Stamp Love

OK, so I was doing my very best not to get caught up in cute stamps. I could go to Zazzle.com and pay more for all kinds of cute stamps. But I refuse. I swear, I will not get caught up in stamps, of all things. In order to avoid any further contemplation of said stamps, I went to buy mine. I needed them to start stamping the RSVP cards anyway. Off to the post office I went to see the new wedding stamps, in both the 44 cent and 61 cent styles.


OK, these are GAY (I know, I know, we're not supposed to use GAY for LAME anymore, but seriously? These are just so bad.). These are uber-cheese-wedding-bells nonsense. Why don't I just wrap my invites in pink tulle, shove my MOH in a poufy pink moire taffeta tea-length gown and have some operatic version of Ave Maria sung as I walk down the aisle? Ew. Don't these just smack of early 1980's Falcon Crest? They do to me. The only other 61 cent stamp has Africa-American author Richard Wright on it. Not that I didn't enjoy his "Native Son" novel, but I don't necessarily want him on my wedding invites. Now over at 100 Layer Cake they had an awesome post about vintage stamps, how to find them and coordinate with your invites. Way cool. However, my invites don't have that "look" and I just don't have the time or energy to hunt down a bunch of stamps that add up to 61 cents. Or 44 cents for that matter. What's a Thirty-Something Bride to do?

I didn't buy the stamps and left empty-handed. I went back to Zazzle. I thought about it, but couldn't justify the cost. I just couldn't. So after work I went back to the post office and asked to see all the available 44 cent and 61 cent stamps. Out of nowhere, the dude pulled out these:

How cute are these? I love these. I love these enough to get over the lame 61 cent wedding cake stamp. Love. Love. Love. So, I bought these for the RSVP cards and the lame wedding cake stamps for the invites. Thing is, the cake actually looks good with my chocolate brown invite color. So, not so bad, right?

So what this means is that I'm chugging through my invites. I need to be done before I leave to go overseas in June (don't worry, I plan to blog while I'm gone!). I'm about three-quarters through assembling the invitation to the pocketfold. I stopped and started stuffing some RSVP cards and sealing them shut, just to mix things up a bit (watch out, I'm going nutty!). Here's where I'm at:
I bought these sticky labels and printed our initials on them. The BRIDES invites I bought had seals that matched the little scroll design on the invites, but I didn't like them. I got these at Michael's and used a 25% off my total order coupon I got out of a bridal magazine.

Here's the RSVP card about to get tucked into the pocket fold. There's been discussion over wording in a few other blogs I read daily and this is what I put, just in case anyone is curious:

The favor or your reply is requested by
September 15, 2009

M______________

____Happily Accepts
____Regretfully Declines

This is what they look like ready to be sealed.

Here they are all sealed up. I'll show you the front once I get there. The pile on the left is money thank you notes that I got in my same design on clearance at Michael's for $2.00. I've printed all the names for people that need to be handed cashola on the day off The Big Show. I'm actually stuffing cash in these every week. I randomly ask The Candyman for all his cash and go fill the envelopes. It's kind of like setting your clocks ahead 10 minutes so you won't be late for work. Every little bit helps, right? Or maybe I'm just a freak. Either way, I've got enough stashed so far to pay the officiant and part of the ceremony musician fees.

Today I worked on designing some fun reception stuff. I've noticed that my blogs can be hella long, so will wait until tomorrow for this. I hope everyone in the wedding blogosphere is happy. All I know is that the American Idol finale is on tonight and that makes me happy. My vote is for Kris. Or Adam.