Please VOTE for us!!!!

It's that time of year again! Our Local NBC Station - KPRC Local2 is running their "Best of Houston" contest. We were honored to be in the top 5 last year and I would be even more honored to win this year. So if you're reading this post, PLEASE take the time to vote. Just follow this link!



You have to register, but it takes no time at all. Then KPRC will send you an email, check your spam folder if you don't receive it. You have to follow the link in the email for your vote to count so please don't forget to do that part. You can vote once on an email address, but you can vote multiple times by using different email addresses. Since this contest is based solely on email votes, I can use each and every vote.

Still not sure if you want to vote, check out our INSIDER DEAL! Just a little incentive :)

Thank you so much for your time!

Modern Luxury Houston Bride's Magazine

Ok, have you picked up your copy of Houston Brides Magazine? Well you should!!! Check out our ad on page 83.



I'm super excited about our new ad in Modern Luxury Brides Magazine! On Newstands NOW!

July 2010 Bridal Extravaganza Show

The Bridal Extravaganza is upon us again. You don't want to miss the BIGGEST BRIDAL EVENT of the year. The show will take place at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Downtown Houston on:
Saturday July 10, 2010 10am - 5pm
Sunday July 11, 2010 11am - 5pm

Elegant Custom Invitations will be at BOOTH 1119. Please be sure to stop by; I'd love to see you!
For additional information, purchase tickets and to register for free giveaways, you may visit their website.

As always here are a few tips to help you prepare to attend
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), a valid email address and wedding date. You don't want to have to write 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. Also, it helps to create a separate email account just for your wedding planning (just a tip!)

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. Do not feel obligated to fill out every form from all the vendors at the show. It's ok to focus mainly on those elements of the wedding you haven't booked yet. You can politely say 'No'. You will get tons of information from the show, anyway, so it helps to only have information from vendors you're truly interested in.

5. It can be helpful to have 2 separate bags where you can put information from the vendors. 1 bag for the vendors you're really interested in and others in the 2nd bag. This will help with sorting through the stack of flyers you receive at the show once you get home.

6. Bring cash for parking and lunch. You'll be hungry and/or thirsty after all that walking! (lol)

7. Most importantly, come with an open mind!

Wish Upon a Wedding Houston Chapter

Hello,
There's a number of exciting stuff going on. One of which I'll [hopefully] be sharing in a few weeks. But for now, I'd like to let you know about a wonderful non-profit organization that recently formed its Houston Chapter. I'm happy and excited to serve as a committee volunteer for Wish Upon a Wedding.



Wish Upon a Wedding is the world's first Wedding non-profit wedding wish grant organization. Wish Upon a wedding provides weddings across the United States for individuals facing life-threatening illness. This organization gives these couples a change to share in their special day without the worries of their illnesses. They are able to celebrate the courage of these couples and offer them a chance of hope through their wedding.

Wish Upon a Wedding relies on the generosity of professionals from the Wedding and Hospitality Industry. To make Wedding Wishes come true, the organization needs venues, caterers, officiants, cake designers, florists, wedding planners, photographers, videographers, gown designers/shops, shoe stores, hair and makeup artists, tuxedo shops, transportation companies, hotels, airlines, stationers, party rentals, seamstresses, dance instructors, DJs, musicians, lighting specialists, event designers, jewelers, and favor suppliers, just to name a few of the many professionals required to produce fabulous weddings!

If you are interested in being a part of this amazing organization, please fill out the Wish Granters form located on the Wish Upon a Wedding website. You can also check out the Facebook Page.

The need is not limited only to wedding professionals, corporate sponsorship is also greatly welcomed. I'm looking forward to the launch party this Wednesday...it should be exciting!!!

May Invitation(s) of the Month

May was a very busy month so I wasn't able to blog much. But I do have some fabulous stationery for a couple of our brides that got married this month.

~ Anne & Ryan ~

I worked with Anne and her sister, Margaret on Anne's wedding stationery. They're such an incredible pair and were very pleasant to work it. I have to mention that I have never met Anne nor her sister before. It's always a unique experience working with clients long distance. And I'm ever so grateful that they would entrust such a huge part of their wedding to someone they've never met in another city. We had our first conference call back in September or October last year and they were very excited to begin work with me. The wedding took place this friday in Boston.

The wedding invitation is one that has now become a "signature look" for us (lol). It's a Gatefold style with a Satin ribbon and rhinestone accents.

