Real Invitations - Liesl & Jeremy, Part 2

I'm back with more of the beautiful wedding paper ephemera from Liesl & Jeremy's gorgeous wedding, this time focusing on some of the printed wedding details and online material:

Despite a million other things to do, we decided to put a lot of time
into designing most of our own printed and online materials. This was a
great collaboration, with Liesl having a ton of creative design ideas
and Jeremy with the computer and graphics skills to make it happen.

It
also ended up being a key part of our wedding because it was through
all this stuff that our personalities really showed through – making
the whole wedding seem very us and very unlike a typical wedding. Just
what we were going for!

In addition to the Save the Date postcards, the list of elements that Liesl and Jeremy co-designed is quite extensive:

Wedding web site.
We spent a long time putting this all together and giving it the right
feel. We wanted people to know this was a party, not a boring formal
occasion:

Table name cards. Our reception had 13
tables which, coincidentally, is also the number of ranks in a standard
deck of playing cards. We decided to name each table after a card rank
(Adventurous Aces, Quixotic Queens, Suave Sevens, etc.):

We custom-designed each of the 13
cards that went on the tabletops, finding thematic photos to go with
each card. This took a lot of work but was so worthwhile!

Escort playing cards. First, we got
several decks of custom playing cards printed up. We based it on a
print we found of a hot-air-balloon with someone's name on it; we photoshopped out the old name and replaced it with "Liesl and Jeremy."
We also added a space to write each guest's name:

Seating Chart. The guests would find
the playing card with their name on it and turn it over to reveal the
table where they would be sitting.

Postcards
for out-of-town guests. Each guest received a gift basket with various
goodies (candies, champagne, etc.) and we also enclosed 2 postcards
with custom “Liesl and Jeremy" designs on them:

{bottom photograph by Liesl & Jeremy Elson}

Shuttle
information for out-of-town guests. A simple sheet telling hotel
guests how to use the shuttle between the venue and the hotel; we
decided to print something beautiful and thematic rather than a boring
old photocopied black & white sheet:

{design by Liesl & Jeremy Elson}

Kissing Booth Sign. We designed a sign that directed people to our photo "kissing" booth to take their best kissing shot for us to put into our guest book:

Now that you've seen all the photos – here's what Liesl and Jeremy said to say about the design inspiration behind their wedding ephemera:

We
didn't have one unifying inspiration for our wedding, but rather an
overall feel we wanted to create. We really wanted to avoid any and
all "traditional" wedding themes and ideas because it seemed to us that
so many weddings get lost in formalities and trivial details that can
suck the joy out of the whole experience. We also really wanted it to
be unique so we worked extra hard to break with tradition whenever
possible. So we thought about what was most important to us for our
wedding and we decided that it should be stress-free, incredibly fun,
and wildly inappropriate. A fabulous party for everyone help us
celebrate in style.

We drew most of our inspiration from
vintage French cabarets, burlesque and can-can dancers, the sensational
larger-than-life circuses of the 1920's and 30's, and a bit of the Mad
Hatter's tea party to keep things interesting and unexpected. We had
so many subtle inspirations, many of them very different from each
other, but all with the common art deco theme, even my vintage 1920's
wedding ring. We wanted to do the same for our music so we hired a
traditional Klezmer band (accordion, clarinet, brass) to evoke the
exotic gypsy-esque music played for Jewish wedding celebrations in the
1920's. We chose The Ruins for our venue so it could feel like we'd
descended into our our rabbit hole to a rare undiscovered place. The
backdrop of The Ruins provided a vibrant, eccentric and timeless
setting, and like us, a bit over the top with a few surprises.

We picked out mostly art deco styled ephemera to keep with the classic
vintage feel, but made sure to use the sauciest and most amusing
artwork we could find to create a really wildly entertaining
atmosphere. We wanted to be sure that everywhere our guests looked,
they'd want to laugh and remember that we aren't following any
proscribed set of wedding rules or etiquette, we aren't taking
ourselves too seriously, and we clearly want people to have a good time
WITH us, not around us.

I hope you've all enjoyed Liesl & Jeremy's wedding ephemera as much as I've enjoyed sharing it with you! I love how every design element just oozes a sense of fun and playfulness – while still maintaining a cohesive design approach! For more photos from Liesl & Jeremy's gorgeous wedding, check out the La Vie Photography blog here and here. Thank you so, so much to Liesl and Jeremy for sharing their designs with us – and to Kim at La Vie Photography for sending over so many gorgeous photographs!

{unless noted otherwise, all photographs by La Vie Photography}

Menu

Real Invitations – Liesl & Jeremy, Part 2

You may also enjoy: