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:

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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}