It's that time of the year again

The Houston Bridal Extravaganza Show is here again and YOU'VE JUST GOT TO BE THERE! Next year marks the 25th anniversary of the show and it is going to be the biggest Bridal Show to date. So, get your walking shoes ready and your luck charms on. In addition to feasting on ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS wedding showcases and meeting with talented vendors like yours truly :), there'll be lots of prizes to win. Even the vendors get to win something this time. (i'm keeping my fingers crossed :))

The Bridal Show will be held at the George R Brown Convention Center on
Saturday, January 10th from 10am - 5pm
Sunday, January 11th from 11am - 5pm

Elegant Custom Invitations will be at Booth 1119 - we would love to meet you and talk to you!!!


Are you coming to the Show...here are a few tips:
1. Make sure to wear very comfortable shoes. There are lots of aisles and almost everyone wants to walk all aisles to make sure you're not missing anything. I have walked all the aisles myself in the past and I highly recommend it.

2. Bring lots of pre-printed labels with your name, address (if you want) email address and wedding date. You don't want to have to fill out every form at vendors' booths. If you can't print your own labels, they will be available for purchase at the entrances to the show.

3. Come prepared to book vendors at the show. Many vendors will be giving special discounts to brides that book at the show or within a short period after the show.

4. Come with an open mind!

Let me finish by giving you a few pictures of our booth from the July Bridal Show.




That's all folks, have a wonderful week!!!

Launch of New Website

Hello all,

I'm uber excited this week... after months of working, learning etc, I finally published the new Elegant Custom Invitations website. This was definitely a labor of love to say the least. I always wanted a flash site but after much looking around to hire someone to build my site, I realized the amount of money being requested was a bit much. Since I built the previous site from scratch, I decided to embark on this journey. Until now, I'd never really used Adobe Flash other than the Flash Player... lol!!! which is totally not the same as the full version of Flash. Needless to say I taught myself Adobe Flash and I'm very proud of the outcome!!! There were a few bumps along the way but it was well worth it and I couldn't be happier.

This is sometimes the feeling I get once we've completed work on invitations and stare at the finished product!!!! I tell you, it's truly fulfilling. Enjoy...

Newlyweds

I'd like to say a big congrats to Kathryn & Derrick who got married on November 1st and Christine and Jorge who got married on November 15th. Happy Married Life to you guys.

Here are some of the stationery for Kathryn & Derrick's ceremony. We tried to keep it really simple with the ceremony/reception stationery since the boxed invitations were over the top...

I hope you all have a wonderful, fulfilling week, we plan to do just that !!!

Christine & Jorge's Wedding

Hello all,
It's been a short while since I last blogged. Between the current projects we're working on, the website redesign, consultations with 2009 brides et al it's been quite busy. But in all I'm very excited at the progress.

First I'd like to say Congratulations to the brides that got married on October 18th, 2008 -
Patricia and Michael
LaNissa and Dietrich
Sandra and Michael

Happy Married Life to you all!

Take a look at some of Sandra and Michael's ceremony stationery. For her table cards, she wanted the tables to be named after several places that meant something special to them. For example, Ciao Trattoria was where they had their first date. They returned to this return where Michael proposed!!! Absolutely Sweet!!!

Menu Cards

Table Cards

Ceremony Programs

Christine & Jorge's Wedding Invitations

I spoke with Christine right before Hurricane Ike hit the gulf coast. I remember we were unsure of the impact Ike would have so we tentatively set up a time to meet the following week. I met with Christine and her fiance, Jorge and they were such a lovely couple. Because the wedding was really close, we had to work mighty fast on the invitations. Good thing was Christine fell in love with the "Vivien and Peter" invitation we had done. I remember she kept starring at the invite just to be sure she still loved it!!

We began work immediately and I'm glad we were able to complete the invites in time for her to mail them to her guests. Enjoy!

SNEAK PEEK OF NEW WEBSITE

As you may know, I've been working on the redesign of the website for some weeks. It has taken longer than I anticipated because of all the other projects we have going on. But I am very very very excited at the progress. I hope to have the new site up before the end of this month (knock on wood!!! :))

Take a peek and let me know what you think. Did I mention that I'm very excited?!!!

Enjoy the week and new month!!!

Boxed Wedding Invitations

Hello all,

I hope you're having a lovely weekend (even though we all wish for longer weekends!) I've been working on a few different projects. One of which is the redesign of the new website. I'm very excited about that! I should be able to show a sneak peek of it later on. It's a lot of work designing it but it's been worth it so far.

Today, I present Kathryn and Derrick's wedding invitations. I met Kathryn back in March (Yes, March!!!) and we clicked from the onset. She has a very vibrant personality and quite funny. She wanted her invitations delivered to her guests in boxes. The theme for her wedding is very warm elegant feel but also formal. She also wanted to incorporate pearls with the invitations since that was also going to be used at the wedding. After working with her over the past months, her invitations have finally gone out to guests and has been receiving rave reviews. Which I always love to hear!!! Ladies and Gentlemen, I present Kathryn and Derrick's boxed wedding invitations...

