Kettle Tea Party Reminder, Take Two

After the EPIC FAIL that was my first Save-the-Date mailings, I had to get back to work to send them out. By this point, we were only about 4 weeks out from our engagement party. We knew we were going to send out the STDs and the e-party invites together, along with a moo card. The moo card was going in the STD so that we wouldn't have to put it in our actual invites (how gauche and all that...)

To review, here's how I failed before:
1. Neglecting to include the DIY SAVE-THE-DATE bunting FSIL Hon and I spent hours making.
2. Not having a design that could easily be changed to our bridesmaid-dress-induced wedding color palette change.
3. Ordering too many STDs the first time around. Did I mention I ordered 1000 of the original moo cards, thinking I would put them in every mailing? And I put the wrong date on those? Major not-yet-mentioned fail!
4. Incorrect wording that could easily be fixed, but was still a pain.

So I got back on the computer and loaded up Microsoft Word and vistaprint.com. I was determined to fix my previous wrongs. And it took me a couple tries, mostly just moving things around and messing with fonts, but I got it done!

Wanna see it? Wanna see it? Sure ya do!

Here are our Moo Cards. Can anyone tell me why they're called Moo Card? Is it an acronym? Are there cows involved?

Personal photo

Personal Photo

That lovely monogram you see there we got for free at Things Remembered for buying their set of champagne flutes and cake cutters. I'm currently very much in love with the included Christmas tree ornament. Christmas is always on mind, even in July. They have some amazing designs and we're getting them engraved with our monogram.

Here are our Save The Dates.

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Personal Photo: I truly love love love that banner!

As you see, I still haven't blotted our my new last name. I love it so much, I want it to show. I couldn't bear to cover it up. I'm gonna be a McBride, lol! Get it? No? It's just me who watches too much Grey's Anatomy? That's fine. Moving on.

Here are our engagement party invites.

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Personal Photo: I left up the address for the restaurant cause they're soooo good. Seriously, if you're in Chicago, try them!

We got these babies designed, ordered, assembled, and shipped in record time once we tracked down the addresses. As long as hardly anyone moves between now and the wedding, we're set!

I'm really proud of myself that I designed these all myself and they turned out to be exactly what I want our wedding to be: classic with a festive twist. I really like them, but I have to admit they're not as artistic as I'd like. They get the job done, but they are quite basic, and not quite as polished as they would be had a professional done them.

Mr. Kettle has been a well of goodness in this whole wedding planning thing. Every time I'm stumped as to the best route to go, he ends up supplying, without trying, the perfect solution. The best example of this is our wedding musicians, but I've already posted about that.

A good friend of his will be attending our wedding. His girlfriend is very sweet. She's also... wait for it... a photographer/graphic designer!! You can check out her blog here.

She agreed to take a look to see what we'd like done and we agreed to pay her for her trouble. If she designs something wonderful, I won't be surprised, but I'll be very glad I will have successfully outsourced something that is not my passion to someone who would love to do it and be good at it. So far her preliminary sketches look great and I can't wait to see how the design evolves.

Are you outsourcing any big projects you probably could DIY? Did you try to do something yourself only to graciously embrace what is/isn't a natural talent for you?