Amy + John’s 3D Decoder Surprise Wedding Invitations

Happy Monday everyone! We’re starting the week with these unique 3D invitations from Amy of Saint Gertrude Design + Letterpress. After several years together, Amy and her now-husband decided to finally tie the knot. With their friends and family already gathered together to celebrate their daughter’s 2nd birthday, they handed out decoder glasses and surprised everyone with a wedding! How fun!

3D Decoder Surprise Wedding Invitations by Saint Gertrude Design via Oh So Beautiful Paper (6)

From Amy: Despite being a wedding invitation designer, I’m not your typical ‘get married’ kinda gal. I love a wedding… but as a guest. The idea of ever being a bride was such a daunting prospect that my partner and I just kinda skipped over it, made a home together, had our daughter and were living in happily unmarried bliss. But 2012 dealt us a few blows and what came out of a really rough year was the realisation of the strong and unconditional love we had for each other. The only thing that stood in the way of us ‘being married’ was ‘getting married’.

3D Decoder Surprise Wedding Invitations by Saint Gertrude Design via Oh So Beautiful Paper (5)

On the 29th of December, our daughter Hazel’s 2nd birthday, we hijacked her party and got married. I wanted to create invitations that held a hidden message and also had a very subtle theme of ‘written in the stars’. Our guests received these invitations in the mail and on a beautiful summer day, a small crowd gathered in our back yard for what they thought a kid’s birthday party.

3D Decoder Surprise Wedding Invitations by Saint Gertrude Design via Oh So Beautiful Paper (4)

3D Decoder Surprise Wedding Invitations by Saint Gertrude Design via Oh So Beautiful Paper (3)

At 2:30, we handed out some envelopes, inside which were the invitations but this time they came with 3D decoder glasses that revealed this birthday was also a wedding. My friend and photographer captured some beautiful moments of our families realising what was going on. Our unsuspecting sisters were our witnesses and we danced our first dance (to John Lennon’s ‘Across The Universe’), not on a dance floor in front of 100 people, but in our garage with just the last few guests standing.

3D Decoder Surprise Wedding Invitations by Saint Gertrude Design via Oh So Beautiful Paper (2)

3D Decoder Surprise Wedding Invitations by Saint Gertrude Design via Oh So Beautiful Paper (1)

Thanks so much Amy, and congratulations!

Design and Letterpress Printing: Saint Gertrude Design + Letterpress

Check out the Designer Rolodex for more tal­ented wed­ding invi­ta­tion design­ers and the real invi­ta­tions gallery for more wedding invitation ideas!

Photo Credits: Luke Lornie Photography

  1. Wow, this is so fun and creative! I’m very curious how one executes a design suitable for decoding.:) Love the whole package with the ribbon and glasses.

    • Thanks Kristin! Because I printed them on my letterpress, I mixed the red ink by hand while wearing 3D glasses until I got just the right shade. The design part was the hardest – I spent MONTHS tweaking it until the message underneath was completely hidden by the message on top. Amy xo

  2. Thank-you Nole! It was so amazing to walk down the ‘aisle’ (aka the back steps) to a sea of surprised faces… and especially funny in 3D glasses 🙂

  3. This is a seriously cool way to announce a wedding let alone having the imagination and ingenuity to create a 3D design! Very impressive. x

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