I’m always fascinated when artists apply their talents outside of their primary medium, so I was definitely intrigued when textile designer Melissa Kelman sent over her wedding invitations. Melissa was inspired by her love of pattern, florals, and color – all wonderful elements for wedding stationery! Melissa hand painted each design and created rubber stamps with her own calligraphy to use throughout the invitation suite. Gorgeous!

From Melissa: I have always had a passion for stationery design and as a professional textile designer I knew I had to create something special for our wedding invitations. The designs were inspired by my love of color, florals and pattern. I was also very inspired by our  venue – The Green Building – in Brooklyn. The building itself has a rustic, industrial feel so incorporating lots of color was a must. As a designer, it is rare that I have a chance to design for myself. My goal was to create something that felt joyful but elegant at the same time.  Each element was designed and painted by myself: it was definitely a labor of love!

The save the dates were each hand painted on kraft card stock. I designed a custom stamp using my calligraphy and stamped each one. I love that each one is a little bit different!

 

The wedding invitations were originally hand painted in gouache and watercolor. I scanned the artwork in and created the layout digitally. For our day-of elements, I hand carved some stamps and stamped each menu with colorful floral motifs. Our favors were small Muji notebooks, stamped with a hand carved pretzel stamp. The pretzel symbolized New York City and Philadelphia: the two cities we lived in together.

 

The “bride” and “groom” chair signs were hand painted using gouache on kraft paper. The seating chart was created using a large scrap piece of plexiglass. At an antique store I found a box of old boxing tickets and wrote names and table numbers on the backside. I then used washi tape to attach them to the plexiglass.

Thanks so much Melissa!

Design and Calligraphy: Melissa Kelman

Invitation Printing: Skink Ink Fine Art Printing in Brooklyn, New York

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

Photo Credits: Jillian Bisinger