Invitation to Love: Out-of-this-World Wedding Invites

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It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, so I’m easing back into the swing of things by highlighting a recent design project that I’m pretty excited to write about: my wedding invitation.

In this post, I detail the design process for my personal wedding invitation, including what I learned and the unexpected outcomes of the project. I put a lot of myself into this one and am thrilled with how they turned out!

First Comes Love (I mean a Save the Date)

I designed a Save the Date (STD) awhile back. Although we didn’t end up using it, I like it a lot and hope someone is able to use it one day!

Celestial-themed wedding invitation and save the date.

Then Comes Marriage (Ah-hem, I mean a Formal Invitation)

For personal accountability (and budgeting) reasons, I wanted to be sure the invites were sent to the printer by the end of November.

Image

I used an Adobe Stock credit for this beautiful image.

Color Palette

I used the colors in the image to build a color palette. This is something new that I’m doing to build my color confidence.

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I was a little self-conscious, but I decided to just go for it and posted my palette on Instagram. To my surprise and delight, I got a few new followers!

Design Program

I used Canva, again. I feel like I should try something new, but it’s just so easy and fun to use!

Printer

I requested wedding invitation sample packs from several outlets, including Vistaprint. While I was impressed by the packaging and detail included in the other packs, our favorite sample (I’m picky when it comes to paper stock) was from Vistaprint.

Factoring in the minimum 20% discount code they always seem to honor and my confidence using them as a printer, we went with Vistaprint.

The Final Product

Size: 5′ X 7″ flat

Fonts: Playlist Script, Hammersmith One, and Arialle

Paper Stock: Ultra thick matte (Vistaprint) – the invite looks as good as it feels!

Then Comes Baby (HA!)

I’ve been thinking about listing some of my designs on Etsy for awhile now, but I just never did. Until now! This invite turned out so well, I decided to I finally take the time to set up a shop and do all the stuff I needed to do to sell my designs.

Here’s a link to my shop, which I’ll add more designs to over time:

SHOP NOW

I’ve got another project in the works that will launch on Etsy in the first quarter of 2018, so I’m glad I’m learning how it works!

But Wait, There’s More!

Back to the wedding invites – there are a lot of things that need to happen before the mailing commences.

RSVP Cards

I’m currently designing the RSVP card to include in the invitation envelope. I probably should have just done everything at once, but I wanted the invite to be done and paid for, so I just went for it!

Envelopes

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I’m making things even more complicated by lining the invitation envelopes myself.

I have the envelopes, the paper is cut, and the glue dots are patiently waiting to drive me to the brink of insanity.  Historically, glue dots and I are not friends.

I will detail both projects in future posts, so be sure to subscribe if you’re interested in hearing how they go!

Invitation to Love: City Garden Party

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Last summer we got in touch with Michael Owen, a local artist we adore, to design and install a mural to add a little life to our back patio space.

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We didn’t give the mural the celebration it deserved last year, so we decided to have a city garden party in early June. I knew I would need some help with the planning, so I called on my girl Heidi at Casa Pena Designs for some assistance.

If you’re interested in event design, take a look at the rough plan for this party.

I love the mural so much and wanted to try to share it in a tactile way; I wanted everyone to have a part of the mural.

I tried to accomplish this by creating and printing invites featuring the mural design. Once printed, I wanted to send to invites through the regular mail – everyone loves to receive mail.

Because Michael Owen let us keep the stencil (which I cherish), I used it as the starting point and went from there. I started with another concept in mind, but here’s what I came up with:

 

save the date: an STD of cosmic proportions

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I really think it’s great that the acronym for save the date is STD. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do because I’m going to use every chance I get.

I’m getting married next May and the clock is ticking for getting the STD’s in the mail. I’m pretty particular about the look, feel and the cohesiveness of the invites to the theme (which I’ll get into later), so I’ve got full creative control here.

I knew I would get obsessive if I designed them myself, so I ordered a beautiful STD template from etsy so it could go to the printer and just be done.

In the meantime, I decided to spend a little time working on an STD to build my skills. After a round of edits, this is what I came up with:

 

This was first for me, so my hope is that I continue to build my skills and improve over time!

Action Item: To keep the momentum going, I’m going to put spend some time on an invitation and RSVP and will try to finalize a complete wedding kit