Oh So Beautiful Paper

I absolutely melted when I saw this beautiful wedding over on Brooklyn Bride a few weeks ago.  Not only are the bride and groom, Brynna and Eric, cute as a button – but Brynna DIY’d all of her wedding stationery, including her Save the Dates, invitations, ceremony programs, and favors!  Brynna was kind enough to share a few photos of her invitations, programs, and favors – as well as some of the background behind her inspiration and design process, so let’s jump right in!

{Brynna + Eric}

From Brynna:  Our wedding began with an idea of black and white with several shades of red and orange.  I loved the ideas of damask, of bold vintage patterns, and of lace-inspired detail.  Over the 9 months Eric and I planned our wedding, these ideas evolved a bit, and grew to include grey and yellow, which we featured prominently.

{the lovely yellow bouquets}

The feel became a fantastic mix of vintage and very modern:  my bridesmaids wore 50′s-style swiss dotted party dresses and carried yellow bouquets with plenty of billy buttons, and the groomsmen wore grey suits with buttery yellow floral pocket squares.  We wrapped black lace around candles and stood in front of long, thin, curtain panels with birch trees on them.  After we found the birch curtains, birch became a theme throughout our invitations and the whole wedding — the ring bearers even carried pieces of birch bark instead of ring pillows.  The paper products we came up with followed from all this inspiration, and fit it perfectly.

{Brynna + Eric gave their guests local Portland coffee as favors, using labels that matched their invitations and ceremony programs}

I decided to design all our paper, which was a big task.  The Save the Date came first, and had grey and red along with black and white.  We sent it in a bold red reply card envelope from Paper Zone.  We printed almost 200 of them on basic white cardstock on my home printer and had them cut at our school’s print room for $1 — total.

{Save the Date cards}

For our invitations and programs, we used a bold, simple black and white theme with a mix of western and grungy cursive fonts.  This vision was, admittedly, somewhat out of convenience:  we wanted to do everything ourselves and save money wherever possible, and using only black ink seemed like a good way to do that.  However, we also love the look of high contrast statement pieces, and black and white fit the bill — and the rest of our color scheme.

{birch trees were the primary design element on the wedding invitation}

The invitations were the hardest part of the process, since there were so many different pieces and we were working with photos of trees and leaves.  We wanted to make them looked “sketched,” similar to the effect I used on our Save the Date photo, which turned out to be a bit of a chore — I went through many, many photos, and the editing was frustrating.  In the end, we were very happy with the result.

{the enclosed rsvp card}

We took the files to FedEx/Kinko’s and had them printed on plain white cardstock.  Eric’s main request for the invitation suite was that we use a western font.  We played with lots and lots of fonts until we found the right mix of vintage and modern we were looking for.  We mounted the main invitation piece on pieces of black card stock (pre-cut from Paper Zone) and mailed the invitation set in clear vellum envelopes.

{the full invitation packet, including the main invitation, reception card, and rsvp card}

The programs were the most fun.  I decided that I wanted to sew them together and make covers from scrapbook paper, in bright patterns within our scheme.   Originally we wanted just 2 or 3 paper designs, but we ended up short on time and decided to just use what Paper Zone had in stock, so we used many more patterns.  I loved how this turned out, and how it tied in a few other colors while still sticking to the main scheme.

{the patterned ceremony program covers}

After toiling once again with Illustrator for a few months, we had a 6-page square program we were happy with.  The pages were all regular bright white printer paper, printed in black and white and sandwiched between folded halves of scrapbook paper.  I sewed them rather quickly using my machine at home.

{the finished ceremony programs}

We were very, very happy with the paper elements for our wedding.  We loved that every single component was our own:  our own ideas, our own labor of love.  We wanted our wedding to be a reflection of our personalities and our faith, and designing our whole wedding was the best and most rewarding way to do that.  It gave us the freedom to say exactly what we wanted with the text — no middle man, no mistakes, and no regrets.  I was changing things right up until the week before the wedding!  And now, after the fact, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I totally agree with Brynna – the best part about both DIY and completely custom invitations is that every single component really is your own and represents your own ideas, allowing your personalities to shine right on through.  For more photos from Brynna and Eric’s lovely wedding, check them out over on Brooklyn Bride!

Thanks so much Brynna for sharing your invitations and your DIY process with us!

{top two photos by Tyler Gould via Brooklyn Bride, all other photos by Brynna}

1. Delilah says:

   07/02/2009 at 3:43 PM

   The programs are genius!! So creative! I really love the invitations too.
2. Pattie
   Twitter: MyStructuredC
   says:

   07/02/2009 at 10:44 AM

   That is amazing and everything came out so great
   Hopefully I can be that crafty when my time comes!

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1. Birch Bark Wedding Ideas | Wedding Guide says:

   01/07/2011 at 6:05 AM

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