Sarah and Jeffrey's Formal Invitation Suite

My husband has some amazing marketing skills.

I should first say that in the past few years, he has worked to build a guitar business of 30+ students, which he runs out of our home, at night, after he's worked from 7 in the morning until 2.

These same marketing skills have come in pretty handy since I started my own business. You see, every time one of his friends on Facebook gets engaged, he sends them a message telling them that they should consider using me. Like, 2 minutes after they've changed their status to 'engaged'. If someone (that we just met, mind you) says that they're getting married, he practically launches into a commercial about my invitation business. He has no problem marketing for me and it's actually kind of great.

You see, marketing is not my strong suit. I signed up to be on The Knot as soon as I started this business, figuring they could do the work for me. That's it. That's all I did. It's bad. I'm in need of help.

So it's really good that Luke markets my business to anyone and everyone. He's actually landed me several brides and I'm extremely grateful. 

Sarah is one of those brides. Luke met her a few years ago through a friend and when she got engaged, Luke was right there with his facebook message about my business.

Sarah contacted me and we ended up meeting a few months back. She told me all about her formal wedding at Apple Mountain. The main color that she was pulling into her wedding was a deep purple. She picked out Envelopments' beautiful classic ecru card stock and we backed it with the gray brocade patterned paper that you see below. 

Sarah's suite consisted of the invitation, one insert, and one cute little RSVP. As always, I'm smitten over the RSVP.

I suggest combining inserts to a lot of brides. Sarah put her directions and accommodations on one card and it fit perfectly. It also saves a little bit of money, which always helps during wedding planning.

I love that the gray patterned paper overlaps the RSVP card and I love the pop of deep purple in the heading. And it's just so dainty and cute, while also being sophisticated and classy. Yes, I love it very much.

Our fonts were Trajan Pro and Chopin Script. Also, Optimus Princeps snuck in there and I didn't even realize it until I looked back at the invite while writing this blog. I often forget that Trajan Pro and Optimus Princeps are separate fonts because they have such a similar look and so when I went to do Sarah and Jeffrey's names, I must have accidentally used Optimus Princeps without thinking. Oh, well. No harm, no foul.

So there's another fantastic bride I got to work with (and thank my husband for, of course). I have constantly been in awe of how great my brides have been, especially in the midst of what can be such a hectic time. They are genuinely kind, funny, and so encouraging to me (when I'm totally the one that should be encouraging them).

We're moving from this formal invitation suite to a super fun and modern suite next week. Stay tuned. :)

Jaime's Wedding Shower Invitations

I'm writing this on Monday morning. It's the beginning of a new week, but I keep thinking back on the week I just had. My husband and I were off for spring break and I ended up spending my time off finishing 3 weddings, putting together extras for another wedding (that I actually was able to attend!), and designing and printing a shower invitation. 

During the whole week, the quote that kept going through my mind was: "Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life." (Apparently this is by Confucious...I just knew I had heard it somewhere before.)

Though I was overwhelmed at times (I designed and printed my first seating chart in about 3 days...more on that in the weeks to come), I truly loved my week. It didn't feel like work at all and it made me want to work even harder to make sure that all of my weeks were just like that one.

All that to say, I love what I'm doing, and I want to do it a really really long time.

But enough journaling using my blog...today I want to talk about Jaime's wedding shower invitations. 

I introduced you to Jaime in March when I did her Save the Dates. Jaime texted a few weeks after I completed them to give me a heads up that her mom might be calling me about doing her shower invitations, too. I was naturally excited. Jaime has been amazing to work with and so I figured her mom would probably be, too. 

She was. We didn't have a ton of time, so we started the design process and finished it in about a week. Here's what we came up with.

I used Context Reprise Light and Gelato fonts. I love them both. Context Reprise is so modern and Gelato is girly and fun.

I printed on white linen card stock and used fun Boa (translation - a shimmery hot pink) envelopes from Envelopments.

Right after these were picked up and sent out, Jaime and I started working on her wedding invitations. I'm excited to see what we come up with and I'm so honored to work with such a great bride (and her mom!).

Kendra and Robert's Ombré Invitations

Ombré

n. A French term meaning "shaded." Usually a multicolored stripe, with colors graduating from light to dark. 

This is the definition I had to look up immediately after reading Kendra's first email to me, when she asked me about doing her wedding invitations. She mentioned she wanted ombré invitations and honestly, I had no clue what that meant.

Luckily, the internet is a handy little tool and I learned pretty quickly.

Side note - While educating myself on all things ombré, I started wondering if I could get away with an ombré hair style like Ms. Barrymore here:

Photo found here

After a few minutes of considering this, I realized that I can try this look out for free since it takes me months to get my roots done anyway. Yay!

Back to the invitations.

Kendra and her fiancé live in NYC but are getting married in Michigan. They really wanted to bring a Michigan feel to their wedding invitations by having an ombré background, giving the appearance of a lake (we are the Great Lakes State, you know).

Here's the final invitation suite - the invite, an RSVP card, and a tiny card that directs their guests to their website. 

The font is Halo Handletter. Definitely a favorite among my brides.

Did you notice the Faygo Root Beer braised beef short ribs? Totally a Michigan wedding. Love it.

To complete the suite, Kendra selected ecru (translation - off white) envelopes with blue writing. They balanced out the invitation suite perfectly.

I absolutely loved how these turned out and am thrilled that I will continue to work with Kendra on all of the extras for her wedding day!

Want to hear more about the value of custom invitations? Check out this post. 

Carrie and Ryan's Pocketfolds

Today is an exciting day for a few reasons:

1. It has officially been a year since I started this little custom invitation business. A year ago, I became a vendor listed on The Knot and people that I didn't know started using me for their wedding invitations. I had my first 5 weddings last fall and have just completed my first 6 weddings of 2012 this past month. I am so thankful that I completely stepped out of my comfort zone and took that first step to start Vivian Elle Invitations.

2. Many of these wedding invitations that I've been working on have officially been sent out, meaning that I am finally able to unveil them to the internet world. There is the slight possibility that only I have been looking forward to this moment.

Either way, I have lots of fun projects to show over the next several weeks and I love that you stopped by to see what I've been up to.

So let's get right to it.

Carrie and Ryan met with me last year to discuss their June 2012 wedding. Carrie picked out fantastically bright colors (anyone who knows me knows that I am right on board with that), but wanted a very simple design. Here's what we came up with.

She selected a white linen pocketfold with silver paper backed with vibrant blue and green colors. She picked a patterned card stock to back the RSVP for a little pop of something fun. I loved how it all came together.

It's hard to get a picture of the full pocketfold, since it's won't really stay open without something holding it, but that was my best shot. :)

We tried the invitation with some artwork but in the end, Carrie decided that her and Ryan's style was just more simple.

I just love the texture of Envelopments linen stocks. So pretty.

The accommodations and directions cards.

As always, I love the little RSVP card.

And it all folds up so nicely and fits perfectly into the green ('Wicked' by Envelopments) envelope.

Carrie has been such a great bride to work with and was incredibly encouraging and thoughtful throughout the whole process. I'm so excited to get started on the extras that we'll be doing for her summer wedding. :)

Stay tuned for more invitations next week!