Finally writing out these, if anyone else is considering going the DIY route for wedding invitations and favors. [If you are doing a DIY wedding create a schedule and give yourself some time to do it. Depending on how elaborate the elements are, they can take more time than you think.]

INVITATIONS

Figure out when you want people to have their invitations. Don’t give in to pressure and send out invites as they get made. This can lead to people wondering if they are invited if they have heard that someone else has received their invitation already.

For a traditional invite, Wilton make pretty do-it-yourself kits. They have a full range that includes Save-the-Date, Thank you cards, place settings, favors and more. In NYC, Jack’s World [110 W. 32nd (between 6th & 7th Avenues) and 45 W. 45th (between 5th & 6th)] sometimes has their products at highly discounted prices.

My husband was dead-set against a traditional invite and lucky for me he is talented enough to design us something different. He wanted an invite that would reflect our personalities as opposed to something stuffy and boring. [His reaction, I don't mind the traditional invites but love what he came up with instead.]

The cover:

We took A4 sheets of black card stock (from Kid’s section of Staples) and cut them in half length-wise. Our cards are an A6 landscape design. We did this with a paper trimmer from staples. It was then given an edge in the middle with the same trimmer, different attachment.

On the cover we pasted a mosaic photo design printed on a Canon Selphy printer & paper. The mosaic of a photo from our engagement party is composed of pictures from a vacation we took last summer. If one looks at it with a magnifying glass you can make out the individual pictures. (If we were to do this again we would slip in flat, business card size magnifiers with an explanatory note.) I like the idea that our invite reflects us being composed of our previous experiences. We used a photosafe gluestick to attach it and it gives the card a bit more heft.

We tried a few different options for paper supplies that didn’t work out. Printing directly on white card stock (from Kid’s section of Staples) with a laser printer did not look good. It came out very flat and not interesting. The same was true for Tesco Photo Greeting Card papers. It came out very amateurish. Fine for a little kid’s party but not a wedding.

The inside:

We printed the inside on white tracing paper (from Kid’s section of Staples) with a laser printer and stapled it inside the black card. It is a cheaper take on the vellum idea. It looked great. The left side features Hebrew with English translation and a picture of the bride as a child. The right side features English with a picture of the groom as a child. RSVP is by phone, web, email or snailmail. The website we put up included useful, local information for people who were traveling and contact information for us. There was also the cover photo from the invite, clickable to a larger size so you could see the individual photos.

I really like the way it came out. Be advised if you’re going to go with pictures of yourself as children, people will hound you even more so about when you will start working on children that look as cute as that….sheesh! :-)

The night-do:

There was also a separate card that served as an invitation for the night-do. Four cards printed on the A4 white card stock we didn’t end up using for the invites. They were cut with the paper trimmer and had the same theme as the inside of the invite.

For envelopes we used Tesco Finest C6 envelopes. They have a different color lining inside (like pricier options), but overall they are pretty thin if you are using a thin-tipped marker to address them. We weren’t really bothered about the envelopes since they go straight in the trash, these were a step up from C6 brown envelopes, or security envelopes that look like it should enclose a check or a PIN.

We got great feedback on these invites. People enjoyed that they weren’t the same old thing…so if people [parents, friends] raise objections to trying something different stick to your instincts and do what you want. Remember at all times that it is YOUR day.

FAVORS or FAVOURS

Placecards:

Placecards were made by my amazing husband until 2:00 AM the night before the wedding. This is a leftover stack. A4 white card stock was printed with 8 placecards, then cut and given a crease with the paper trimmer, then folded and handwritten with names. The names could also have been printed. They looked great and we didn’t buy expensive frames or holders for them at a $1 a pop.

Poems:

The two poems were an amazing surprise for us. Laurie Giles, a former Northeast radio presenter and current chair of the Sunderland Pianoforte Society, read the Shakespeare as part of our ceremony in the morning. He and his wife Nora were spot-on in finding poems we really liked. They printed and laminated the poems on A6 cards and made enough to put one at each place setting.

Chocolate:

Does anyone like the stale coated almonds that are usually given as wedding favors? We decided to make our own. We made 75 out of plain Tulle White Circles from Party City in Brooklyn NY. It is $6.99 for a pack of 75. We bought some ribbon to tie it up and some slightly snazzier netting for the bundles on the head table as in the photo above from a shop in Hartlepool [Cake Decorating Workshop, part of The Arches complex on Park Road]. They were about 20 pence each. We also rented our cake stand from them and bought the silver platters for the cakes there as well.

There are tons of expensive boxes for these kind of things and I personally think they are a waste of money, even the slightly more expensive tulle pouches are a waste. These looked great and they were a lot cheaper. For a personal spin we put in American (3 Hershey Kisses) and British chocolate (1 Cadbury Hero – mini-Cadbury chocolates) to symbolize our union.

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I am baking challahs for the first time for the Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashana which starts tonight. I am using a great book, The Secret of Challah by Shira Wiener and Ayelet Yifrach.

Many of of the recipes are for baking multiple challot (plural of challah) so some of them call for 2 kilos of flour! I found a nice recipe calling for 1 kilo of flour that should make 10 small rolls. It doesn’t have any sugar in it, instead calling for 2/3 cups of honey. I am waiting for the dough to rise and I hope it will come out ok – I forgot to put the honey in with the liquids at the beginning and only added it after the flour bit :-)

At the end of a chapter on the art of braiding challahs, is a list of various customs for assorted shapes for holidays. The Rosh Hashana list is also on their website (which also has some of the recipes):

* Rosh Hashana round challah: It has become the widespread custom in many communities to bake round challahs in honor of Rosh Hashanah. The round shape symbolizes the yearly cycle and the “wheel of time,” the ascents and descents that a person experiences during his life. It also symbolizes perfection and infinity, expressing our hope for a perfect year, free of troubles and tribulations, a year of unlimited blessings.

* The traditionaly round challah of Rosh Hashanah is sometimes adorned with a “crown” made of a small braided ring of dough, commemorating the prayers of Rosh Hashanah proclaiming G-d King over the universe.

* Eastern European Jews used to bake challah in the shape of a ladder to symbolize that on Rosh Hashanah G-d decides “Who will be humbled and who will be elevated,” as is stated in the prayers of Rosh Hashanah.

* In some European communities, the custom was to bake round challah reminiscent of a bird peeking out of a nest (known as “foigel challah,” bird challah, in Yiddish). The reason for the custom: Just as G-d shows mercy to birds, so should He have mercy on us.

* Lithuanian Jews had the custom to bake challah shaped like outstretched palms of the hand. The shape was meant to symbolize the hands of the kohens raised to bless the people during the Priestly Blessing (Birkat Kohanim).

* The Jews of North Africa used to bake challah in the shape of a fish or a “chamsah,” a five-fingered hand, symbolizing good luck.

I will try making a few of the shapes…pictures to follow if I am not ashamed of the results. Wishing you and yours a healthy, happy, joyous year filled with love and laughter.

Challah dough

Freshly baked challah out of the oven