Our MIB Invites with lots of pics and additional info!

My invites are all sent out and I could not be more relieved (and excited of course)! First, let me start by thanking all my fellow BDW Brides, who haven given me so much inspiration and encouragement… THANK YOU Ladies!! I would be lost without this fabulous forum, and a SPECIAL THANK YOU to Laura Hamway for being such a great resource and helping me SO much with the MIB idea/template!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

Ok so now that my guest are receiving our MIB invites I am thrilled that my hard work has paid off… all those slaving hours were WORTH IT!!

I started by assembling all of the boxes, folding them inside out, so the brown was on the outside, and securing them with the hot glue gun. Grrrrr that glue gun and I are NOT friends (I did get a battle wound from these darn invites), but it all worked out! Then I cut ribbon and glued it on the outside of the boxes, to give it a more “luggage look.†The luggage handle is made out of foam and secured with gold paper fasteners. I printed up clear labels and cut them down to size for the tags for the mailing labels/luggage tag.

I wrapped each bottle in raffia, securing a starfish charm, and filling them with sand, shells, and our wrapped up invite.

We printed our invite on resume paper (after many trials of various different paper, I had a genius idea and it worked). Originally, we attempted to burn the edges of the invite to give them a more aged looks, but we could not come up with a way to avoid the ashes making the paper black. So we decided to scratch that and keep the clean edges, which I am happy with the clean turn out.

For additional resort and travel info, I made a wedding passport for all the information that was not on the MIB invite. I used a passport template from Aylee templates (http://www.ayleebits.com/templates.htm). Then bundles the passport and RSVP together with ribbon and put them in the box with the invite.

When I was FINALLY finished I was beyond excited to mail them out, but extremely nervous about their journey in the mail (beings the farthest travel was to my Aunt & Uncle in Hong Kong). Everyone at the post office were very curious and all wanted to crack on open to see what was inside the luggage box. Each luggage box cost, $1.88 or $2.05 (depending on the amount of sand) to mail and we sent out 50. It seems like they have all made it, even Hong Kong, so what a relief.

***A little tip for mailing… make sure that your guest’s address and your return address are on the same side of the box (or your chances of having some returned are much higher).

The Passport Cover on Shimmer Cardstock (though the picture does not do it justify, I took it on my phone, SORRY!)

My RSVP

Invite inside the Bottle

The box and how I stuffed it all in

Label inside the box

Madness in the Making

Off to the Post Office!!

$$Cost/Location of Supplies

Boxes & Bottles from http://www.sandartsupplies.com/StoreBox/message_bottles.htm 

 ($0.44 each and $0.89each)

- Sand (FREE from local beach)

- Ribbon for the outside (9 rolls) from Joanne’s ($3.49 each)

Ribbon for Passport Bundle (1 roll) from Micheals ($1.00)

Front of the box guest labels from Staples ($5.99)

Aged tags for bottles from http://www.kraftoutlet.com/store/Default.asp ($6.99 for 50)

RSVP Cardstock (used for inside pages of passport, too) from Michael’s ($4.00)

RSVP Envelop from Michael’s ($2.99)

Passport Cover Cardstock ($0.69 per sheet)

Raffia from Michael’s ($4.99)

Mini Umbrella’s from Walmart ($2.00)

Tiny starfish from Ebay ($5.99)

Starfish charms from Ebay ($6.99)

Shells from Ebay ($4.99)

It was a lot of time and hard work, and I felt like I kept running out to get something, but it was such a rewarding project! 

Please let me know if you have any questions or I can help you in any way!

Amazing!!!!

Love these!

Love love love the idea!!! 

Wow, you put so much work into these, and they look incredible!

Shannon these look incredible!!!!  Thank you for sharing!

These are amazing!

These look incredible, you must be absolutely thrilled!!! What was the cost per invite if you don't mind me asking?!