e&c - the program and what's what

 Over the years, when I was doing a lot of addressing of envelopes for brides, I had many requests to help clients with the programs. They are often printed on letterhead paper and folded in half or in thirds and the information is always awkward. The layouts are soooooo boring. They became my least favorite part of wedding work. It's hard to describe all the things that annoy me -- so I will spare you the whining. 

My first idea for a program was a business card that had these words:

Front:

ELLEN&COLIN

5-7-11

Back:

EVERYONE WALKS IN

I DO - I DO 

EVERYONE WALKS OUT

I can't imagine I will ever find a bride and groom who would put up with such nonsense. But, I'm sure there are plenty of guests who would appreciate it. Maybe it could be printed on a cracker, so that they could nibble on it as they waited for the show ceremony to begin. I don't mean to be disrespectful of important events. All those years of being super polite to people who were dealing with programs at the last minute wore me out. No matter how emphatically I encouraged then (or warned - or admonished) they were always waiting til the last minute and that annoyed me -- because I had warned them that they needed to get the programs out of the way a couple weeks prior to the wedding. Grrrrr.

So -- my more traditional idea went in this direction:

On the front, the wedding party is listed in the order that they were standing from left to right. I didn't spell that out for the guests and I didn't care if they figured it out. If you turn the program counter clockwise, once, there's your lineup.

On the inside, we had seen a program online that included a tissue for happy tears and we knew we had to include that. The pocket was a good place to include details about parents, grandparents, etc.

I loved my idea for the order of the ceremony. The part about programs that caused my migraines was that they were a boring list and included all kinds of info and blah-blah-blah - and depending on the info, there could be lines that were way too long (or too short) - and the layouts were always really cumbersome and less than aesthetic. 

I wanted to fit it into a neat box. That was easy- and there was a natural way to let people know that it was the predictable list, in a new format. Numbers. Because they were both CPAs, I loved the idea of including numbers. Again, I'm not sure if anyone picked up on that - and I do not care. I liked the looks of it.

There was a simple map on the back showing the short walk to the reception

and a greeting from the happy couple.

When people checked in to the hotel, E&C had a welcome bag and this was the little pamphlet I made to go with it. In addition to phone numbers there was a map of the neighborhood with listings for things to do in the area and a reminder of when and where things were happening. I'd like to say I was clever enough to come up with the title - but by now, you already know that I saw this idea on the internet.

Recently I went surfing because I have not looked at wedding stuff in a loooong time. There's a lot of good stuff out there. Offbeat Bride is still up and running - if you are curious about what the very non-traditional couples are doing these days.

At the reception, we had menus and color coded place cards.

This photo is from a album I put together with all the mailings.

I took it too IAMPETH one time and shared it during Round Robin night. 

The title of the album is *The Calligrapher's Daughter's Wedding*

I ran these photos previously - will add them here, just to have everything in one place.

The album is an accordion - so it was easy to display at IAMPETH.

I used up random papers in my stash for the pages.

White PITT marker on Canson paper.