Double Duty Semi-DIY Programs

I knew early on that I wanted programs that doubled as fans. Although the historical weather for Savannah in November is usually in the high 60's to low 70's, you never really know how hot an outdoor wedding in the South can get. Better safe than sorry!

I originally planned to make my program fans from scratch. I set out to find inspiration and quickly ran across these adorable program fans on Etsy:

Source

I soon realized that finding a die cast or card stock in that shape would either be super exhausting or very expensive (or both!). I'm sure there are ways to get that shape that I never even thought of. But with time running out, I can't be too picky these days.

I finally settled on the fact that my program fans would have to be at least semi-homemade. I kept my inspiration photos and scoured the internet for the closest-looking template. And that's when I found these!

Source

Not only did they still have an interesting shape, they were hella cheap! $30 for 50 fans! Cha-ching! A few clicks later, these babies were on their way to my house.

Once they arrived, I downloaded the accompanying printing template and got to work on a custom design for the fans. Working off my inspiration photo (in Powerpoint), I first created a sort of "crest" with our monogram.

Scroll graphic from istockphoto

I then imported the crest into the Word template and began writing out the front (title) and back (ceremony program outline) sections of the fans. I used "Century Gothic" for the brown text and "Edwardian Script" for the pink text.

I would share the back of the fans with you but I was too lazy and didn't feel like blurring out all of the personal info. I can assure you that it looks very similar to the inspiration photo though. ;) Besides, here's a photo of the front!

I got a little camera happy too early because I ended up going with the brown outlined crest instead of the pink. I was just too darned excited at how great they were coming out! I'm also probably going to switch out this lace ribbon for some that is less stiff (I had this ribbon laying around for, oh, a couple of years). The fans will have a home in a basket just like the one I used for our flip flops next to our ceremony refreshments.

Did any of your semi-DIY projects turn out way better than expected? Better yet, did they save you time, money, and/or unnecessary stress?