Our Wedding Planning Starts Now, With Basic Invite
This is a sponsored post with Basic Invite. All opinions shared are my own. Thanks for reading about our wedding planning journey!
Hubs and I enjoying date night!
Hey friends, I have a little secret to share.
Hubs and I are married, but have not yet had a formal ceremony. True story! Between switching careers, finishing our degrees, growing our family, three cross country moves, career advancements and getting settled in a new city, adding a wedding to the mix was not top of mind. Honestly, planning it felt overwhelming.
Like many couples, the pandemic swooped in once we were ready to start planning our destination wedding. Now that vaccines are commonplace, travel is back on the upswing, and most importantly our children are older and asking where the heck our wedding pictures are, it’s time to make it happen! Ironically, Hubs and I met at my cousin’s wedding over a decade ago. The fact that we’re now putting plans in place for our own celebration is a beautiful full circle moment for us.
If you know me personally, you know that I’m not the type of girl who dreamed of a fairytale wedding. I’ve always wanted a beautiful marriage, yes, but the pomp and circumstance, party-planning bit of it has never seemed super fun to me. Blame it on my past life as an events coordinator. I know that what goes into planning a spectacular moment; and phew, Honey—it takes serious work! If I could just close my eyes, snap my fingers, and arrive at our island venue with everything magically in place, I’d float around like a golden little fairy! But, effort must be put forth.
Hubs and I when we first met at a wedding over a decade ago. He was a groomsman and I was a bridesmaid.
Now that we’re in a more settled season in our lives, I’ve started to reframe wedding planning as a joyful adventure.
It’s a powerful way to show up for our family as we place this memorable timestamp on our journey map. As I proudly pull my event planning cap out of retirement, one of the first lessons that I recall is to look at the event as a whole pie. Then, slice it down into more manageable, bite-sized pieces. Of course, the first big chunk is deciding on a wedding date and venue. Once we solidify that, we’ll share the news with our loved ones by sending wedding invitations.
I’m happy to have connected with Basic Invite for this fun part! They are the perfect place to start if you’re planning any big, small, or memorable event in your life. Basic Invite is a family owned stationary company that’s been around for over 15 years. They’re powered by a small team that keeps it fresh by creating highly customizable, quality event cards engineered to give us busy mamas a quick way to choose from unlimited options, online.
I worked with them to get a jumpstart on creating our wedding invites. Even though we’re still deciding on venues, creating samples made our big day feel closer and more real. The selection and ordering process was quick and seamless. It feels empowering to already have one thing checked off of our to-do list!
Here’s one of the Basic Invite samples that I created. It’s one of their clear wedding invitations.
It literally only took me 1 hour to create 5 different card samples that I customized. You can choose from a variety of fonts, colors, foil, designs, card stock, finishes, and envelopes. If you know me, you know that I struggle with decision making. This quick turnaround was everything! While Basic Invite has over a thousand templates that you can customize and over 180 colors that you can use to tweak each element of the invite, they also have a standout feature that was a game changer for me!
Basic Invite is one of the few websites that gives you an instant preview of your design once you plug in your colors and fonts. You can try as many combos as you desire in advance. This helped to cool my jets of overwhelm when faced with multiple options. It helped me make quicker decisions.
Two of our Basic Invite wedding invite samples. I love the diversity of their template design options. I also enjoy the versatility of their clear invite, on the right. This time, I placed it on top of a black background.
Here’s a few more reasons why I enjoyed my experience with Basic Invite:
They have more than wedding invites: Basic Invite offers a variety of stationary options for special family events. This includes birthdays, graduations, Christenings, Bar & Bat Mitzvahs, Quinceañera celebrations, housewarmings, and a plethora of holidays. I actually got a head-start on ordering samples of our Christmas cards, after selecting our wedding invites. (Another literal miracle for me.) For years I’ve put that on the back burner. I’m glad to get a running start this year! They also carry personalized name stationery, business cards, and wallpaper.
They have over 500 bridal shower invites: I took a peek at their bridal shower invitations, as I’d love to have a spa-themed Bridal Shower. (Hint-hint besties :) Basic Invite has the cutest bridal shower invitations and bridal shower thank you notes. Fun to dig in!
Let the Bridal Shower Begin!
Here’s a peek at one of Basic Invite’s Bridal Shower invites, and how simple their design template is to use. The ordering process was seamless.
They are environmentally conscious: As a vegan and someone who strives to be more environmentally conscious, it was important for me to work with a company that shares similar values. Digital invites are always an option. However if you want a tangible card as a keepsake, I believe in taking the paper route responsibly. Basic Invite’s Signature Matte and Smooth Coated paper options come from FSC certified recycled paper that is manufactured responsibly, with a lower impact on the environment. Make sure to select one of these paper types when ordering.
They have diverse template designs: As someone who’d like to infuse cultural notes from our African-American heritage into our ceremony, I was happy to see that Basic Invite has a diverse selection of template designs. With over a thousand options to choose from, you can sort through traditional themes like Modern or Rustic. You can also search based on culture. Some of the options include: African, Mexican, Indian, Hawaiian and Native American. I found this classic set of African mud cloth inspired invites that I LOVE.
Their website is easy to navigate: Even though Basic Invite offers tons of ordering options and features, you don’t have to be a tech wiz to enjoy the experience. Their clean layout is refreshing. Their site is easy to navigate, especially for us multitasking moms, who thrive off of simplicity and quick grabs. The ease of their site design pairs well with their high quality invites and reasonable prices.
Family Christmas cards already ordered in August?! Yes, please! The quality of our samples in real life lived up to what they looked like online. Love it when that happens!
They have a convenient address capturing service which makes sending cards a snap. It allows you to share a link on your social media pages and request your guests’ addresses. Basic Invite will also print those addresses on your cards, at no additional cost. BTW, no envelope licking required. All of their envelopes are peel and seal, so they can be closed quickly, without hassle!
You can order a printed sample of your invite before placing a final order: This is surely one of Basic Invite’s best features! It’s also a major perk if you love the convenience of online shopping, but still want to see the details in real life before making a purchase. It only took a week for my samples to arrive. I loved touching the beautifully rich paper quality, and seeing Hubs and I’s names together in print, just as they will appear before our guests on our wedding day!
Want to try Basic Invite for your next event? Right now they are offering 15% off with coupon code: 15FF51.
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