Melissa + Graham’s Whimsical Hand Painted Wedding Invitations

I’m always fascinated when artists apply their talents outside of their primary medium, so I was definitely intrigued when textile designer Melissa Kelman sent over her wedding invitations. Melissa was inspired by her love of pattern, florals, and color – all wonderful elements for wedding stationery! Melissa hand painted each design and created rubber stamps with her own calligraphy to use throughout the invitation suite. Gorgeous!

Creative and Whimsical DIY Wedding Invitations and Save the Dates via Oh So Beautiful Paper (6)

From Melissa: I have always had a passion for stationery design and as a professional textile designer I knew I had to create something special for our wedding invitations. The designs were inspired by my love of color, florals and pattern. I was also very inspired by our  venue – The Green Building – in Brooklyn. The building itself has a rustic, industrial feel so incorporating lots of color was a must. As a designer, it is rare that I have a chance to design for myself. My goal was to create something that felt joyful but elegant at the same time.  Each element was designed and painted by myself: it was definitely a labor of love!

Creative and Whimsical DIY Wedding Invitations and Save the Dates via Oh So Beautiful Paper (1)

The save the dates were each hand painted on kraft card stock. I designed a custom stamp using my calligraphy and stamped each one. I love that each one is a little bit different!

Creative and Whimsical DIY Wedding Invitations and Save the Dates via Oh So Beautiful Paper (5) Creative and Whimsical DIY Wedding Invitations and Save the Dates via Oh So Beautiful Paper (4)

The wedding invitations were originally hand painted in gouache and watercolor. I scanned the artwork in and created the layout digitally. For our day-of elements, I hand carved some stamps and stamped each menu with colorful floral motifs. Our favors were small Muji notebooks, stamped with a hand carved pretzel stamp. The pretzel symbolized New York City and Philadelphia: the two cities we lived in together.

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The “bride” and “groom” chair signs were hand painted using gouache on kraft paper. The seating chart was created using a large scrap piece of plexiglass. At an antique store I found a box of old boxing tickets and wrote names and table numbers on the backside. I then used washi tape to attach them to the plexiglass.

Thanks so much Melissa!

Design and Calligraphy: Melissa Kelman

Invitation Printing: Skink Ink Fine Art Printing in Brooklyn, New York

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

Photo Credits: Jillian Bisinger

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