soooooooo much paper

so there are three key factors working in conjunction for the wedding:

• small
• sustainable
• inexpensive

it's interesting how any one of these things sort of naturally leads to the others. these were the reasons behind the postcard invitations. and i love those invitations, i love how they came out. but i admit, i also love spending hours drooling over letterpress stationery, too. there are so many gorgeous invitation ideas... but the one thing that i think every time i really look at them is "holy crap! that's so much paper!" i mean, really. they aren't just 'invitations,' they're like whole little paper-craft villages. invitation, invitation envelope, rsvp, rsvp envelope, accommodations, maps. it's a freaking tree per person! and they cost more than basically the whole rest of our wedding. but cost aside, just the sheer paper volume was enough to keep us from ever even consider the standard invite option.

*sigh*

but they're so pretty. and so i'm giving in and getting my paper demons out with the programs. i'm not sure where i'll come up with all the recycled cardboard yet, but i'll find it. and when i do, i love the idea of something like this - now these are invitations, via style me pretty, but i plan to simply morph them into programs:

we're having more of a wedding weekend than a simple ceremony, so we want to include information about all of the events and activities. there'll be friday night bowling and a day at the coast after the wedding itself. i love this idea because it's a way to fit it all in without cramming it onto a single sheet of paper. but the best reason for the pocket idea has to do with our plans for the actual ceremony, which involves notecards for guests to write things down on. this way, we can include the blank cards with all of their other info and get them started thinking on it right away.

so this is just idea one. open to suggestions for other diy/inexpensive/recyclable projects!