craftgrrl | wedding invitation ideas?

Hi grrls,

I'll cut to the chase. I'm getting married on October 9th and have not yet made my invitations. Hey, I've been busy! Anyway, I have some ideas but am having a hard time getting started, so I thought that if I shared my ideas with this group, you might be able to help me expand them into something that will work.

Date: Saturday, October 9th
Location: a vineyard in Ithaca
Time: 5pm
Reception to follow, also at vineyard, at 6pm in tasting room

We're only inviting around 60 people.

I really like an Escher drawing called Bond of Union. I have a couple of poster size versions that I printed at my old job and wrote our names under the faces and our wedding date in the ball in the center... and now I am working on a photoshopped version of that to put on the invitations. His mother thinks it's a "weird" idea, but I don't care what she thinks. We like it. Any suggestions on incorporating this idea?

Because of the time constraints I'm working under, I was thinking that a simple postcard-type invitation would have to do. But gah, I just don't know. And I have no idea about the way it should be worded. As I look into it I'm finding that a lot of times the bride's family does the inviting, but that's not the case with us. I'm rather freaking out because this isn't something I want to half-ass, but at the same time I need to be somewhat utilitarian about it just to get the job done.

I don't want to just have something printed. It's important that we be more personal than that with our guests. We're not having our extended families there so that we can invite the people who really mean something to us.

I'm open to anything, really, as long as it's something we can handle with everything else we're juggling right now! I'd appreciate any ideas - I just need some inspirational nudges! Thank you guys so much in advance...

And let me just slip in this little bit of advice to you all: never start your business and get married in the same year!