY wedding. 

Our wedding invitations were ordered from Exclusively Weddings (after a failed DIY mock up attempt).  We choose the Stylish Wrap Wedding Invitation and we had to face the cold hard facts that for the invitation, RSVP card, AND reception card at $199.95 for 100 invitations was wayyy cheaper than the DIY version.  This was a time when you had to give up your DIY pride and go store bought! 

The wedding invitation sets the stage for the whole day so it’s pretty darn important.  Plus it tells people those pesky details like the date, time, and where the heck they should go.  As you can tell from these invites our wedding colors are light aqua and bright pink.  I know, I am so lucky my hubby let me incorporate pink!         

Even though these invitations included the RSVP card and wedding reception card I still needed a solution for a map.  I wanted to give my guests clarity and piece of mind when it came to directions and where to park.     

Soo…I created a wedding map to round out the set.  The great thing about a pocket fold invitation is that you can add stuff that is not part of the original invitation.       

I was pretty satisfied with my finished map, made on powerpoint from this tutorial, with a couple of hours time and little to no skill! I was able to add little icons to symbolize the church and reception tent as well as incorporate all the colors for the big day.