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!

Birthday Invitations

Hello all,

I had the privilege of working with a very special lady on her 50th birthday invitations. Ms. Jackson contacted me several weeks ago about stationery for her birthday dinner. She wanted something really special for the celebration. I have never met Ms. Jackson before but we talked over the phone on several occasions through the course of the design phase. Ms. Jackson's Birthday dinner was this past friday in Washington, D.C. I can't wait to see pictures of the event. Below are her invitations and other stationery we designed for her. The colors of the day were Tiffany Blue, Silver and Black. The Invitations were a Layered Flat Card accented with a Jewelled Embellishment with Tiffany Blue lined envelopes. Enjoy!

Invitations with jeweled embellishment

Invitations with Lined Envelopes

Escort Cards

Booklet Style Programs

Booklet Style Programs accented with Satin Ribbon

Menu Cards - Layered with a Satin Ribbon

Table Cards

We also produced the Favor tags used with favor boxes for the celebration. Thank you Ms. Jackson!

February Invitation of the Month

Happy New Month to all!

February's invitation of the month belongs to Erica and Vadim. They got married this past weekend at the InterContinental Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. Congratulations guys... it was a pleasure working with you both!

I met Erica and Vadim towards the middle of 2009 and they were very excited to begin work with us on their invitations. Erica immediately fell in love with the invitations we did for Meera and Nate and she didn't want to change much on it. We began with the Save the Date cards; which were a simple yet elegant Layered Flat Card. She loved the damask emblem and we decided to carry that theme together with "to have and to hold" through their other wedding stationery. We also used the damask emblem and "to have and to hold" for their custom postage stamps. We completed the invitations with Thermography (raised ink) prints. They look fabulous!!!!

Layered Flat Card Save the Date Cards

Layered Flat Cards for the Save the Dates

Square Pocketfold with Custom Postage Stamps

The Ceremony Programs

Tea lenght Booklet style programs

Here's to a wonderful month of March. Check back soon for more juicy updates :)

Save the Date Passport

I was privileged to work again with Ayesha from Bedazzled Photography. You might remember my post here about Ayesha. Well she's a super talented photographer and she's a soon-to-be bride. I was very excited when she contacted me about creating save-the-date cards for her destination wedding later this year. After much brainstorming, this is what we came up with. Enjoy!

Photo credit: Bedazzled Photography

2010!!!

Hello all,

Welcome into the new year. I know, I know... it's already February but better late than never, right. The wedding season has kicked off in full gear and I have some excited projects we're working on and have worked on that I can't wait to share. I'll do that as soon as I'm at liberty to do so. It feels like it's September already (lol). Well, for 2010, I thought it be nice to feature at least 1 invitation for couples getting married in that month as Invitation of the Month. Even though it's February, I'll still start with January's.

Invitation(s) of the month

We'll have 2 for this month because after narrowing down the options to 2, I couldn't decide which it would be of the 2.

First is Hilary & Sam's Wedding Invitations. I worked primarily with Hilary's mom, Cynthia on these invitations. We met at the Jan 2009 Bridal Extravaganza and they were drawn to "Aleydis & Deji" invitation style. In the words of Cynthia, it was love at first sight for them. So, we began the process and here's what their invitation looked like. Hilary and Sam were married on Jan 9, 2010 in Houston.

Next is Brandi & Harrison's invitations. I particularly love the invitations because of the colors - Black and Apple Green. The invitations were Pocket Folds with a Monogram tab.

The Pocket fold invitation with a custom monogram.

Inside the invitation

Custom Map enclosure

Using the monograms from the invitations, we created this Thank you folded note cards.

I have February's Invitation of the Month selected but the wedding is on February 27. So, I'll share that with you closer to the wedding :)