DIY Programs (Using Paper Source Backings)

There are a million unique, fun, and beautiful ways to create your own wedding ceremony program. I wasn't even going to have a program for our wedding, but because of a few things that came up, we decided that we had enough text for two pages, so I threw an idea together. I thought I'd share this because there are some awesome resources out there that I've used in the past, and I want to pay it forward. =) Here are the instructions to how I created our programs, including a cost breakdown!

First, of course, you'll need to write up some text for your own programs. I threw in our "monogram" that appears on our invitations, then had a section each for the Attendants, the Ceremony (with a note about taking a group picture immediately following the ceremony), the symbolism of the 1000 paper cranes that adorned the gazebo, Acknowledgements and Remembrances, and a big thank you to all of our guests.

After finalizing our program text in OpenOffice and creating a PDF from it, I threw it onto my trusty flash drive and we took it over to our neighborhood FedEx Office (nee Kinko's) to get 130 printed and cut to size. I took a sheet that I had marked up with how we wanted it cut, just in case. Let me tell you: this step was totally worth it. 8 minutes and $20 later, we had 130 each of both program pages cut to our exact dimensions (3 5/8" x 9", to fit our #10 Paper-Source backings, which was 3 7/8" x 9 1/4"). This would have cost us more in paper, ink, and sanity if I did it myself!

Without further ado, here's what I did to create the programs!

Supplies/Cost Breakdown:

125 Paper-Source #10 backings in bluebell = $62.50 (before tax/shipping)
130 pages each of both pages of our program = $20.00
Thin ribbon in orange - 7 packs of 10 yds each = $3.50 (before tax)
1/8" hole punch = already had on hand
Double-sided tape = already had on hand
Scissors = already had on hand
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Total: $86.00 for 120; 72¢ each

Step 1: Pair up the two (or more, if you have more) pages and line them up exactly. I decided to put a bit of double-sided tape at the time, between where I'd be punching holes to keep them perfectly one-on-top-of-the-other. (If I didn't do the tape in all of these steps, the pages wiggled because tying the ribbon really taut was next to impossible!)

Step 2: Position the paired pages where you want them to be on the backing -- use another bit of double-sided tape at the top (between the two holes in the backing) to hold them in place. I also put a little more tape to hold the flap of the backing down on the first page.

Step 3: With the flap folded down, I took my hole punch (1/8" perfectly matched the holes in the backing!) and punched holes through the two program pages.

Step 4: Next, I used 17" of ribbon and passed them through the holes from the back. I evened them so they were the same length on both sides, and then used Paper-Source's instructions on tying the perfect bow, keeping the ribbon as taut as possible.

Step 5: Trim any excess ribbon to make them equal lengths and you're done!

The finished product:

For display purposes, I found a narrow white wicker basket at Michael's and used a handy 20% off coupon. It came with a fabric liner that I was able to take off. I wrapped an orange ribbon around the basket and stuck a hand-written sign on it with some tape -- this was 2 days before the wedding, and I was done with DIY! =) Here's what it looked like!

We propped up all the programs on the Big Day -- this was just for transport.