I have to say that I absolutely love the Ceremony Programs, it's simple yet very classy.

Anne wanted the Menu Cards to reflect the Wedding Invitations.

The Table Cards

We had to incorporate some rhinestone accents on the Escort cards :)

We also created the signs for the couple's Cocktail Signature Drink which went in a large frame.

I do have to share though, Anne requested the stationery be sent to her wedding planner at the Taj Boston and the programs went to her Mom. So she didn't actually get to receive them herself. Once the items were delivered, I got a very lovely voice message from Anne expressing how blown away the wedding planner was with the wedding stationery. That message absolutely made my day. Thanks for the opportunity Anne and Margaret. I wish you and Ryan a blissful married life!

~ Rekiya & Cory ~

I met Rekiya at the Bridal Extravaganza Show in January. And we set up a meeting shortly afterwards. She wanted a simple invitation style with some modern touch. She immediately fell in love with the colors and style of the Obi & DJ invitation. I really love how her invitations turned out. I particularly love the design on it (you're thinking I should love it I designed it right!). Rekiya and Cory will be married this weekend in Louisiana.
Here it is -

The enclosures - We did a Response Postcard instead of the traditional Response card and envelope.

Congratulations on your nuptials guys. We wish you a happy married life!

Last week, I got a nod from one of our brides - Ayesha from Bedazzled Photography. You will remember my post about her Save the date Passports here. We completed her uber fabulous wedding invitations this month and boy are they gorgeous. You can read her post on her blog. THANKS AYESHA!!!!

~ Tara and Kurt ~

This is another fabulous bride. She approached me to create the Save the date cards for her November wedding. Since she'll be having a destination wedding in Hawaii later this year, she had quite a bit of information to include for her guests. So she wanted the booklet style save the date with their pictures incorporated. She and her fiancee, Kurt make such a lovely couple.

We also lined the envelopes with palm patterned stock.

We addressed the envelopes and completed the look with Custom Stamps we created with the Palm logo used on the front of the booklets.

We mailed the booklets to Tara & Kurt's guests so she didn't even get to see them before some of her guests did (It's truly humbling when our brides trust me enough to do that). Once she finally received the extras, I got this nice email from her, "I was out of the office at meetings all day until just now, but received 6 text msgs today saying how amazing the save the dates are. I just arrived home and couldn't wait to see them in person. They are truly perfect. Thanks so much for your hard work and patience (with me) during this process. I couldn't be more happy with how they turned out."

~ Ms. Jackson's Thank you cards ~

I blogged about Ms. Jackson's birthday invitations a couple of months ago - Read here. After the celebration, she contacted me about doing some Thank you cards for her. I thought, "sure, no problem. We'll do something simple since the birthday invitations were somewhat elaborate". However, in the middle of the design process she asked if she could incorporate a ribbon and jewelled accent! Ms. Jackson is such a special and lovely lady though. She gave me call and told me how the guests absolutely loved all the stationery and I'm so glad to have been a part of this special time in her life.

That's all folks. Enjoy the holiday weekend as we officially or unofficially begin summer!

"People are just going to throw it away"

I have been longing to write this post for sometime now but have been too busy to get to it. As we begin a new wedding season, there isn't a better time than now to post this.

So, I've been on a mission (lol). I cringe every time I hear brides say, “the invitation is just paper, people will just throw it away”. My first response to that has always been “people will only throw out trash”. Those that know me personally know that I’m not much of a salesperson; I suck at it!. But I find myself sometimes turning into one when I hear such comments, trying to explain the idea/purpose of invitations. I feel like I have a duty to change the mindset of what your wedding/event invitations are each time I hear those statements.

Your invitations set the tone for your wedding/special event! It gives your guests a foresight into what to expect at your wedding. The invitation is the first thing your guests receive about your wedding (in most cases - if you did not send out save the date cards) and it is one of the things that remain with them long after your wedding is over. Sending invitations to your guests make them feel special, honored and gets them excited about your big day. If you give people a piece of paper or some shabbily made invitations, guests do not expect anything different from the last wedding they attended.

• Why do you pay for beautiful flowers / decorations that neither you nor your guests get to take home after the event? Because of the ambience the flowers / décor create.
  
• Why pay so much for a dress you probably wear only once!? Because all eyes are on you at the wedding and you want to feel the most fabulous.

