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:

Picture 1


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.):

La Vie Photo15


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!

La Vie Photo25
 
La Vie Photo23 

La Vie Photo27

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:

La Vie Photo28

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. 

La Vie Photo31

La Vie Photo36

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:

La Vie Photo14

Postcard 1

{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:

Shuttle Info

{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:

La Vie Photo13

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}

Liesl + Jeremy’s Red and White Floral Wedding Invitations

I’m super-excited about today’s real invitations – I’ve been hoping to feature the paper ephemera from Liesl & Jeremy’s wedding ever since I fell in love with Liesl’s gorgeous wedding dress after seeing photos from their wedding on Once Wed back in October.  Liesl and Jeremy, as well as Kim from La Vie Photography, have been kind enough to send over tons of photographs and background behind the paper ephemera from their wedding.

First up, Liesl and Jeremy’s Save the Date postcards and gorgeous wedding invitations:

Our save-the-date card was the first thing a lot of people saw — it featured an iguana (Hank) climbing the Space Needle, and the exhortation, “Save the date! Or else the city will be destroyed by a giant iguana!!”  The design drew from the World’s Fair as well as the classically comical monster movies of old Hollywood:

On the opposing side we had the necessary details as well as a strip of photos of us as if from an upright photo booth, bordered by the film strip details to keep the art deco feel, as well as a few other jokes that our friends and family might recognize. We thought this really set the tone for the wedding:


{design and image via Liesl & Jeremy Elson}

Liesl & Jeremy worked with a local stationer in Seattle to select their wedding invitations.  They settled on a beautiful booklet fold-out layout, with the main wedding invitation on the left and an invitation to their rehearsal dinner on the right. RSVP cards were enclosed inside with matching envelopes:

La Vie Photo7


From Liesl: The wedding invitations were a beautiful coral red color inspired by my secret desire to walk down the aisle in Scarlett O’Hara’s sexy red velvet dress from Gone With the Wind.

La Vie Photo5

La Vie Photo2

La Vie Photo1
{photos by La Vie Photography}

I also completely adore the custom Ketubah and polaroid guest book that Liesl and Jeremy incorporated into their wedding:

La Vie Photo17
{the custom ketubah was made by Cara Buchalter at Octavine Illustration}
La Vie Photo18

La Vie Photo12

I’ve got lots more lovely ephemera from Liesl & Jeremy’s wedding to share with you – so check back a bit later for more photos and design inspiration!

{except where noted, all photographs by La Vie Photography}

Paper flowers on the runway…

Wow.  These photos of the paper flowers lining the runway and draped throughout the venue of the Chanel Spring 2008 Haute Couture are just stunning:


 

From the Chanel website: The grandiose décor was made up of monochrome arrangements of roses, daisies, leaves and petals winding their way up around the room's 32 impressive columns and draped over the railings of the entry stairway where the models appeared. […] All in all, there were 7,000 handmade paper flowers, which took a total of 4,800 hours of work to assembly, 4,000 m2 of paper were needed to create these ephemeral sculptures, all in one color, or more aptly the non-color preference for Mlle Chanel.

And a couple of photos of the paper tiaras worn by the models during the show:

Also according to the Chanel website, paper actually served as the inspiration for this collection, with Karl Lagerfeld quoted as saying "I love paper! Everything begins on paper. Without paper I would be lost!"

Excellent. And so, so lovely.

{via poppytalk and this is glamorous}

Maddy + Devon’s Vintage-Inspired Letterpress Wedding Invitations

Maddy, of the fabulous wedding blog Inspired Bride, and her fiancé Devon are planning an afternoon wedding for the end of May.  When I first discovered that Maddy is a graphic designer and was planning to design her own letterpress wedding invitations, I begged her to let me feature them here.  Well, the invitations are just in from the printer, so you’re getting the first look here!  Here’s the full invitation suite:

pink-bird-silhouette-letterpress-wedding-invitations

Maddy also sent over some information about the inspiration behind the design.  Here’s what Maddy had to say:

Since I’m a graphic designer, I knew from the outset that I would design my own invitation.  The concept we came up with from the outset was “vintage modern” – we have very contemporary taste in general but wanted to bring in antique elements as a nod to something old and something new.  My dress, for example, is an antique champagne color, and has vintage style detailing:

pink-bird-silhouette-letterpress-wedding-invitations

pink-bird-silhouette-letterpress-wedding-invitations

The color scheme was originally pulled from Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.  The first palette was pink, peach, and antique gold.  The color scheme was modified to pink, green and antique gold after my parents decided they didn’t want to wear pink.  The color change gives it a little more of a modern spin, so I think it still works pretty well.  For the purposes of the invitation, I wanted to keep the palette simple and restrict it to only two of the colors.

pink-bird-silhouette-letterpress-wedding-invitations

pink-bird-silhouette-letterpress-wedding-invitations

You’ll notice the invitation envelope is missing from the suite.  All of my envelopes were directly shipped to my calligrapher, Laura Hooper, who is matching the Lucia Script in an antique gold.  They look exactly like the RSVP envelopes, except the addressing is on the front.

pink-bird-silhouette-letterpress-wedding-invitations

pink-bird-silhouette-letterpress-wedding-invitations

I went through over fifty designs before I got to this one.  I knew the “something old” I wanted was in the printing method and the “something new” was in the typography and overall graphic treatment.  The typefaces I used were Avenir and Lucia Script, which I thought paired together well without looking too casual.

pink-bird-silhouette-letterpress-wedding-invitations

The invitations were printed by Hello!Lucky, and I would highly recommend them to any graphic designer looking for someone to letterpress his or her work.  Alex from HL was so incredibly helpful and patient.  She was a great resource and was happy to send me any samples I needed or answer any questions I had.

pink-bird-silhouette-letterpress-wedding-invitations

pink-bird-silhouette-letterpress-wedding-invitations

In addition to sending over these gorgeous photos of her invitations, Maddy was also kind enough to include some fabulous advice for other brides thinking about designing their own invitations:

If you’re planning to design your own invitation, I’d highly recommend researching your printing options first. Certain design elements were scaled back or modified because of letterpress limitations. If you know who is printing it before designing it, you’ll have less of a chance of having to let go of design elements you’re attached to later on. Also, make an inspiration folder with images of designs you like but aren’t totally you. Reference these whenever you’re having a design block so you can recall what you’re looking for in your ideal invite.

I love the chic and simple elegance of the design – from the pink and gold color palette to the bird graphic that is just so perfect for a springtime invitation!  Thanks so much Maddy for sharing your invitations, and for sharing such helpful insights into your design process!

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

{all photos by Maddy Susser}

Valentines from Hello Handmade Paperie

The creative juices have been flowing again at Hello Handmade Paperie – and just in time for Valentine's Day!  Shanna and Betsy have created a beautiful letterpress Valentine's Day card, which can be customized with a personal message (in Betsy's beautiful calligraphy!) to your sweetheart.  What a lovely and thoughtful way to tell someone how much you care about them:

Fox postcard front

Fox postcard back

Fox postcard detail

Fox postcard enelopes

Available right here.

{thanks Shanna and Betsy!}