My newest splurge and (slight) obsession!

Joey and I have been discussing cool options for invitations. We are still doing teal pocketfolds, but the paper inside has been the talk of the town, I guess I can say. Being that we are on a strict budget, my idea was to buy ivory cardstock from Office Depot and print black ink on it from Kinko’s…super cheap but great and simple. Well, we got a little more into thought and Joey’s idea was to print white ink on vellum, then backing it with bronze stardream paper. Beautiful idea, but I wasn’t so sure about it…

Well, I thought about it, and said, well we have saved $250 on flowers, mom has volunteered to pay for flowers and my dress (Thanks MOM!)….and in other news, dad is going to help out as well. I’ve been on the fence about a Gocco PG-5 machine for a while, but this made it affordable in our budget. I’m UBER excited about the Gocco, which recently came in.

What did I order and how much, you ask…

Gocco PG-5 machine – 148.00 from Paper-Source (with free shipping).

Supplies Ordered from Northwood (Judy was prompt with shipping and everything came in pristine condition. I ordered 2 white inks, 1 yellow ink, 1 turquoise ink, 1 brown ink, 1 black ink, 2 packs of ink block, 1 pack of ink mixing bags, 1 pack of lamps, 1 pack of screens. – $61.80

Our little splurge was **JUST** over $200, at a grand total of $209.80!

To justify this purchase and make it budget friendly, I’m going to roughly spread out my planned savings here.

We are printing invitations with this…if I added this to the expected expense of invites, it makes them rougly $3 each (about on par with printers that do simple invites, but I’m using the GOCCO for more than this)

We are printing programs with this…save some moolah this way too!

We are printing our own Thank You cards…no need to buy stationary, just precut cardstock, score and fold, then print on the GOCCO. Buy A2 envelopes and we are GOLDEN…

Another thing we are printing, which is a little off the wall and will contribute HIGHLY to the savings….personalized napkins! The Gocco machine is an oil based ink, making it not run with drinks on it, and it won’t pat off on people’s faces. After 45 minutes, the ink is there and STAYING. Personalized napkins are like $20 for 50 napkins…HELLO! Party city has cocktail napkins for 99 cents on sale! BIG SAVINGS HERE, especially with making second line napkins and these are fully customizable.

There are more possibilities as well…but for now, this is it and I can’t be more excited about it!

A green thought (or two)….

Lately, with all of the global warming talk, I do worry a little bit about how the world is affected by our everyday lives. In reading some articles, I have been slowly developing ideas in my head on how to make our wedding more eco-friendly. Granted, I’m not solar powering my reception or anything like that, but it’s the little steps and little things that we do that make a difference (not to mention, are fairly nice to your budget as well)

Some of my ideas are…

Centerpieces in clay pots. Granted these aren’t the most green option, but with clay pots, I know I (or my horticulture driven mother) will use these pots after the reception. I mean, how many glass vases do you really need in your home?

Recycled paper invitations. I work in GIS (geographic information systems) and all I do is print HUGE maps all day. I may as well make up for all the shredded drafts of maps that I make, plus, this cardstock is at Office Depot. This means, no need for shipping and packaging. Plus, this is where I recycle my and my work’s ink, so I can use my $3 off coupons here too!! SCORE!

Recycled Kraft paper favor boxes. These are available at Nashville Wraps for about $6 cheaper than the color boxes package.

Those are only SOME of the ideas I have so far. More to come later…