Well, your invitations are no exception. Attention should be paid to every detail of the event. So what if all your guests don’t keep them. They don’t keep the linens at the reception, nor the flowers at the church. As long as it accomplishes that which it was intended for. Which is – set the tone for your special event, provide guests with information, get guests excited about your event.

You don’t have to get the fanciest invitation or break the bank just to send out invitations. You should choose quality invitations that reflect your personal style and personality. If you're going for a simple classic style, there are a number of quality catalog invitations out there that you can select from. If you’re unable to find something in the catalogs, you can elect to have a custom invitation made for you by working with an invitation designer (like yours truly lol).

Sometimes, I find that most brides see the very fancy invitations and immediately fall in love with them. However, once they hear the price, they assume “I can’t afford beautiful invitations”. Well, the key is to set a reasonable budget (yes, reasonable). You can only set a reasonable budget if you know what quality invitations cost. For example, ff you have a $500.00 budget for 200 invitations, then it might be unreasonable to expect to get custom Pocketfold invitations with 3 enclosures for that price. If you are creative, you could DIY your pocket invitations for that price. However, you might be able to get beautiful flat card invitations with enclosure(s) for that price. Or an invitation suite from a Catalog Album. There are quite a number of different Catalog albums out there.

All couples are different and have different budgets. What is considered "expensive" to one bride fits perfectly into another's budget. So, let your stationer know what your budget is and you would be steered in the right direction on what fits within your budget without compromising on quality.

So what have we learnt?

• Set a reasonable budget


• Be open minded about the different invitation styles


• Sending elegant, gorgoeus invitations to your guests does not mean breaking the bank


• Always remember your invitations are meant to set the tone for your big day, so don't send invitations your guests wouldn't care to keep or wouldn't feel bad throwing in the trash.

Not one to leave you without a picture, enjoy the silk folder below.


Hope you have a fabulous week!!!

April Invitation(s) of the month

So it seems, April was the busiest month for weddings so far this year (outside of the typically busy months - May, June etc). October is another unusually busy month this year because of day 10/10/10, phew!!!

So, instead of the usual 1 invitation, I have chosen 3 invitations to showcase (Woohoo!!!)

~Carolina & Evan~

I met Carolina & Evan at the end of 2009 and we began working on the invitations thereafter. We initially talked about doing a multiple layered Flat Card. Carolina new she definitely wanted the Dupioni Silk ribbon instead of the usual satin ribbon and she wanted to incorporate a pearl accent as well. The pearl, I wasn't too sure of initially because I didn't want to "overdo" the embellishing but it worked out great. After the initial consultation, Carolina came to the Bridal Extravaganza and told me she wanted to change from the flat card to a pocketfold (lol). So, we went with that. Carolina & Evan's invitation has a lot of textured and pattern elements, you'll notice some of the cardstock we used were also textured, the dupioni silk ribbon has texture to it and the print was done in thermography. She loved her paisley pattern which we incorporated on the front tab of the pocket fold as well as the invitation envelope. Carolina & Evan will be married next week at Paraiso Maravilla in Houston, Texas and I'm truly excited for them; they're such a lovely couple!

Wedding Invitations

Detail

Front Tab

Enclosures

Next is Yolanda & Arnold.

I was introduced to the couple through their wedding planner -Renee Miller with Distinctive Events Inc. They started the invitation process a bit later than usual - end of January but we pulled through and everything came out beautifully. The invitations were pocket fold style accented with a Satin Ribbon. Their monogram was carried through the other wedding stationery.

Pocketfold Invitations

Inside of the invitation

The programs were done in 2 colors - Sage and Orange.

Programs

Escort Cards

Escort Cards

~Obi & DJ~

When Obi contacted me about invitations for her wedding, she knew she wanted something different from the usual but had not seen "it" yet. So, I had her come in and she immediately fell in love the "Kyla & Justin's" invitations. So, we began the process. It was truly a pleasure working with her and her wedding was one of the few client weddings I've attended!. It was nice seeing all the stationery elements come together and get great feedback from other guests at the wedding on how pretty the wedding stationery was.

Wedding Invitations

Enclosures

Fan Programs

Escort Cards

The theme of the table cards was "Love is...". The bride came up with several words eg. "Love is Forgiveness"

Table Cards

Well, that's all for now... got to get back to work. Enjoy the week!