Jenna + Asa’s Floral Australian Wedding Save the Dates

I’ve always been a big fan of the talented Anna of Rifle Paper Co. – particularly when it comes to wedding invitations and wedding stationery.  So it comes as no surprise that a long-time reader of this blog would choose Rifle for her own wedding stationery!  Jenna is getting married later this year in Australia, and commissioned one of Anna’s beautiful floral illustrations for her save the dates.

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From Jenna:  Our inspiration is the summer garden themed wedding we are planning in December (Australia).  My fiancé and I added the vintage postage stamps and hand stamped each alphabetical letter to create the “to” addresses.  They could not be more suited to the day we envision having!

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Congrats Jenna – I can’t wait to see your wedding invitations!

{image credits: jenna mcstay}

p.s. I know some of you reading via RSS are having trouble seeing the images in posts – we’re working on resolving the issue as quickly as possible!  But in the meantime please feel free to click on through to the main site to see any missing images.

{happy weekend!}

Happy Friday everyone!  This weekend I’m up in New Jersey helping to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday.  Our family is scattered all over the country, so we’ve all been trickling into town over the last couple days and totally surprising my dad.  Fun!  And after a couple of really stressful weeks it’s nice to unwind, focus on a happy celebration, and relish in the company of my wonderful family.  But in the meantime…

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…a few links for your weekend!

This week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

That’s it for me this week!  I hope you all have a lovely weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday!

Photo Credit: charxlotte

Crane & Co. Wedding Album Launch Party

Last week I attended a party celebrating the launch of Crane & Co.‘s newest wedding invitation album.  I got a sneak peek at some of the album designs during my tour last September (which you can see here, here, here, and here), so I was really excited to see the designs in their final, printed form.  The Crane & Co. design team has worked on some cool new designs, including some more modern pieces alongside Crane’s more traditional and refined invitations.  Here are a few photos of the new collection that I took at the party:

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Crane-and-Co-Silver-Engraved-Wedding-Invitation

Crane-and-Co-Silver-Engraved-Wedding-Invitation-Reception-Card

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{the envelope liner above is a gorgeous and vivid yellow in person – so pretty!}

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{this invitation suite features modern san-serif engraved text – quite a departure from Crane’s traditional look}

Crane-and-Co-Modern-Sanserif-Engraved-Wedding-Invitation

Crane-and-Co-Classic-Silver-Edge-Painting-Wedding-Invitation

{it’s hard to see in the photo, but this invitation has beautiful silver edge painting!}

Crane-and-Co-Calligraphy-Monogram-Engraved-Wedding-Invitation

You can check out a few more photos from the party on the Crane & Co. facebook page.  There’s a lot more where this came from, so if you’d like to see the album in person, you can find a list of Crane & Co. retailers right here!

{all photos by Oh So Beautiful Paper}

Caitlan + Andrew’s Black Heavy Metal Wedding Invitations

You might remember these awesome book wedding invitations that Lyndsay from It’s A Date Design created last year, and today Lyndsay is back with wedding invitations that are just as fabulous – and definitely different from anything I’ve featured here before!  This time, Lyndsay drew her inspiration from the groom’s love of heavy metal music.

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From Lyndsay: When I first spoke to Caitlan, her request for the design was that it celebrate her future husband Andrew’s interests – which were predominantly related to a love of heavy metal music.  One of their first dates was to a concert which she referred to as a “sea of fading black t-shirts!”

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black-heavy-metal-wedding-invitations

My first thought was, “this couple is destined for a fantastic life together” – because it is so rare that a bride will pursue something so unconventional for her wedding stationery in order to respect the groom’s passion!  We talked a lot about having some subtle references to his favourite bands (as well as hers, which included Regina Spektor and Ani DiFranco), but I also decided this would be a challenge: to make skulls cute!

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black-heavy-metal-wedding-invitations

The result is somewhere between Slipknot and Florence and The Machine: a compilation of the couple’s important wedding information, folded like a mini-accordion, with a reply postcard that could be detached via perforation and sent back to the couple, all packaged within their own “LP.”  I modeled their monogram, which is used several times throughout the design, loosely on the Rolling Stone magazine masthead.

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Another sweet featured: their request as a “gift” was for guests to write a little note to them in provided cards (decorated with flags of all the countries they plan to visit as a married couple) for them to keep as a memento of their day, which I pre-affixed inside each invitation with little cardboard photo corners inside vellum envelopes.  Each invitation was hand-trimmed, folded and assembled with love.

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We also made little button badges out of favourite design elements from the suite for an extra rock-concert reference.  Whilst these invitations don’t scream “wedding”, they are a reflection of a young, unconventional and fun couple who have a very bright future ahead of them.

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So cool, Lyndsay!  I love the entire invitation, from the concept to the color palette.  Thanks so much for sharing these with us!

{image credits: it’s a date design}

Red + Aqua Carnival Birthday Party Invitations for Grace!

As much as I love wedding invitations, there’s just nothing like the youthful exuberance of a kids party invitation.  Jennifer from The Paper Peony sent over these adorable carnival-inspired letterpress invitations that she designed and printed for her daughter Grace’s second birthday, along with some images of the party itself!

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From Jennifer:  We planned a vintage red and aqua carnival theme for a small gathering in our home.  The invitations set the tone with fun fonts, stripes, and a red balloon in each envelope.  I designed the thank you notes with sweet little flags to compliment the party décor.

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We decorated with lots of balloons and wonderful hand-made fabric banners that were hung all over the house (thanks to my mother-in-law).  We served lots of popcorn, gourmet hotdogs and salads as well as “popcorn” cupcakes that I made for the kids. They were a huge hit!

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We had toss games for activities and my husband Shaun even learned how to make balloon animals and flowers the night before.  He got really good at it too!  The kids favors were so fun to put together!  We included rubber ducks, animal crackers, clown noses, pin wheels, candy dots and whoopee cushions!  I also made little paper flags with each child’s name.

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Such a fun party, and it looks like Grace had a total blast!  Thank you so much Jennifer!

{image credits: jennifer larkin | the paper peony}