Ooooh, laser engraved wood wedding invitations! For these destination wedding invitations, Courtney from Swiss Cottage Designs paired the wood invitation with colorful accents inspired by the venue – Lake Tahoe! With her fabulous eye for detail, Courtney incorporated lots of cute and quirky elements into the day-of wedding stationery, from custom camp-inspired patches to welcome tote bags.

From Courtney: This suite was inspired by 1950s Lake Tahoe with a modern twist: so think Rat Pack, martinis and camping in retro cabins under the stars. Lake Tahoe is notoriously blue so it was natural to have cobalt blue be the star of the show. The bold yellow color complemented the blue and helped play into the ’50s inspiration.

When it came to the invitation, Kristen wanted to do something with wood to represent the nature of Tahoe. I found an amazing vendor to laser engrave these on double thick wood. It was a great touch and the invites actually smelled a bit like firewood which was an awesome bonus element! With the RSVP card, we wanted it to feel like a post card you would grab when traveling through the area on vacation.

Since this was a destination wedding, we wanted the save the date to act as an incentive package to guests. I created a two fold brochure filled with fun facts about Tahoe as well as travel details, hotel info. and more. With destination weddings, the save the dates always end up being a bit more important as guests need to book early. As an extra element to help tie suite together, we came up with the idea of doing an actual patch like you might get at camp. I ended up working with a great vendor who created the patches (2.5″ x 2.5″) with iron-on material on the back. Some guests even showed up with the patches adhered to their outfits. Brilliant!

My favorite element is the envelope liner. Lake Tahoe is the second deepest Lake in the country so I thought it might be cool to highlight that with a depth chart. Depth charts aren’t exactly the most exciting thing but by using different shades of cobalt and placing it against the clean white paper, it was a great design element that really added to the suite.

For the day of elements, we played with cocktail napkins, drink stirrers, buttons, custom kazoos (weird, but fun!), “Keep Tahoe Blue” stickers, and silk screened tote bags.  I’m a firm believer that the day of elements really help round out the event. It’s such a fun way to bring all the great details from your save the date and invitation into the big day!

Thanks Courtney!

Design: Swiss Cottage Designs

Swiss Cottage Designs is a member of the Designer Rolodex – you can see more of Courtney’s amazing work right here or visit the real invi­ta­tions gallery for more wedding invitation ideas!

Photo Credits: Courtney Jentzen | Swiss Cottage Designs