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DIY Stationery: Programs, Menus, Place Cards, and Table Cards

June 28th, 2009 at 12:05:34 by Francesca | 26 Comments | Add Comment

Because my husband and I had a wedding in Italy and a vow renewal in the United States, we could not afford to splurge on details. That's why I chose to use my creativity to come up with pretty, but affordable, stationery ideas that I could create myself. In addition to the wedding invitations, I made the programs, menus, place cards, and table cards myself. Here are the results:



This is the program that I created. When you opened up, on the first page, you found the names of our parents and special guests, such as our godparents and my husband's relatives who joined us from Italy for the festivities. In the centerfold, under the headline "Francesca & Antonio's Thanksgiving Parade", I listed all of the bridesmaids and groomsmen with notes about for what each was thankful. (Our vow renewal took place on November 29, 2008, during Thanksgiving weekend.) Cornucopias with flowers and fruit stood on the altar of the church and on each of the tables at the reception. I went to Kinko's to print the programs, and my cousins, whose children were in the bridal party, handed them out at the ceremony.



I decided I would make the menus long and rectangular, and they could be placed on each place setting on the tables. I included another cornucopia image at the top -- and then I wrote the names of those giving a toast after listing the champagne toast and the rest of the courses until the wedding cake. I waited until a couple days before the wedding to print the menus in case the dishes changed in any way beforehand. I printed two per page of card stock and then used a cutting board to cut straight lines. It was a great professional touch that cost me a little bit of time, the card stock, and the ink for my printer.




My father and I had decided to get a Japanese Maple tree (in its infancy) and to hang cloth autumn leaves on it with the names of guests and their table names in place of traditional place cards. The idea was great. But my cousins still badger me about the fact that they could not easily find their names on the trees and then they had a hard time finding the tables in the room because I did not name the tables alphabetically. I never even thought of that. But it's a good idea if any of you are naming your tables instead of using numbers. If you decide to hang the cards off anything, you might try to organize the names better than we did. You can't win 'em all. To be honest, I don't really care because the place cards looked beautiful, and we used them to take photos, too (see the one below). So there, cousins!






We already were married in Ischia, Italy, home of my ancestors and my now husband Antonio by the time we had this vow renewal over Thanksgiving weekend in the United States. In a nod to Ischia, I named all the tables at the vow renewal after places in Ischia that are important to us -- from Buceto, the mountains that my father loves to hike to Pirozzi, a restuarant where we met each other for the first time. Each table card included a picture of that place and I designed it to look like a postcard with the font that I used throughout the stationery -- from the invitations to these cards.  But one table card got lost in the shuffle. I was really annoyed with myself because I somehow misplaced one of the table cards and had to write the name in black magic marker on a plain piece of white paper about 10 minutes before the guests came into the dining room. Ugh! Be better prepared than I was -- and you'll have no problem.

Di Meglio is the Guide to Newlyweds for About.com. All photos by Bella Pictures.

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