DIY Programs: The Inside

It's been a while since a DIY post, so today I'm going to share how I made our programs, in case anyone out there wants to copy a somewhat complicated, but very pretty, project.


I immersed myself in loads of inspiration photos, and ultimately decided I wanted a 6 x 6 square booklet, with lace details.

I started with the insides of the program, brainstorming content and page size. Based on our program cover size of 6x6, I wanted the inside pages to be 5.5 x 5.5 when folded, to leave a margin. That meant the two page spread would be 5.5 tall x 11 inches wide on the computer screen. I planned to print these at home on 8.5 x 11 paper, so I knew I would need to leave a large bottom margin that I would later cut off.

So I opened a Microsoft Word document, set my page to landscape, and set my margins to .3 on the left and right, .4 on top, and 2.5 on the bottom. I formatted the page to have two columns.


I wanted four pages in the program:
1. Order of ceremony
2. Wedding participants
3. Explanation of traditions (we are interfaith, so the explanation helps if anyone's unfamiliar with something)
4. Thanks/In remembrance


I scribbled a little mini booklet on a piece of paper and folded it to see where everything needed to lay when printed in order to fold correctly, and came up with this order.

Printing these was a breeze. I wanted to print double sided, so Mr. B loaded his printer up, printed 225 copies of the first page, turned everything upside down and backwards (you may want to do a few test prints to see how your printer works), and reprinted the with page 2 on the back. We used resume paper, as it is not see through, and gives the programs a nice heft.

Then, we had to cut off the extra big margin on the bottom. That took a cutting board, razor, and a little bit of time. (And a Sam Adams to keep from boredom).

When it was done, I used a bone folder to fold the programs in half, and we wound up with the finished insides: 

Open inside spread

Back page- thanking our parents and remembering deceased grandparents

When they were done, I stacked them up and placed one of my heaviest shower gifts on top of them to keep them nice and flat.

I plan to be assemble these this weekend, and will post the finished product then!