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“Will you be my bridesmaid?” is an exciting question to begin with, but you can make it even more intriguing with a few creative ways to ask your wedding party to be part of your humongous day. Check out our lineup of ingenious ideas for popping your big question to bridesmaids, groomsmen and even the flower girl and ring bearer.

Bridesmaids

Heartfelt Personalized Cards

You can never go wrong with personalized wedding party invitations, especially when those invites reflect your winter wedding’s color and themes. Personalized invitations can be particularly creative ways to ask your wedding party when you get to choose the cardstock, font, size, shape and amazing envelope options to go with them.

Sweet Treat

Invite your chosen gals to brunch and present them with a cupcake in a jar that pops the bridesmaid question on a matching napkin and jar lid. MarryThis serves up a tasty recipe and downloadable template for the napkin and jar lid.

Tasty Toast  

Present each of your bridesmaids-to-be with her very own bottle of wine, complete with a customized wine label that asks her to be part of the celebration. Here you can pick each lady’s favorite vino as the gift, coupled with removable vinyl labels that double as mementoes of the occasion.

Charming Keepsake

Pick a charm, any charm, and have it inscribed with the bridesmaid question or simply the word “Bridesmaid.” A small silver heart charm can do the trick, and your posse can wear the charms anywhere they please: on a bracelet, anklet, necklace or even as a zipper pull.

Groomsmen

Just because groomsmen are guys doesn’t mean they won’t enjoy creative ways to ask your wedding party. It does mean, however, you may want to pick something other than cupcakes to pop the question.

Classy Personalized Invites

Personalized invites still work, especially since you can choose the colors, font and wording to reflect a masculine vibe. Reflect the classiness of your upcoming winter wedding with thick cardstock and font colors in warm brown, eggplant or navy blue.

Personalized Beer Labels

Those removable vinyl labels still work, too, and they don’t have to be dedicated only to wine bottles. Personalized beer labels are an option for asking your groomsmen to be part of the party, as are personalized beer cozies.

Flower Girl and Ring Bearer

Sweetening up your selected tykes is a surefire way to help ensure they say yes to your special question. Two delicious ideas include an edible puzzle that asks the question once the puzzle is put together or a ring pop in a box or with a card that asks if the flower girl or ring bearer will be part of your festivities.

Opting for these creative ways to ask your wedding party sets the tone for the creatively dazzling and fun winter celebration that’s sure to come.

Small, intimate weddings mean that you can put some extra details into your décor that would be too time-consuming or expensive for a wedding with hundreds of guests. That said, if you’re planning to do special DIY invitations, you’ll get gorgeous, custom results — just be sure to give yourself more time than you think you’ll need so you won’t add any wedding planning stress to your life.

Paper Direct’s wedding supplies will help you complete these DIY wedding invitation ideas that put an extra special touch on your small wedding.

Pockets

Who doesn’t love a pocket?

Use them for you wedding invitations by folding a paper doily or stitching a slim fabric sleeve for your invitations. When you don’t have a lot of invites to create, this adds an indulgent DIY touch of personality in your wedding colors. Just make sure that the outer envelope is large enough to accommodate the extra bulk!

Calligraphy

So you bought the perfect stationery that fits your wedding theme, but there’s a problem: how do you label everything with handwriting that’s elegant enough to match?

If your normal handwriting doesn’t look like a printing press or a pro calligrapher, consider a more budget-friendly tracing table (as long as your stationery is thin enough to allow light to pass through it). Just place a printed version of your label between the lit tracing table and your stationery or envelope and copy the perfect font into a handwritten detail.

Seals

With a small wedding, you can go ahead and put a little extra polish into finishing yourwedding invitations. Paper Direct offers a variety of wedding-themed seals to add sophistication to your envelopes once they’re ready to go. You can even choose one with your married initial for a custom look that doesn’t get in the way of the budget.

These DIY invitation ideas for small wedding will take the design of your stationery and envelopes to the next level and make your special day especially personalized and memorable.

If you are planning a Do-It-Yourself wedding, you must look at wedding invitation packages and choose one that best fits your motif and overall theme. Before you looking at wedding invitation packages, you know the answer to two questions: how many people are you going to invite and how much can you spend on wedding invitations? Unless you know the exact answers to both of these questions, why bother looking at wedding invitation packages that may not fit your budget or that just don’t go with your wedding theme?

Take some time and sit down with your groom see if you can agree on how many people will be invited and how much you can spend on wedding invitation packages. With DIY (do it yourself) weddings, there is no wedding planner to bring you a bunch of invitations and then you just pick the one you like. (And that’s no fun anyway!)

