DIY: Programs

Hey guys!!

It's my first official post back after our honeymoon as a married woman!!  I have a million and one things to share with you and can't wait to get started =]
You all saw a sneak peek already of a pro picture.  Unfortunately that's the only one you'll see for a couple weeks.  I won't be getting my pro pics back for awhile and I don't want to start too many recaps without them.

So until then I'll share some other things that were occupying my time up until the wedding.  And I'll be doing a full recap of our rehearsal day/dinner/decorating the country club as well.  I'd love to share pictures of our honeymoon with you, but I believe my camera charger is at my parents' house so that will have to wait a week.

Now onto the point of the post, our programs! These were nowhere near started until the Thursday before the wedding.  And in case you were wondering, a motor home full of ten people pulled into my driveway that afternoon so I didn't even get started on these until around 9pm when they headed over to the hotel.  I stayed up working on these until about 4:30am I believe.  I finally gave in and my mom helped me towards the end.  If you've been following, or know me at all, I've struggled giving up control throughout this whole process.  And I probably would have continued to do these on my own, but she made me let her help, and I'm glad she did!

Up until the moment I started printing these out, I was contemplating just doing a simple, full page/folded in half type of program.  But in the end, these are what I was envisioning all along, so I just went for it.

I printed off all of the inserts I needed and cut them all out.

Each program took 5 inserts, and  I believe I ended up making about 80 programs?  So you do that math.  The cutting and printing definitely took the longest.

Then I scored each insert 1/2" from the top so you could easily read the pages below it.  Then they all got stacked on top of each other and I put two staples in the top margin.

If you see those two little dots there, I was originally planning on attaching them with brads or grommets, so those would have centered me, but I took the easy way out.

I had a bunch of little black pieces of cardstock left over from making my invitation enclosures.  They were the perfect size to fold over the top of the stack to hide the staples.  They just needed a little trimming on the edges.

I already had green enclosures cut out from my first invitation idea.  I ended up not using them, and I knew I needed to so they didn't go to waste.  This was the perfect opportunity.  I glued my picture schedule on the right, and the insert stack on the left.

I also happened to have already made belly bands for these particular enclosures.  I was hoping to make something to put on that black square, but by 4:30am I just wasn't having it.  So this is what people saw when they got them at the church.

And in case you were wondering about some of the specifics, here are some close-ups:

I don't know that this actually did a lot of good, because we kind of skipped around in order, but at least these people knew that they were needed to stick around for pictures.

The four inserts I used on the left.

The layout of our ceremony.

Here's the text, I think I borrowed the wording from multiple different examples I found online and tweaked it to say what I wanted.

"We would like to thank our family and friends for traveling near and far to be here with us today.  Our wedding day would not have been complete without the support of each and every one of you.
A special thanks is deserving of the Superfriends for introducing us.  We wouldn’t be getting married today if it weren’t for you guys!
To our parents-
You have been extraordinary role models on how to live and love.  You’ve shaped us into the people standing here today and we could never come close enough to thanking you for everything you have done in raising us.  As we begin our lives as husband and wife, we know we can look to you as great examples.  Thank you so very much."

We gave a little shout out to the "Superfriends" our group of friends that introduced us.  They all came up to us at the reception and said how awesome it was that we included them.

So that's about it! I'm still not even sure how people got these programs, because we never did find a table to set at the end of the aisle.  I believe my friend Sarah, or ceremony reader, passed them out, but I'm really not sure!

Price Breakdown for 80 programs:
80 pocketfold enclosures (2 to a 12x12" page = 40) @ $0.33 = $13.20
400 inserts (2 to a page = 200 pages) @ $0.05 = $10.00
80 belly bands (scraps from envelope liners) = $0.00
80 black pieces to cover staples (scraps from enclosures) = $0.00
Hot glue gun, glue, staples, ink for printer (already had) = $0.00
Total = $23.20


Not too shabby for such an intricate program!