Custom Invitation Tips

Hello all,
This has been an incredible week to say the least. Especially with Hurricane Ike sweeping through the Texas Gulf. Our hearts go out to those who were majorly hit by the hurricane. I was blessed not to have any major damages other than a 3-day power outage and minor fence damage. I also worked really hard to save my tiny tree :) ... it barely made it!!!

Despite the hurricane, we had to work through getting some work done this weekend i.e. Kathryn's boxed invitations and Sarah & Gavin's wedding program and table cards. Her wedding is this weekend and I couldn't just imagine how nervous she was with the weather situation the way it is. But she was very happy that we completed her programs in time for her wedding!!!

Here are a few tips for going custom on wedding invites (courtesy of The Knot Texas Magazine)
Enjoy...

1. Approach the design process as a collaborative effort and with an open mind.

2. Pick you “consultants”. Other than your fiancé, who will weigh in on the decision-making? Try not to bring more than two extra people to your appointments. Avoid design by committee.

3. Make sure the wedding style and taste is well-suited to the designer.

4. Be proactive to get what you want.

5. Know when to say enough is enough. Embellishments may add an elegant touch, but too many could be overkill on an already beautiful invitation.

6. Don’t exhaust all your creativity on the save-the-dates. Remember, you don’t want your other elements, like the invitations, menus and ceremony programs to compete.

That's it for now; enjoy the weekend; we plan to do just that :) !!!

Sandra & Michael's Wedding Invitation

I've always been proud of the invitations we create and just love doing new things. But I must say, so far, this has been my proudest work. One of the things I love about creating custom wedding invitations is the challenge that comes with each bride's needs. Sandra lives in California and she found us on the internet. I've never met her before, our consultation was done over the phone and via email. PS. to all the extremely busy brides who are challenged for time, it is possible to work with you over the phone and/or via email :).
We talked about what her vision was for her wedding and she showed me some things she liked. Through that her wedding invitations were birthed! I totally love her invitations and hope you do too. I was so excited for her to see them! Enjoy...

I'm working on another exciting project for Kat and her invitations are also totally gorgeous. I can't wait to present them to you. Please check back soon.

Now that the wedding season is finally calming down, I'm very excited about 2009. Spring 2009 brides, it time for you to get started on your wedding invitations. We look forward to meeting you if you're in the Houston area or talking to you.

Enjoy the Labor Day weekend!!!!

"Interactive Invitation"

I received an email from one of my brides - Sarah- over the weekend. I worked on Sarah and Gavin's wedding invitation earlier in July (see pics). Some of her guests hadn't received their invitations due to mail delays so her brother decided to scan her invitation and upload it as a somewhat interactive invitation. I think this is totally cool! I asked her if I could share it on the blog and she approved. Check it out: www.policky.net/wedding.html. Click on the front tab with their monogram to go inside the invitation. You can click on each of the inserts/enclosures to view the actual enclosure!!!!! Isn't that cool?

I just completed work on Sandra and Michael's wedding invitations which, (if I may say so myself) looked absolutely stunning. I would be blogging about them as soon as I'm at liberty to do so. Please check back soon.

Current Work

I had the opportunity to work on Ayo & James' wedding invitations. I was actually contacted by Ayo's sister, Kemi who lives here in Houston. Ayo lives in Florida! I have never met the Bride before but I had a fun time creating their floral themed invitations. Kemi saw the invitation I designed for Patricia and Mike and totally fell in love with it. So we decided to mirror that but changed the design. The invitation is a single flat card with a lined envelope. Their enclosures were the reception card, hotel accommodations card and the response/ rsvp postcard.
Enjoy!

Another bride that I was privileged to work with was LaNissa. Actually, LaNissa's mom was the one who contacted me to set up the consult. Here's a funny story, since they live in south texas and I work from west houston, I decided to meet up with them at the Starbucks in the Galleria Area. When I got there, there weren't any seats inside so I sat outside (Thank God it was somewhat nice outside!) So I saw them walk past me and they also looked at me and didn't know I was the one and they took a seat right behind me!!!!. The phone# LaNissa's mom gave me was her work # and didn't realize that until I called the # and heard her voicemail greeting. Anyways, we finally realized I was the one they were looking for. I always tells clients to look out for my big 'ol box. Apparently, they were expecting a real "big 'ol" box and not the medium size box I carried around. Ironically, we were in front of the Container Store so I got another box!!!

Ok that said, LaNissa wanted something "chick" with her wedding colors Brown and Pink (Which I totally love, see the website colors :) ) When she saw the invitations I made for Shannon and Mark, she loved it especially because those were also her wedding colors. I usually try not to use the same designs twice but sometimes my hands get tied a little if that's what the bride wants. So LaNissa's invite was a metallic pocketfold and 3 - layered look (1st: Invitation layer; 2nd: Brown layer; 3rd: Pink layer) Here are the pics:

Welcome!!!

Finally!!! I took the time out to create this blog. This should be an interesting experience. My hope is to be able to update the blog at least once a week... since we're always busy with our invitations and meeting clients.
I'm not one to start something I can't finish so please hold me to that!!! This year has been quite busy to say the least but that's a good thing.
I have some exciting invitations that I'm currently working on and hope to put those up very soon. So please check back for updates.