Spreading the Love: The Invitations.

If you've been following, you probably read in my last post about the sneak peak for the invites which captured our experience letter pressing our invitations. It's been just over a month and we now have them complete!

When I started the whole wedding planning process, I knew I wanted to hand make my invites because I was probably the only person who was going to be able to give myself what I wanted but also needed time to waiver before deciding on the final product. There have been many tears shed over these invites, but I wouldn't have done it any differently. 

For the concept of the invites, I knew they had to set the tone for the wedding. I know some people thing it's silly but it was a must have in terms of design. I wanted them to be glamorous with a mixture of elements and that was one thing I never did waiver from through it all. I wanted feathers, crystal and pearls integrated in some way and was able to use leftovers from the boutonnieres to complete the look. For the paper, I wanted a thicker more rough card stock balanced against a smooth, translucent vellum. As for the typeface, doing both printed and handwritten copy gave them a more vintage and personalized touch which was really important to me. I wanted people to really feel as though they were getting more of a handcrafted letter than simply an invite that was pressed 100 times and looked exactly like the last.

The Invitation Run Down.

If you've ever tried to learn about letterpress, you probably know it's one of those things that not many people know anything about and those who know a little something don't want to offer much advice because really, anything can happen and they'd hate to be the one. It's important to choose the right weight to your paper, something I knew, but still didn't know exactly how the weight of the paper I chose would work out. Knowing what I know now, I would definitely have picked a much heaver paper. For the actual letterpressed invite, I found an inspiring border on the web, but couldn't find anything like it on the stock photography sites so I made a similar version using Adobe Illustrator. I then ordered the letterpress plate through Boxcar Press - who were incredibly helpful in making sure they got everything they needed to actually create the perfect plate.

After that, it was on to the map. To do this, I basically took a screenshot of Google Maps and outlined it in AI again. I then purchased an art deco looking building icon as a place marker and added the street names. The most important part I found when making the map, was to leave only major roads and intersections that are vital to finding the location. Getting too detailed can actually be detrimental to your design. 

Next, I had to come up with something  keep the invite and map connected so that when they were taken out of the envelope, nothing was missed. Scouring the internet, I found a number of things that could be used (jumbo bobby pins, flat bookmarks, etc.) but the most economical product were jumbo paperclips that had a circular glue pad at the one end. I assembled feathers, pearl boutonniere sprays and ribbon to create a glamorous clip that also doubled as a gift for our guests. To add the handwritten element, I hand wrote small tags to attach to the feather clip that reiterated the RSVP directions and signed off with 'Love Laura and Byron'.

For the envelope, I couldn't get my self away from wanting to line them and I found an awesome gold damask Indian paper from Curry's Art Supply that was incredibly durable and didn't rip easily. Wanting to carry through the handwritten element again, I part stamped, part handwrote our address and names on the back invite flap.

The Suite.

Our guests are replying via our wedding website so no reply cards were needed, which greatly cut down on both supplies and postage along with being environmentally conscious. That said, though, we did need to create about 20 invitations to our civil ceremony so I decided to hand write these invites as a more personalized measure. The envelopes were still lined with the same damask paper and included a smaller, similar version of the feather clips.

Last but not least, are our thank you cards. I'm a huge believer that thank you cards must be hand written, but I also wanted to tie them in with the invitations. Luckily, the fact that the letterpress on our invites wasn't a huge impression, we could simply stamp them to get a similar look. So I bought a Martha Stewart stamp kit from Michael's with my trusty 40% off coupon, and off we went! We stamped and  hand wrote the envelope flaps with our names and addresses again to finish it all off!

So, many hours of work plus blood sweat and tears, but it was all so worth it to get the perfect invites!

Sneak Peak: Invitations!

Well, hello again world! I honestly don't know where the time has gone, but I have been on a serious neglecting my precious little Tweetcheeks! This year has gone past in a whirlwind so far and I decided I had to force myself to sit down and reflect on what I've accomplished in the last two months!

Looking back, I have tackled a ridiculous amount of projects both wedding and non-wedding related, but probably the most exciting one has been our invitations. With a little less than a month to go before it's time to head to the post office, I have had my game face on.

At the beginning of April, Byron and I visited with Jes, the gal who ultimately got me hooked on letterpress and we began the daunting task of letterpressing our invites, which I never thought woud happen. Probably the most stressful part was getting the plate made and being sure everything was just perfect, but the kind folks at Boxcar Press were great about calling to explain any issues with the files and what they would ideally like to work with. Next thing I knew, I had the plate in two weeks! As a first time letterpress-er I was surprised at exactly how thin the plate was and actually had moments of wondering whether or not I'd even ordered the right thing - it was so thin and flimsy - but of course, after it's attached to the plate base, it makes so much more sense!

Definitely a close second as the most nerve-racking part was the actual printing itself. It took two hours to be sure the plate was properly leveled, ink loaded and had just the right amount of padding behind the paper, but when we got it, it was such a sweet feeling! Unfortunately we had to print single invitations due to some issues with a missing bases, and the actual level indentation could have been greater, but when you're only printing 100 and you have a great team, it's nice to spend the time doing something productive!

