DIY: Menu cards and wine lists!

I've admitted in the past that I am not the world's greatest DIYer. It's not that I don't want to be! In truth, I look with envy upon those who can whip up gorgeous handmade details for their homes and their loved ones. And in middle and high school, I used to sew -- nothing fancy, but I did make myself a sundress, and I also sewed an awesome 40s replica dress for our school's production of "The Diary of Anne Frank."

But when I started the wedding planning, I promised myself (and the ultra-patient Econo Boy) that I wouldn't attempt anything crazy, like planting and growing 30 wildflower centerpieces or hand-sewing the perfect tablecloths. The thing is, I'm a perfectionist, and I'm also not that artistic (and I kill plants -- not on purpose, but that's another story). Plus, my mom still has my sewing machine in her basement. I knew that if any potential wedding DIY projects turned out less than professional-looking, I would end up crawling under the bed and sobbing and not doing any dissertation work.

But if there's one thing every grad student knows how to do, gosh darn it, it's use Microsoft Word and an injket printer. Introducing: our menu cards.

As a food lover, I always enjoy the menu cards at other peoples' weddings so I can get a head start on drooling over the evening's fare. So I decided to order textured linen card stock samples from LCI Paper and give it a shot. And ... it turned out surprisingly well! We found the perfect wine cork menu card holder at CorkeyCreations on Etsy, and the combination of card stock + MS Word + inkjet turned out really nicely, for around $0.20 per card (not including ink).

Our menu cards! The two-columbines motif was designed by our invitations printer, whom I have chosen not to name here for obvious reasons.

This is more a mock-up than a final version. For one thing, I thought I was being really clever by putting the table number at the top and not having to use table number stands, but I'm starting to reconsider -- I'm not sure the numbers will be large or obvious enough. For another, we still haven't done our tasting, so the menu isn't final! The other side of the menu cards will be printed with our wine list (which I haven't shown here because they'll include the names of the people who recommended the wines to us). I'm also going to print drinks menus with our wine list and our beers and liquors on the bars.

Incidentally, CorkeyCreations is a great seller -- she sent me a free sample holder so I could verify that the place card holders we liked would be large enough to hold 5x7 menu cards. When I ordered a full set of 50, they were in the mail within 48 hours. Highly recommended!