Invite Wording

First, I have to say thanks to everyone who gave input to my frozen drink question last week. I 100% trust that you all know what you're talking about when you say that it would not be needed and that idea is officially out!

I've made it a bit of an unofficial goal to start getting my invitations out next week, but I figured I'd run by the wording and format with you all before I go out making some big etiquette mistake ;).

As a reminder, here's the blank invitation:

I've been confused if I've been allowed a guest when wedding invitations came without inner envelopes so I'll be adding a "Name and guest" card and attach it to the bow on the front of the invite.

And here's what I've come up with for the wording (obviously altered for privacy reasons):

Sorry if it's hard to read. It says:

"together with their parents

Her Full Name

and

His Entire Givenname

request the pleasure of your company

at their marriage

sunday, the thirty-fourth of july

two thousand eleven

at half past ten in the morning

the venue name

214 venue name

austin, texas

brunch reception to follow"



I mentioned etiquette mistake for a good reason- we're not going with typical pre-stamped envelope RSVP.

After a bit of research, I found out:
*that it's pretty common for guests to skip RSVPing all together, wasting the provided RSVP card and prompting a call from the bride or her family
*traditional etiquette calls on guests to write and send a response on personal stationary
*guests that do use the provided response card often send it back with incomplete or incorrect information
*online RSVP responses are becoming more and more common to save paper, time, and money... but there are still some people without computers or the internet

So in efforts to simplify the invitations, but still make things easy on the guests, I've come up with this:

Okay, truth time.... is what I have planned okay?

What would you suggest that I change about the invites?

PS The fonts were free downloads from dafont.com: OptimusPrinceps + Jellyka Western Princess

The Alcohol

I know I've mentioned it a few times on the other blog- Nate and I aren't big drinkers and we could care less if there's alcohol at a party. This fact really contributed to us choosing to hold a brunch reception rather than a traditional evening blow-out reception where an open bar is a major player in the event. And because it is a brunch event, we could probably get away with skipping alcohol all together...

But of course, happy guests > budget and I know the average person would at least like some alcohol!

To simplify things, we've decided to stick with serving basic brunch drinks only- no beer or wine (is that okay?). We'll have orange juice and grapefruit juice to mix for mimosas of course, but my mom and I were talking about possibly renting a frozen drink machine to do peach Bellinis. It will be July in Texas so I'm sure that my guests will welcome a frozen refreshment, but I'm wondering if it will be worth the additional costs to rent the machine and get mixes plus the time to coordinate everything with another vendor. With everything included, it looks like doing frozen Bellinis will end up costing around $3.75 per person (...the cost of just ordering them all a drink from Starbucks...).

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Oh, and I'll have to deal with having one of these things sitting around somewhere at the venue:

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What do you think:

Would you get excited for a frozen Bellini?

Knowing that an affordable budget > unique elements, am  I overspending here?

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Is it enough to serve mimosas and Bellinis as the only alcoholic drinks at a brunch reception?

colors

People keep asking me what my wedding colors are. Honestly, I'm not sure I really care. I figure that I'll go ahead and decide once I find the right tablecloths on sale....

Until then, I figured I do what most color-obsessed brides do and use the eye dropper tool in Photoshop to come up with possible color combos based off of pictures taken during some of my favorite summer moments with Nate:

I'm leaning in the "watermelon sunny day" direction, but I think it could use a splash of "creek water."

How did you come up with your colors?

For the Table Centers

I'm really not the biggest fan of buffets at weddings. I don't like having to stand in line hungry for what seems like forever or the fact that I never know what portion size to go for. I usually end up taking too little because I don't want anyone to end up without food (like I did at one wedding- seriously!). And, like it or not, I'm going to end up having a buffet brunch for our wedding.  

In our area (and in my price range) it's standard to do a buffet. Even the most expensive wedding I've ever been to had a combination of buffet/ stations. Because of this, I'm sure most of my guests won't think twice about the normal buffet pitfalls, but I'd really like to do what I can to avoid them. 

To avoid letting my guest walk away without a meal, I'm obviously going to make sure to order plenty of food! To avoid having everyone rush to the buffet line or stand around hungry I would like to do a version of this:

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Instead of setting up sweets and breakfast pastries in another buffet, I'd like to pull from the idea and spread it across all of the tables.

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I'll use every blogger's favorite diy cake stand concept to create the platters with cheapo plates and candlesticks (or wineglasses or vases...). I might even use colorful paint to add some extra visual interest:

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Doing this should please my hungry guests and save me a little cash:

1. The breakfast pastries and desserts will come out of my food budget.

2. With sweets on the tables, I'll get away with smaller flower arrangements.

What type of pastry or dessert would you like to have at a brunch wedding?