Wedding Maps on Invitations

[musincy]

I''ve seen so many cute invitations on here lately, especially the DIY ones. I''m always so impressed with the maps that are included on them... how do you have that done?? Do you make the map somehow? I''m so confused about how that works, but I love the way they look.

Any ideas would be helpful

 

[aprilcait]

Unfortunately, I don''t have any advice on how to add maps to an invitation. I know: "thanks, Aprilcait, for totally not answering my question"... you''re welcome!

Anyway, we had directions and maps on our wedding website and that worked PERFECTLY, as people could print directions for themselves, etc. We used Bella Pictures for our photography and they were running some promotion that offered clients 1 year+ of a free wedding website; it was super easy to design and mantain. I absolutely recommend a wedding website, if you don''t have one already. It enables you to provide registry info without having to rely on word-of-mouth and really helps minimize calls and emails with repeat questions (i.e.: "What should I wear to the wedding?", "Where are you registered?", "How do I get to the ceremony site?", etc.).

 

[ladyciel]

I made my own map using adobe illustrator, but you could follow the same idea using a lot of different programs that allow you to have layers (or one picture on top of another). You could probably do it in powerpoint if you had to! I found the area I wanted on my map using google maps, I hit printscreen, and then pasted the map into illustrator as the bottom layer. Then, working on higher layers using various drawing and text tools, I traced over the important roads and labeled everything. When I was done tracing, I deleted the google map layer and made all my final edits. I found little symbols for the ceremony (wedding bells), reception (wedding cake), etc by just searching in word''s clipart and online.

Hope this helps!

 

[newbie124]

There are some guides available on Weddingmapper.com

 

[CrownJewel]

Hey musincy, I started with weddingmaps.com and tried to follow their DIY instructions but they made my head spin. It took several hours for me to finally complete my maps. (I thought it would take an hour max...haha...I thought WRONG).

So this is how I finally succeeded:
1. Google mapped my reception location. Printed it out on 8.5"x11" paper.
2. I put a blank piece of paper on top of the google map and highlighted the important roads with a black sharpie marker (medium thickness). Using the text directions from the venue website, I figured out the important roads where most of my guests would be traveling on. I used a thinner marker to make circles for the highway numbers.
3. Scanned the line drawing into Photoshop.
4. Using the textbox option, I labeled the roads.
5. Printed it out onto felt texture paper (would not recommend this type of paper, because my laser printer ink rubs off it too easily).

Final result (I used green tulle instead of tissue to separate the invitation pieces):

 

[musincy]

Wow, thanks for all the great ideas! I think I''ll be able to handle that

 

[Amandine]

If you want the hand drawn look, I just printed the Google map out and using tracing paper, traced it. I then scanned it, cleaned it up in Photoshop, and printed on my "cigar" paper. I plan to post my invites today or tomorrow, so you can see the finished product there.

 

[jasontb]

I used a vector free vector graphics program called Inkscape. It''s not all that easy to use at first, but you get used to it. The others above look very nice, so you might consider their approaches...unless you don''t have the Adobe tools they used.

 

[gtn]

we made ours using illustrator also. You could also use other programs (powerpoint, paint, etc.) to do it as well. The key to doing the maps is to make sure you keep it simple. Only note the big streets, natural markers (rivers, lakes), interstates/highways, and it makes it so much easier. It doesn''t need to be "to scale" either.