One more thing to consider when purchasing wedding invitations is the cost of the postage. Some wedding invitations are designed in such a way that additional postage might be required when mailing them. Typically, this occurs more frequently with custom-made wedding invitations. Simple wedding invitations can be just as beautiful and much less expensive when it comes time to mailing them out to your invitees.

There is something else to factor in when deciding how many invitations to get: you may want to consider purchasing extra wedding invitations because no matter how careful you are when addressing the envelopes, mistakes will happen. Better to have a few extras around and avoid the headache of what to do when the addressee realizes that the names are spelled incorrectly on the envelope. Also, additional people might suddenly make it to the guest list, and if you don’t have any extras, you will not be able to formally invite these last-minute guests.

Wedding invitation packages are typically put into one of three categories: modern, classic or destination. Modern wedding invitation packages will feature the latest trends in invitation design and have contemporary patterns and motifs in modern layouts. Classic wedding invitation packages will reflect the timeless beauty of elegant, traditional wedding invitations, and destination wedding invitation packages will offer a wide variety of invitation designs that span the globe.

PaperDirect is your online shopping destination for many of your DIY wedding needs. Wedding invitations, thank you notes and even wedding placecards and other accessories can all be found right in one place: online at PaperDirect. Looking for some creative DIY wedding invitation ideas? Read “How to Dress Up Invitations” from the PaperDirect blog.

If you are planning a romantic Valentine’s Day wedding and want to save money, a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) wedding may be your most sensible option. Many people consider Valentine’s Day to be most the romantic day of the year, so why not pledge your undying love to your partner on Cupid’s day? While it may seem cliche, it truly is a magical day and many couples plan their special day for February 14th. If you are considering a Valentine’s Day DIY wedding, here are some tips that may save you money and give you some ideas you had not yet considered:

Book a romantic location early. This is a popular day to say “I do” so you must choose your venue and make your reservation to ensure you get your dream location. The more romantic the location the better. How about a country inn, romantic hotel, or quaint little church? You can choose a sentimental location such as the restaurant of your first date or the park where you shared your first kiss.

Send heart  invitations. Ok, this may seem corny, but, after all, you did choose to get married on Valentine’s Day, so you may as well go all out with the love theme.

Keep the decor in the traditional colors of Valentine’s Day, so if you despise the color red, then don’t have your wedding on Valentine’s Day. Place cards, napkins, candles, and all other wedding accessories should be shades of red and white and/or cream.

Maybe a red wedding dress is just a bit too much. If so, how about a bouquet of beautiful red roses or red flowers in your hair? You could choose a pretty shade of red for your bridal party–always keep in mind their taste and don’t choose a shade of red that will make them uncomfortable. The groom could certainly wear a red bow tie and cummerbund. A red tux may bring back memories of a prom in the 70’s or a scene from a disco movie. A simple black tuxedo with a red boutineer is classic and elegant.

There is nothing more romantic than Italian opera music. If you can’t afford to hire an opera singer, you can play romantic love songs throughout the night, or hire a band whose specialty is romantic ballads.

A white and red wedding cake will accentuate the Valentine’s Day theme. If you serve a sit-down dinner, think of romantic foods and chocolate-covered strawberries are a must.

Party favors may include heart-shaped boxes or some other momento of the occasion. Heart-shaped picture frames will also provide your guests a fond remembrance of your special day. They can put a picture of you and your spouse or a picture of themselves in the frame.

PaperDirect is your online source for DIY wedding invitations and accessories. Here are some DIY wedding program ideas that may spark a creative idea for your DIY Valentine’s Day wedding.

A bachelorette party is a really great way to celebrate your womanhood and the end of your single life before you settling down with the man of your dreams and the one you will hopefully be spending the rest of your life with. Having all your friends and family there to celebrate with you and getting a carefree and crazy are the top two requirements of a great bachelorette party. Along with those requirements, here are a few great bachelorette party ideas.

Create a wish list. Whether you’re the bride-to-be or the hostess for the bachelorette party, a bachelorette wish list is a great way to make sure that everyone is having a great time. The bachelorette writes down three to five things she’s always wished she could do as a single woman. Of course, keep it clean and don’t do anything that will get you in trouble with the husband-to-be! Maybe you’ve always wanted a trip to Vegas or to buy a certain item. This is the bride-to-be’s night so see if you can fulfill some of her wishes before she takes the plunge into marriage.

Create a scavenger hunt type of task list for the bride-to-be. For instance, give her a sweatshirt with men’s names on it. The goal is to find one man to match each name and get him to sign the shirt. Send her on a scavenger hunt at the venue where the party is held. Create a list of items she must find in the hotel or restaurant or wherever the party is held. Take photos of the event as this will create memories for years to come (and some laughs!).

