Monday, October 24, 2011

Wedding Recap: Menu Cards

My menu cards were another DIY labor of love, and was another project that had me going back and forth to Staples many times.

I used a lot of downloaded fonts for these, which I created in word. I had to save each sample as a PDF so Staples could print it exactly the way I saw it on my screen. After talking to someone in the print center and dropping off my purchased ivory cardstock, I emailed the file to my local staples for them to print a sample. The first few samples weren't right. The margins were way off and it wasn't perfectly centered on the page. They suggested I print just one at a time meaning that half of each page I print would just be garbage. Plus it would cost more because I'd be printing twice as many sheets! 

I realllly had to play around with margins on this many, many times to get it right and honestly, I'm not even entirely sure what I did to get it right, but it finally worked. I have .17 margins all around and in page setup I selected "Mirror margins" instead of Normal. That seemed to even it out just right.
To break down the fonts:
  • The top fan decoration and the dividing line between appetizers and entrees is called separates and can be downloaded here. This offers TONS of different ornate symbols for you to use in your printing!
  • The word MENU is "Engravers MT"
  • The "Appetizer, Pasta, Salad, and Entree" is in Chopin Script (Downloaded Here) 
  • The meal name is "Copperplate Gothic Light" and 
  • The description is written in regular old "Times New Roman."
So Staples printed and cut all my menus for me, which was great, but it needed a little something else. We tried a ton of different corner punches. I really wanted an ornate corner punch in these, but after each of us ruining about 5 of them, we realized we just didn't have that kind of margin of error. I guess if the cut wasn't exxxacctly a 95 degree angle, it wouldn't work. I was really disappointed in these punches. (But was able to use them for our out-of-town bag postcards)

I bought a Martha Stewart Crown Corner Punch. That one worked better, but was wayyyy too big and looked awful on these:

We finally settled on a simple Martha Stewart rounded corner punch, which I was still happy with and lots of people told us they liked how that looked.
Chris working on the corner punches
But I still felt it needed a little something. So we affixed little green gemstones to the design in the middle...
and viola, our menu cards were complete!
Sorry, this is a terrible picture!
Our work station:

Our menu card in action at the wedding:
E.Phillips
RTowers
Unfortunately, I don't have many food pictures. As you may recall from this post, these were our dinner menu options:
Pistachio Crusted Rack of Lamb
Served with Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Sauce

Grilled Filet Mignon
Served with Bordelaise Sauce

Roast French Breast of Chicken
Stuffed with Provolone, Ricotta, Sun-Dried Tomato,
Served on a Bed of Sautéed Spinach, and served with Madeira Sauce

Pan Seared Porterhouse Pork Chop
Served with Sweet Cherry Pepper
Parisian Potatoes and Cherry Wine

Pan Seared Atlantic Salmon
With Oyster Mushrooms, White Wine and Cream Sauce

Pan Seared Striped Bass Mariciara
With Shrimp and Kiwi Mussels

Vegetarian Special
Portabello, tricolor peppers, eggplant marinated and grilled over an open flame

Our appetizer crab cake:
RTowers
Chris' beer
RTowers
At our sweetheart table ready to eat our dinner:

8 comments:

Mom said...

Your menu cards were very classy looking. Your attention to detail always gets to me cuzz you know you didn't inherit that from me!I get overwhelmed just reading about it. And the food at your reception-Mama mia! You could do a month of posts on that alone. It was that endless!

Heather said...

Your menu cards look so great, and I love your entire menu! How awesome to give guests so many tasty choices. We had our venue provide a couple menu cards per table, so that was one less thing I had to worry about.

Danielle said...

OOO! Those look FABULOUS! Everything looked scrumptious, too!

Dancy said...

That's awesome - you put a lot of work into those cards. We just printed them out & took a big paper cutter (in his office) to them. LOL

Unknown said...

Ooh! The little gemstone was a nice tough! They looked very professional and pretty!

Tiff For Tat said...

You are so creative, I am truly envious. The green emeraled embelishment was just perfect!

Emily said...

I just love this! I love how much thought and the personal touches you put into the menus. I personally as a guest at a wedding appreciate these things.

I didn't spend too much time on the little details - in hindsight I really wish I had.

Nicole-Lynn said...

Very nice! I love how they turned out! If I was a guest, it's the details like those that I would really notice and appreciate! :)

If we didn't have a buffet I was contemplating doing these!