Since then, I've been working on finishing the venue map and printing on velum, tearing my hair out trying to make a decision over which paper to use for the envelope liner (I found one!), updating our wedding website to accordingly and finally lining and addressing the envelopes themselves.

So I am now on the final steps of finishing the clips to hold the map and invite together, but another 30 to go and I'm DONE! It's been such a great experience, although there's been much frustration, but I am so incredibly happy with how they've turned out and I would do it all over again. I'll post final pics once they get mailed out!

Luxurious Letterpress

Last year, when attending a wedding show, I ran into the cutest couple (Joel and Chantal) who run their own letterpress business. I was immediately stunned by the beauty and intricacy of their designs and began chatting about possibilities. I was so wrapped up in the invitations that I didn't realize that Joel was the brother of one of my sister's good friends. He immediately recognized me and we began chatting about their business and life outside of Ottawa.

If you haven't already stumbled across Papillon Press, you must! They are located in Sudbury, but are constantly in Toronto for wedding shows and other business. Not only do they have their own gorgeous designs, but they offer a printing service if you provide your own design, for brides doing a diy wedding.

Wedding Websites

The trend to create your own wedding website is becoming increasingly popular. Not only are they a great way  to share information about your wedding, but they are also totally resourceful for inviting and receiving rsvp's. I have been on the hunt for a while to find a site that combines great templates with loads of services, so it's the first thing with wedding planning of which I can confidently say I've got a bit of experience under my belt! Of course working in the web industry helps me to be pickier when assessing these sites, so that's a plus when doing my research. My thoughts and notes from each site I checked out are below!

*image sourced from ruffledblog.com and is by Made You Look Photography.

Invitation Inspiration

I have wavered a bit about exactly how I wanted to do our invites. Originally I posted this gorgeous, classic mustard yellow invite suite, which I was convinced I would want to do in letterpress, but after doing more research about the design (if I didn't feel like undertaking this task myself) including professional printing costs, I decided my money could be far better spent. 

Of course, "better spent" means hand making our invites, but also something incredibly sweet and unique to satisfy my creative side. Some people have asked why I would want to invest so much of my personal time to design and construct these when I could just buy something and they'll likely quickly end up in the garbage. My answer is always the same: I get so much satisfaction out of doing crafts like this and really,  spending a few Friday nights with a good friend and a bottle of wine is a memory I will really cherish.

While I still have elements from the original mustard yellow ones I found, I wanted to be sure to include all of my things to make something handmade using lace, feathers, monograms, wax seals, pearls and mixes of scripts and more boxed fonts. Below are two handmade invites I've come across so far from which I am taking my inspiration.

 

Even if I'm not successful for our final invites, it will have been a fantastic activity to post about. I'll share them once I'm finished!

*images sourced from stylemepretty.com

Invitations!

I've been working hard to tie all of my ideas for invitations together and I think I've finally done it! These Art Deco invitations and rsvp cards by HelloTenFold are perfect and the mustard yellow colour carries over brilliantly from the bridesmaid skirts by SarahSeven.

I found this slightly metallic peacock feather patterned paper by Cristina Re and love the idea of using it as an envelope liner, which will be easy to do, but will take plenty of time and patience. A perfect Saturday afternoon craft! The amazing peacock feather framed monogram is a stamp that available from AssPocketProductions on Etsy and we'll use this on the back of the envelope and in place of the skyline at the top of the invitation.  Depending on how much I spend on the invites, whether I hire someone to do them, or do them completely myself, we may have some cash left over to do some custom stamps via CanadaPost. So excited and I'll be sure to post the final product!

Print Your Own Invitations

I found this awesome paperie online today called MaeMae Paperie and a great way to save some cash on some unique designs - she offers the option of printing on your own! As with any paperie, options for ready-made stationary suites and custom are available, but she's got prices starting from USD160 for the 'print-on-your-own' option. So really, there's no limit to how many you can print if you've got loads of guests!

She's paired the sweetest designs with incredible detail in which every thought has been followed through. Suites include table numbers, save the dates, escort cards, and more.

For a sample of her 2010 designs, click here.

Oh my goodness. So inspired!

This has become a bit of an obession overnight. I've now spent almost my entire last day of the holiday vacation creating inspiration boards (without saving and had to restart...twice...). I have discovered this sneaky little thing on Style Me Pretty called the Style Circle. How did I miss this before?! I use this blog religiously! This could be the most fantastic, but frustrating, thing I've found for wedding planning so far. Frustration is likely due to user incapability (twice...) but once mastered, this has become a fantastic find.

One can upload images to create your own story board all while viewing others to find more inspiration. HA!

Take a look at my first inspiration board, which is saving me MUCH headache now that I have tamed this animal and no longer have to deal with silly Word and its text wrapping tools.