♡ Kawaii Wedding Invitations (Save the Date, Bridal Shower, Formal Invitations)（*＾3＾）/～♡

For our invitations, I wanted to include Rilakkuma and the kawaii theme.This post will include each set of invitations I send out, including our Save the Dates, Bridal Shower Invitations, Formal Wedding Invitations, and Thank You notes!

(Sorry in these photos I had to blur out our personal info~~)

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1. Save the Dates

I wanted a design that let Rilakkuma be the focus, with us in a photo strip. I finally found it! (The photos of us are actually from a photobooth in China.)

I ordered a magnet style design from Magnetstreet.com. They have many templates, but each are very customizable. The nice thing about this website is that whatever samples you order, though you pay for it, that amount is credited toward your final order. Sign up for their samples--you choose 3 free samples and you are provided with lots of great info! Once you order, be sure to Google coupon codes, but you'll also get more coupons in the mail after you order. You can also watch for deals because they run sales on different sections all the time.

2. Bridal Shower Invites

I was stuck on these for a long time. Finally, I decided to make my own shower invites from Rilakkuma stationery! I was inspired by the pen pal letters I had been writing, and I thought something with nice stationery in cursive would look very cute and personalized. Rilakkuma Natural Time was the current theme when I was wedding planning, so I decided to use those.

The shower was held at a tea restaurant and a few of my guests even wore high tea outfits and hats! I wore my lolita dress as well. (Blog post on the Bridal Shower, soon :P) The restaurant wanted the meal selections in advance, so I mounted the meal cards/RSVP cards onto pink corner-rounded cardstock for guests to return in a self-addressed envelope. The meal cards were set at each place setting at the shower, to remind guests of their selection. The RSVP cards were also reused for a raffle during the shower.

The Rilakkuma stationery included beautiful golden seals for the envelopes! It was perfect.

To match the invitations, I created place cards using Happy Natural Time memo sheets, mounted on pink cardstock.

3. Formal Wedding Invitations

I bought so many invitation samples, and just was not happy. Each one seemed to not quite have something right. I looked on Etsy, but it seemed expensive and nothing hit me. So again, I decided to do it myself!

I was most happy with pocket style invitations, because I felt like I had a lot of information to include and I wanted everything to be very neat and organized (and not fall apart when you open it). So I bought heart patterned vellum from Jo Anns (get it when its 40% off), big pack of white cardstock sheets from WalMart ("marshmallow white", it's the best deal you can find), and pink cardstock I ordered online in bulk after finding the one I liked at Jo Anns. Oh and a huge paper cutter.

Glue was a mess! I finally got this huge glue rolling device and it was finally enough to hold the thick cardstock together. For the inside: I created the basic shape, then folded in the pocket (with a section cut out so you can see the inside easily), pasted the vellum backing inside, then mounted the white informational cardstock sheet. I printed out additional cardstock squares with more info on the wedding. Each one was scored about a quarter inch in to make it look more professional.

For the outside, I wrapped ribbon on the top piece and glued a bow and small pearls on top. I then wrapped our "Mary & Bo" Rilakkuma sticker mounted on two sheets of cardstock with a vellum sleeve. I custom made this sticker using Photoshop and ordered it through Zazzle.

Let me just tell you--finding envelopes to fit these darn things was a mess. Even though I made my invitations at a specific template size, they were difficult! I also made custom return address labels from Zazzle, and used our Rilakkuma custom sticker to seal the backs of the envelopes. For all of these, I used the New York-Japan Cherry Blossom edition stamp because I liked it better than abraham lincoln and all the cheesy wedding ones. However, I still had to stick old abe on my envelopes because I was short a few pennies.

why did it have to be abraham lincoln?!?!

4. Thank You Cards

Thank you cards were easy! I just used our custom logo and had it printed from Zazzle. Look out for their custom card sales and coupon codes. It can be expensive otherwise. So sign up for their emails.

Each was sealed with my custom return address labels and custom Rilakkuma stickers.