Angie + Mark’s Illustrated Wedding Invitations

Today’s real invitations come to us from Angie and Mark, who are getting married next month in sunny California!  Angie and Mark knew that they didn’t want a traditional invitation design, so they worked with a couple of designer friends to create a quirky and totally customized DIY design perfect for them!

From Angie:  My fiancé and I didn’t want to go with traditional invitations.  As beautiful as they can be, we wanted something that reflected our creative and quirky personalities.  Our good friend Jayne Furniss is an incredibly talented artist/designer and when we were staying with her and her boyfriend in London, we came across these adorable sketches that she created and would leave for him.

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Jayne drew the drawings based on how we met and the important places/things in our lives.  We gave her a list of few important events and from that, she hand-drew a beautifully charming scene for us.  The actual invite shows us first meeting through my previous job and he was my DJ that night in Malibu.

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With the help of my graphic designer friend Jamie Walker, we incorporated Jayne’s intricate drawings within the invite for a unique and personalized feel that was then carried over to the RSVP postcards.  My fiance is a musician and DJ and we felt the “flyer” format was fitting for the text on the invite.

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The front of the RSVP card depicts where he proposed (Bamburgh Castle in England), a memorable date we had camping in Joshua Tree with friends, our love of sports (me and the SF Giants, him and Newcastle United), our dog and our upcoming move to London.  We wanted something non traditional and personal that really portrayed our personalities. We couldn’t be happier with how they turned out!

So adorable — I love the way these wedding invitations tell such a sweet story, not to mention they have personality just radiating off each page!  If any of you are interested in working with Jayne for your own invitations, please just e-mail me for her contact information and I’ll be happy to pass it along.  Congratulations Mark and Angie — and best of luck with your move to London!

{all photos by Angie}

{happy weekend!}

Happy Friday everyone!  This weekend I'm looking forward to spending my first full weekend at home in many weeks.  I'm also oddly excited for first big snowfall here in DC this weekend — I'll take any excuse to curl up with some hot chocolate while I finish wrapping up a few christmas gifts.  But in the meantime…

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…a few links for your reading pleasure this weekend:

That's it for me for this week!  I'll be back next week with some fantastic real wedding invitations and lots of other goodies before we all head off for the holidays.  I hope you all have a wonderful — and warm! — weekend, I'll see you all back here on Monday!

{image credits: enjoyco via mossière}

Wiley Valentine Letterpress Mini-Calendar

Most of the calendars that I featured in my last round-up were large poster-style calendars, but this cute mini-calendar from Wiley Valentine is just the opposite!  With all twelve months printed on a 5.5 x 8.5" sheet of thick cotton paper, these little calendars are perfect for hanging on an office wall or putting up next to your front door for easy reference:

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Did I mention how cute these calendars are?  Letterpress printed in 3 colors, each calendar features owls, insects and other little flying animals scattered throughout a vintage ornamental background pattern.  And at only $4.50, these calendars are bound to sell out quickly, so get yours while you can right here.

*Wiley Valentine is one of my fabulous sponsors, but provided no financial compensation or incentives for this post. I feature their work solely because I think it's awesome. For information on my editorial policy, click here.

Watercolor + Anemone Wedding Invitations

I seriously love everything about David and Cheri’s wedding invitations — from the watercolor details to the anemone illustration to the small emblems repeated throughout the invitation suite:

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I had seen the photos from this handmade wedding a while back, but loved looking through them again and noticing all the little ways that the wedding invitations served as a preview of the beauty and fun to come on the big day!  Check out more invitation and wedding photos here and here.

{image credits: david rager, via bird and banner}