So I think I've finally made a decision about our wedding invitations. After hours of deliberating, moaning, complaining, and painstaking work/research on the interwebs, I may have possibly made a decision. I say "possibly" because there are still several things that might go wrong in the process and thus I may have to change my mind again.
In the end, after visiting http://www.paperandmore.com/ I fell in love with the idea of printing our bride and groom image on white linen cardstock and the text on translucent vellum, then attaching the two layers, either with a decorative brad or with simple vellum glue dots. Our response cards will then be printed on "Aqua" cardstock (read: akin to Tiffany Blue and David's Bridal "Pool"), and the two elements will be held together with a pretty ribbon of approximately the same color. The response cards will be accompanied by white envelopes, while the entire invitation package will arrive in a pearly/shiny "Aqua" envelope.
I designed the invitation elements using http://www.scrapblog.com/ because I liked their bride and groom image best, as well as the font called "Apricot." It's just whimsical enough while still retaining a slight bit of formality. Best of all, I can practice because PaperandMore sells samples of all of their products at about 50 cents a page! I ordered my samples, which arrived in three days, and I love the quality! I have enough of everything to print out two samples, so pretty soon I'll be going around to various places (such as Kinkos and Staples) to find out who will print on vellum and cardstock and how much they'll charge.
Here are the base images I'm working from:
