Apr29Real Invitations — Allison and Mark

I’m com­pletely thrilled to be fea­tur­ing this week’s set of real invi­ta­tions.  Alli­son and Mark were mar­ried last July, and when I saw their wed­ding on Snip­pet & Ink a cou­ple of months back I imme­di­ately fell in love with their unique wed­ding pro­grams, and so I asked if they would be will­ing to share their invi­ta­tions as well.

Alli­son and Mark’s wed­ding was just brim­ming with cre­ativ­ity, and their wed­ding invi­ta­tions and ephemera are def­i­nitely a reflec­tion of their com­bined cre­ative tal­ents.  Alli­son was kind enough to send over some infor­ma­tion about their design process, and here’s what she had to say:

From Alli­son: We got mar­ried at Atwood Ranch, a horse ranch in Glen Ellen, Cal­i­for­nia sur­rounded by moun­tains and trees (includ­ing wan­der­ing cats) and had our recep­tion in the property’s barn (filled with chirp­ing swal­lows).  Since the loca­tion was such an impor­tant part of the day, it seemed only nat­ural that our ele­ments really reflect the spirit of the ranch, the warmth of the day and just the gen­uine joy the both of us felt about each other.

We didn’t start out with a theme or an idea, and because each piece was done at dif­fer­ent time dur­ing our plan­ning the vari­ety became part of the charm and the col­ors and hand-lettering tied it all together.  All we knew was that we weren’t into any­thing that looked too per­fect or “designed” or into just stamp­ing our mono­gram onto each piece.

Orig­i­nally we started out with a tighter color palette of yel­lows and greys, but the fab­ric we bought to use for the table run­ners became a big part of our designs and our color palette grew to include about every shade of yel­low and orange and some gray. We chose about 10 dif­fer­ent fab­rics to be sewed into table run­ners and we scanned them to use on the save the dates as part of the let­ter­forms and they became the enve­lope lin­ers for the invites.

All the hand-lettering was done by both of us, which is why not all of it matches.  Also, we designed so many things so close to our wed­ding date, hand-lettering was our only option in terms of time and budget!

When we got to the chair labels, we decided upon a loopy cur­sive because we hadn’t done that type of let­ter­ing before and it was faster to write than the painstak­ingly printed escort cards we had made ear­lier (in the week!).

Mark and I are graphic design­ers, but we also do a lot of copy­writ­ing, so we paid a lot of atten­tion to how every­thing was writ­ten so that it sounded like us (mean­ing there was some humor or sweet­ness in every­thing).  For instance, the brunch invites were designed and worded exactly like the wed­ding invites except our names were reversed and Mark’s par­ents’ names were put first since they were host­ing it.

How­ever we also made other cute changes that you had to read it care­fully to notice (on the wed­ding day invi­ta­tion my par­ents invited guests to the wed­ding with “happy hearts” while Mark’s par­ents invited guests to the brunch with “hun­gry hearts.”  It also fea­tured a stack of pan­cakes instead of hearts.

Design­ing all of our mate­ri­als was prob­a­bly one of the most stress­ful parts of our wed­ding, but we wouldn’t have been happy with any­thing that didn’t have our stamp on it.  Every­one com­mented that the wed­ding really felt like us and I think it did.

I def­i­nitely agree Alli­son!  I love how the design through­out the wed­ding sta­tionery, from the Save the Dates to the invi­ta­tions to the pro­grams and seat­ing cards, feels com­pletely per­sonal while main­tain­ing a con­sis­tent, even if slightly mis-matched, design approach.  Every­thing is just so, so lovely.

If you haven’t already seen the pho­tos from Alli­son and Mark’s wed­ding, don’t for­get to swing by Snip­pet & Ink to check out the rest of the beau­ti­ful photos.

{all pho­tos by Shelly Kroeger from Union Pho­tog­ra­phy — thanks so much Alli­son and Shelly!}

Comments
16 Responses to “Real Invitations — Allison and Mark”

1. Kim @ Inspired Goodness says:

   May 14, 2009 at 3:59 PM

   Awe­some, awe­some, awesome!
2. Jen says:

   May 3, 2009 at 2:11 PM

   Wow, I’m so in love with details of this wed­ding and all the hand­made paper­goods! I think the save-the-date might be my favorite part.
3. Karen says:

   May 3, 2009 at 10:50 AM

   I would love to know where the hand plac­ard hold­ers on the table are from … do you have any idea? Thanks in advance for any info you could provide!
4. Allison says:

   May 2, 2009 at 9:24 PM

   Brit
   i’m glad you like them! we got them made through busy beaver but­ton com­pany. http://www.busybeaver.net/
5. Brit says:

   May 1, 2009 at 5:28 PM

   How did you make the but­tons? I would LOVE to do some­thing sim­i­lar, as we are using cir­cles through­out the wedding.
6. Lindsey says:

   May 1, 2009 at 1:55 PM

   Beau­ti­ful! What fonts were used on the Wed­ding and Brunch Invites? I love the juxtaposition.
7. Michelle says:

   May 1, 2009 at 9:11 AM

   Wow, adorable. I love how every­thing is kind of mis­matched, hand­made feel­ing. Using dif­fer­ent stamps has such a nice effect. Love it a lot.
8. Lisa says:

   April 30, 2009 at 10:54 PM

   I had the honor of get­ting one of these invi­ta­tions and they were even more beau­ti­ful in per­son. I kept every piece. One of the pins is on my purse and the escort cards are hang­ing on my closet door. The invi­ta­tions were so per­sonal + cre­ative and so was the sweet wedding.
9. Kelly Oshiro says:

   April 30, 2009 at 8:10 PM

   I love the typog­ra­phy lay­out and the colors.
10. 100 Layer Cake says:

    April 30, 2009 at 5:20 PM

    o.m.g. these are AMAZING.
    So cute and per­fectly unique. thanks for post­ing these nole!
11. cevd says:

    April 29, 2009 at 9:41 PM

    wow
12. elise says:

    April 29, 2009 at 7:18 PM

    this is just the coolest.
13. Kathleen says:

    April 29, 2009 at 1:36 PM

    I ADORE this. Espe­cially the tex­ture and char­ac­ter and mixes of hand­writ­ten (or hand painted?) type.
14. Chris:: c is for charmed says:

    April 29, 2009 at 12:57 PM

    i just got so excited i had to quickly scroll through the post to look at all of the images — then go back and actu­ally read it. LOOOOOOVE these soo much! ; )
15. Maggie @ Eat, Drink, Marry says:

    April 29, 2009 at 10:47 AM

    So spe­cial and real! Lov­ing this.
16. Vane says:

    April 29, 2009 at 10:30 AM

    i just love the mis­matched hand­writ­ing! so quirky and fun!

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