A day at the spa instead of a nightclub or restaurant. Not only is this extremely relaxing, but it will give the ladies a chance to bond over manicures and massages.

Hold a progressive dinner party for the bachelorette party. This is a great opportunity to visit several homes in a single evening. A progressive dinner party involves everyone going from home to home to enjoy a different course at each home. Keep the number of guests manageable if you plan a progressive dinner bachelorette party. You can only eat so much and the travel can be a bit tedious of there are too many locations to which you must travel.

PaperDirect is your online source for just about everything you need to throw a great party including festive party invitations, response cards and banners.

Let’s face it–weddings can be expensive. If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on your wedding, you can still have a beautiful ceremony and reception that will be memorable for all of your guests. Do-it-yourself (DIY) weddings can be planned, organized and performed for much less money than you may think. You just have to do some research and find bargains. You have to know how to negotiate prices and accept help from people you know who can contribute to the wedding. Traditionally, the bride’s family pays for the wedding, but nowadays there are many couples who pay for their own wedding. If you are fortunate enough to have parents who can pay for your wedding, then count yourself lucky because you will be entering marital bliss without huge credit card debt and loans to pay off, which can make the first few years of any marriage stressful. The cons of having the bride or groom’s family pay is that sometimes they tend to want what they want and you may feel obligated to allow them to make decisions for you. If family members pay for your wedding, you can set ground rules so that your special day is just that–YOUR special day. When both families contribute to the cost of the wedding it’s important that you voice your desires and stand your ground when decisions start being made without your approval.

Many contemporary weddings are paid for by the couple getting married. While this may put a strain on your finances, it does give you complete control over all decisions regarding the ceremony and reception. The pros of paying for your own wedding is that if you want a wedding on the beach in bathing suits with a Beach Boys cover band playing all night, you can do that. If you want to have your wedding under water in scuba suits, you can do that, too. You are not obligated to please anyone but yourselves.

The only con to paying for your own wedding is the debt you may rack up, but if you shop around and take advantage of good deals, you can have a gorgeous wedding on a reasonable budget. Enlist friends and family to help. For instance, if you have a friend who is in a band or who plays a harp, ask if they will provide entertainment for your wedding (that could be their gift to you). If you aunt is a florist, ask her for her help, and if you have a seamstress in the family, you can save hundreds, if not thousands, by having your wedding attire handmade by someone you love.

There are other ways to save money on your do it yourself wedding. The day of week you choose can make a big difference in the cost of the ceremony. Vendors are going to charge higher prices for more popular days/nights like Saturday. If you choose an off-day, they would rather charge a lower fee than have the venue completely unused. some establishments loosen minimum guest requirements on off days. You’re also likely to get better service because you’ll have management’s undivided attention on a less busy day.

PaperDirect is your online source for everything you need for your do-it-yourself wedding including wedding invitations, wedding place cards and wedding thank you note cards.

Weddings are a truly special time in a person’s life, whether you’re the bride or you’ve been invited to be a bridesmaid. And while being a bride is definitely a challenge, being a bridesmaid is a challenge as well. Having to help the bride get everything ready, get dressed, throw the bachelorette party, help with the planning and execution of the wedding are all things bridesmaids have to do. This means finding the right gifts for the bridesmaids as tokens of appreciation is important. Bridesmaid gift ideas may seem like a challenge, but there are lots of great ideas that everyone will appreciate.

One thing you’ll want to do is make sure none of the bridesmaids feel that they aren’t getting the same quality of gift as the others. This means the gifts for the bridesmaids all need to be the same. Here are some great ideas for your bridesmaid gifts.

1. Having jewelry like a necklace or bracelet engraved with the bridesmaids names on them make great gifts
2. One little gift that makes for a cute memento is a wedding snow globe, especially if the wedding is in the winter
3. Before the wedding, treating all the bridesmaids to a spa day makes for a fantastic get together
4. Personalized bags and totes filled with a lot of little gifts like perfumes and cosmetics makes for great gifts
5. Jewelry boxes engraved or etched with the bridesmaid’s names makes for totally cool presents
6. Picture frames and picture boxes make for great gifts as well
7. Personalized compacts make for sweet presents for bridesmaids
8. An engraved pen and pencil set is nice also

There are lots of other ideas and variations on a theme with bridesmaid’s gifts. You’ll be amazed at just how cool some of the gifts are and at how inexpensive some of the coolest bridesmaid gift ideas actually are. Being a bridesmaid is quite an honor and giving them gifts as mementos of the occasion is truly a nice way to express your appreciation for all the help and friendship they provide.