{fabric + buttons}

Darci from With This Ring just completed a fabulous DIY series featuring the most adorable purple floral fabric and buttons.  I'm particularly smitten with this project for DIY fabric-enclosed invitations, and this project for DIY favor boxes:

So pretty!  I love, love those invitations.  Definitely check out the full tutorials – including a few other DIY projects – over at With This Ring.

{images via With This Ring}

Jamie + Ben’s Kraft Paper Desert Wedding Invitations

I love, love the invitations from Jaime (and her husband Ben) of A Desert Fete.  When I first saw Jamie and Ben’s invitations, I was completely struck by how they totally embodied their Joshua Tree wedding and reflected Jamie and Ben’s architectural and musical influences.  Jamie designed and printed the invitations herself using her trusty Gocco and a home printer.  The invitation suite included a main invitation, printed front and back, an RSVP postcard (both printed on heavy weight museum board), and map enclosure, all of which were bound together using artists tape.  Jaime was kind enough to send over a bit about the design and inspiration process (during her Spring Break no less!), so I’m turning it over to her!

From Jamie: So much of our wedding’s style came from my husband’s request to have red roses.  I am not sure why he was so sure of this, he has never shown a particular preference for roses.  He mentioned something about ‘desert rose.’  I think this must be a music reference…

Desertfete

When we chose our desert location I immediately thought of succulents and a crisp modern aesthetic, but the roses took us down a kind of rustic western/vintage cowboy road.  Ben is a musician and our love for music is a huge part of our lives.  Part of the allure of Joshua Tree for us (where we were married) is around the legend of late musician Gram Parson’s, whose style was very rock & roll/cowboy meets… glam?

With this in mind we then poured through graphic design books and ultimately fell in love with the style of Hatch Show Print.  I started with that idea and then added romantic flourishes.  (I did most of the designing in Adobe Illustrator, a skill I have picked up while studying architecture.)  We became Gocco crazy, and loved the vintage-esque patina that resulted in our lack of experience.  It was perfect.

Desertfete3

For the main cards we used large sheets of museum board (cut to size by kinko’s machines).  We didn’t want to try and Gocco the maps as our inability to do good detail meant they might not communicate as well, but we wanted them to look intentionally different rather than just as an after thought.  I had previously found a roll (like, hundreds of feet long roll) of really really thin paper, like super thin crate paper the same color as kraft paper (At an industrial salvage store. FOR A DOLLAR). We used our regular canon printer and printed the maps I made in illustrator onto the kraft paper, then folded them up (like a map) and stuck them into a mini envelope.

We wanted the whole set to feel like a little object, so we banded all the cards and the mini envelope together with artist tape that is used on the backs of canvases and is self adhesive when you wet it.   We kept it really simple, this was especially important to Ben, every time I tried too complicate something, or add more elements and extras, he would reign me in on the concept of simplicity.

Adesertfete3

If either one of us had made these without the other ones input the designs would have been wildly different, so it is pretty neat to see the result of a true collaboration.  That and the influence of place, again they would have been so different but for a different venue, I think really made these what they are.

Sigh.  I love how element of the invitations, from the colors to the paper choice to the printing method, is so perfectly suited for Jaime and Ben’s wedding.  Thank you so much, Jaime, for sharing your invitations with us (and for putting up with all of my pestering over the past few months)!

{all images by Jaime/A Desert Fete}

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}

Erica + Patrick’s Modern Folk Art Wedding Invitations

I am SO excited to be able to share these invitations with you!  This invitation set is one of my all time favorites – I literally had to resist the urge to do a complete re-design of my own invitations when I saw them.  Erica of the lovely blog thoughtful day had an absolutely beautiful destination wedding in Jamaica this past May, and her invitations perfectly captured the design aesthetic for her wedding.  Erica was kind enough to send over a few additional photos of her invitations and other stationery elements:

Invite
{the main invitation}

Wknd_itinerary
{the weekend itinerary enclosure}

Envelopment
{envelopes from Paper-Source with letterpress tags}

Envelope_liners
{liners for the external envelopes}

folk-art-wedding-invitation-inspiration

The image above served as the design inspiration for Erica’s wedding stationery – you can see clearly how the inspiration translated into the actual invitation and Save the Date design:

Savethedates2
{the final, printed Save the Dates – I’m completely in love with the sewn-on patterned backing!}

After her wedding, Erica posted a few pieces of advice for other brides, including this very useful tidbit:

Pick your colors. Then pick your inspiration. I knew my color story before I knew anything else, it helped set the tone and feel of what I wanted our wedding to be. Light, fun, and whimsical. Above is the cover of a vintage American folk art book and to the right is our save the date artwork, it set the tone for the rest of the stationery suite.

You can also see how these design elements were carried over into the RSVP card, thank-you cards, and place cards:

Rsvp
{RSVP card}

Thank_you {thank-you cards}

ThoughtfulDay3{place cards}

lemon-yellow-wedding-invitation-inspiration

The lemon centerpiece from Rebecca Thuss in the upper left served as the basic inspiration for Erica’s wedding color scheme and lemon theme, inspiring many of the details at the wedding.  You can see how the lemon theme continues with the lemon drop favors and other wedding details:

Erica3

Lemon_drops

Thanks so much for sharing your gorgeous wedding stationery Erica!  If you haven’t already, you can see more from Erica’s beautiful wedding on thoughtfulday.  Erica will also be launching her own line of wedding invitations in January, which will include both custom work and her own line of new designs.  Erica will be back in touch when her new site goes live – and I can’t wait to see her new designs!

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

{all images by Erica of thoughtfulday}

Place card & escort card ideas… continued

As promised… here are a few more ideas for place cards and escort cards!  First up – escort cards hung from a clothesline have been a staple of outdoor weddings for the past several years, but are also really easy to customize to suit your wedding style and theme:


{images above by Bethalee Photography via In Style Weddings, from brides.com via Snippet & Ink}

Instead of hanging escort cards in the air, these escort cards are attached via miniature clothespins and twine along a flat table surface:


{via Wedding Paper Divas}

One charming wedding featured escort cards in the form of a handwritten note to each guest from the bride and groom – such a wonderful and personal touch!


{via Bird Dog Press}

If you plan to work with a calligrapher for your place cards (or even plan on doing the calligraphy yourself), stamps are a great way to dress up standard tented place cards. Paper-Source carries a great selection of stamps featuring floral patterns, animals, and other designs, but you can also try searching ebay for vintage stamps.


{via Bird Dog Press}

If you’re not planning to use calligraphy, try Kathryn’s suggestion of using individual rubber stamps to spell out guests’ names, or try using an every day object, such as these old playing cards, and label them using pre-printed or hand-written names on store-bought labels:

Stamppc_2

Playing_card_pc
{both via Snippet & Ink}

Continuing the rubber stamps idea, I’ve always held a particular fondness for this constellation idea, as well as using small bunches of lavender as escort cards:

  

Martha Stewart Weddings

Last for today, in addition to making fun Save the Date cards, post cards can also serve as a fun option for escort cards, with guests’ names and table number written in place of an address:


{via Elizabeth Anne Designs}

I’d love to hear your ideas – what are you doing for your escort cards or place cards?

{images via their respective sources}