Art as Invite

Electronic invitations are fantastic.  You can let people know they're invited to your place a dozen times in a year without spending tons of money on paper and stamps, all the while saving the Redwoods... or whatever tree makes cardstock.  But I'm torn as whether or not to have Evite create our wedding invitations.  It's certainly green, as far as both money and planet are concerned.  But I imagine that at least a dozen people in our lives, including me and my fiance, would love to have a hardcopy keepsake of the big day.  And, I feel that because our guestlist will only include around 50 people, it's not that bad to send out something tangible.  The question then becomes, what?

www.birdandbanner.com

Well, look what I found at good-ole, reliable Martha Stewart Weddings today: Handkerchief  Wedding Invitations!  An invitation beautiful enough to hang as wall art.  And maybe, just maybe, that's what it will be treated as.  Whether hung or framed or tucked away in a keepsake drawer these invites are meant to be kept and not added to a landfill - so that makes it green, if you ask me.  And if created consciously, they can also be the other kind of green... I think.
Grace and Aaron, the couple that created this particular invite, used a company called Bird and Banner to silkscreen the information onto handkerchiefs that the couple collected before their wedding, in addition to a few pieces that were already in the family.  The bride took great care to match the right handkerchief with the right guest.  And some of the gentlemen invited even wore the invitations as pocket squares in their suits the day of the wedding.  Come on, tell me that's not all kinds of awesome.

www.birdandbanner.com

My idea for making this project as affordable as possible would be to gather family handkerchiefs, if you've got 'em, and purchase the rest at thrift stores aiming for each piece to come in under a buck.  Next, get a stamp made at your neighborhood office store, or at an online crafty place like Etsy that has all of the invite info as simply phrased as possible.  Just the facts, ma'am.  The details can be expressed at your wedding website.  And instead of using another company to silkscreen, use your custom stamp and fabric ink to create the finished product.  All that said, I'm not exactly sure how successful that will be, since I haven't yet tried it.  But I'm gonna!  'Cause this is what I want my wedding invitation to be!  I'll let you know how (if) it works out.
~ the green/green bride