Happy Tuesday everyone!  This week I’m out of town on a blog field trip, which I can’t wait to tell you all about next week!  While I’m on the road I’ve got lots of fun things lined up for you, including a bunch of gorgeous real wedding invitations and a fabulous giveaway!  First up this week, a beautiful wedding invitation from Bryn at Paperfinger.  The invitation suite was letterpress printed in elegant black and white, with Bryn’s lovely calligraphy and illustrations:

From Bryn: Ana wanted something that felt metropolitan and contemporary – nothing too frilly.  We decided that focusing on the reception site, none other than the Gramercy Park Hotel, would be a great approach.  I love drawing street scenes and neighborhood views and have been incorporating that perspective in a lot of invitations.

The wedding location is often a great way to capture the style and spirit of the couple.  This hotel is situated on a beautiful block facing Gramercy Park, so we made that view the focus of the invitation while using a clean, modern calligraphy style that was a perfect match for Ana and Frederick.

I had a lot of fun zooming into Google Maps street-level view to find details for the drawing.  The technology is amazing and makes this kind of illustration so much easier.  From the comfort of my studio, I can get just the right angle on the street or zoom in to see what the park fence is actually like up close.

The fence itself was so appealing a graphic that I decided to tie it together with the reply postcard so that the two pieces could actually fit together as a diptych.

Ana was a self-proclaimed non-fussy, “no hearts” kind of girl, but we were both so excited after the invitations were printed (letterpress, black ink) that we couldn’t help but hug!

The invitation was printed on super-thick and luxurious cotton paper – I love Bryn’s crisp black and white illustrations and the texture of the letterpress impression on the back of the invitation.  Gorgeous work as always Bryn!

{all photos by me}