We planned our backyard wedding this Fall. While it was small and intimate with only 30 guests, it was probably just as much work and planning as a big wedding! It was all worth it though, and everything worked out beautifully in the end, and was the best day marrying my true love!
This was my second wedding and my husband's first, and if it were up to him we would have eloped in Ireland on a hill or in a pub. So the compromise was planning our wedding to be a casual and fun backyard party with our closest family and friends. We wanted our wedding to reflect what we loved - Indie music, chicken shawarma, and all the ModernBoho feels. So what better way to set the stage...(I couldn't help it) with a music concert ticket invitation?
So if you are looking for something different for your wedding small or large, please read on and see how we did it!
Now we only had 15 invitations to mail so we added a 8x11 concert poster (shown in the main pic above) with the tickets. But you can totally send the ticket invitations on their own and they would be just as cool! Or if you love the poster idea as much as we did, you could make the it in a postcard format to fit into a smaller envelope and reduce your postage.
For this post I'm going to focus on the concert tickets, and I will make sure to do a post on the concert poster and will link the two posts when it is up. :) K? Alright, let's get to it!
Update: To check out my post on the Concert-style Wedding poster go here :)
Once we had the ticket idea, we needed to find the paper product to make it happen. A quick google, and I found that Avery has an event ticket template with the tear-off stubs and everything...perfect! The even cooler part is that they now have all of their templates on their site, they have tons of design options, and you can customize and save them online.
We bought and printed ours at our local Staples, but I have linked it from Amazon here for the details and availability everywhere you are.
After a simple account sign-up for Avery Online, go to the Design & Print Online section.
Type in the template #16154 and select the one with the tear-off stubs on the right (if you want the same format we used).
Here is a screenshot of some of the starter designs for different events and themes. You may want to base your design on one of these music and entertainment designs:
Since we wanted ours to look like a typical concert ticket, we based it on the old ticketmaster style. I used one of the Blank and Text Only designs with a text box and the ticket stub text vertically;
Now it's about adding all of the cool deets!
The front of the tickets were made to resemble a real concert ticket as much as we could and still provide the important info for our invited guests. I played around with the basic Avery design and customized it incorporating some pretty cool touches I think :)
The Ticket Front:
1. Ticket Number. The green vertical number on the left would typically be a long ticket number or code. We used our wedding date with spaces only between, and chose a colour that we liked.
2. Company Presents. Instead of the production/ticket company we chose both our names "Presents". If you wanted to have a more traditional take you may want to included your parents names' in a cool way, and incorporate the bride and grooms' names in the 'Band' line. For us, as a 40-something bride and groom, we were the hosts and we tend to not follow many traditional rules anyway. ;)
3. 'Band' name. I've seen other examples where the bride and groom's names are here, but again we wanted something more band name like. I give full credit to my hubby for coming up with the cool name 'The Nuptials'! It sounds totally like it could be a band name, says what the occasion is, and isn't using the obvious word wedding...so totally clever! And feel free to use it too, we didn't get it trademarked or anything :)
4. Venue. If your wedding is at a hall, golf course, or other wedding venue then you are going to want to say that. Ours was in our own backyard, and so we used our street name. We tried coming up with other words other than 'Venue', but anything else we came up with may have actually confused our invited guests to where it was being held.
5. Date. Pretty simple. We added the note about 'Doors' with a time, or you could say ' Doors Open @' to indicate how early you wish your guests to arrive before the ceremony starts.
6. VIP Pass. The idea is to make those invited feel like they got a special invitation, and for us, well they kinda did. Our guest list had to be small. Very Small. We had a backyard wedding, and while our yard is large, our home is not. We had to decide on our guest numbers based on worst case scenario if it were pouring rain and we were all inside. It was a bit nerve wracking with a post-tropical storm from Hurricane Dorian hitting the East Coast the weekend before. Even though we are far away, we knew we were going to get the storm after effects later, and luckily for us it arrived the day before and cleared up by morning! Even at only 30 guests, if Plan B had to have happened it would not have been good, so thank you Mother Nature and the universe!
Note: We also added 'Includes Food & Drinks' below the larger vertical VIP. This tells our guests that we were serving dinner and had an open bar :)
7. Ceremony Time. We labelled it as *SHOW STARTS AT 4PM* and hoped that ensured everyone arrived by then. I will not give names of who we were waiting for....you know who you are...and we still love you! ;)
8. Bar Code. This is such a super cool and easy thing to add, and I think it makes it look more like an authentic concert ticket. And did I mention it adds a super cool detail? :)
All I did was search for a free bar code generator and I found this one. I entered our first names and wedding numbers in the box and hit the Generate button. Then BOOM. Cool barcode. Right-click and copy the actual barcode image, and then paste it into your design. You could have fun playing with the text that generates the barcode, but as you can see it shows up pretty small on our ticket.
Ticket Stub. The concept of the tear-off ticket stub is that it became our RSVP. We included a small self-addressed and stamped envelope for our guests to return them. So we included a RSVP deadline, a space for their names, check boxes for acceptance or declining, and a note to circle their choice of dinner, between chicken (shawarma) or falafel, for the food truck caterer.
The Back of the Ticket:
1. Important Wedding Details or Notes. This is where we could include some necessary info for our guests that wasn't so concert tickety (yeah, it's not really a word).
We wanted to make sure people dressed to be comfortable and have fun celebrating with us outside in the middle of September.
We included handy contact info for local hotels for our friends and family from out-of-town.
Our cell numbers, although we invited all close friends and family and they already had them, but just in case.
A coloured text note saying we looked forward to them being part of our special day, cause we did!
2. Ticket Stub Back. This is where we included a spot for our guests to request music they wanted to hear, since it was the back of the RSVP stub.
General Design:
We had to play around with layout and font size to get everything to fit and look good, and make sure to have fun with it! We chose a pale blue background to make it reminiscent of the old school Ticketmaster tickets, and then chose the green accent lettering for highlight.
Save and Print it as a PDF, and then it is ready for printing on the special ticket paper!
How we printed them:
We went to our local Staples and picked up the Avery tickets right off the shelf and then took them right to the Printing Department. All-in-one step is best!
Btw, the tickets were in the party/event section and not the office supply section. I'm telling you so you can save the time we spent looking for them!
We were planning to use a Self-Serve printer, and just get help from the clerk to make sure we put the special paper in the right way so we didn't waste prints. Instead the clerk was super helpful and offered to print them up for us! We also had her print out our concert posters, and she helped with selecting a nice weight paper, so two thumbs up to the customer service!
We got such amazing responses to our wedding invitations, such as:
"Best wedding invitation ever!"
"Soooo love the invitations!"
"It's so you two!"
and "Can I circle both meals?" haha...well the shawarma and falafal were delish!
I hope this inspires you to think outside the box, have fun, and make it reflect YOU!
Whether you are planning your wedding, decorating your home, or putting together the outfits you wear, don't be afraid to try something new, experiment, and find your own way and style. No one fits into one category in life!
If you give this a try please share with me! And I would love to hear your comments :)
Your Designer and ModernBoho Mom,
Ramee
xo