Program? We don't need no **CENSORED** programs! Or do we?

I'll be honest with you.  My first thought was to skip the whole wedding program thing.  To me, it sounded like a whole lot of work to tell guests that they are at a wedding. Plus, a co-worker of mine said she made some beautiful, but intricately designed programs, for her wedding a few years ago and she left the venue with about 80 percent of them.

And then I read some wedding blogs (bad Weegee!) which pointed out the benefits of distributing these handy dandy guides for the big day.  Some of these benefits include highlighting the members of the wedding party, anything unusual about the ceremony and giving some props to vendors.  It helped solidify why programs were usually necessary -- but didn't seal the deal as to why we should implement this handy tool when it came time for us to exchange vows.

It wasn't until I found one couple's "So, You're Going To Sit Through A Wedding" program on one of my favorite blog sites, OffBeatBride.com.  This program was a handcrafted pamphlet that resembles a three-fold brochure you would find on the tourism rack of the hotel. It highlighted all the quirky bits of their wedding, such as how to use the photo booth and why clinking glasses to get the newlywedded couple to kiss isn't a good idea for anyone involved.

Front

What I liked about this design is that it doesn't follow the "flowers and lace" typical program.  The design allows for each person to inject personality and tone while communicating what makes their wedding different.   It offers the chance to further ones branding of the wedding. 

The blog posting got my creative juices flowing and I decided to design a program loosely on this model -- just to show Mike and gather his thoughts.  As I was pulling together "questions" and "answers" for the FAQ -- I realized two things.

1) Our wedding does have some special aspects. Since we don't have a wedding party, a guide may be helpful for navigating our non-traditional shindig. We aren't going the dinner and dancing route and it may be somewhat beneficial to communicate a few things such as the cake doughnut bar or the old western schoolroom with children activities nestled inside. 

Inside View

2) I had an awfully good time creating the program. It was laying out our wedding in an easy to read format.  It gave me a chance to talk about the inspiration behind our artist canvas guest book (more to come in a later post) and the meaning behind the Trivia Pursuit cards.  I was able to expand upon why we went with an early morning wedding and how come pancakes became the reception meal of choice.

I did alter the example a bit. While the interior of the pamphlet contains the "FAQs", the exterior highlights the vendors, the immediate family, our officiant and a special thank you to the guests -- turning the card stock into a true three-fold brochure for our pancake breakfast shindig.

Front/Back/Inside Flap

Since this was made on our computer, we did a small batch "print" of the programs, folding them while watching our favorite hockey team on the ice! Wedding crafting and couple bonding while hooting and hollering. It doesn't get any better than that.

While I had stolen the idea from another couple or blog post -- seeing the format highlighted on HuffingtonPost as "Best Program Ever" today sort of stole the breeze out of my sails. But not enough to put the kibosh on it.  For each wedding is different -- and thus, so are the programs.