Brynne and Shawn's Wedding Extras

The one thing that has been such a wonderful surprise about this business is the incredibly kind and gracious brides I've worked with. When I first started out, I didn't know what to expect when it came to having brides as my main client base. Every girl that's had a wedding can attest to the fact that at times wedding planning can make you a little crazy. For example, this conversation happened with my mom during my own wedding planning:

Mom, casually in a conversation about what pictures would be taken during the wedding day: I'd really like it if when I'm helping zip up your wedding dress, the photographer would take the photo from above so I don't have a double chin. 

Jennifer, abruptly, as if demon possessed: OUR PHOTOGRAPHER WILL DO WHATEVER SHE WANTS AND YOU WILL LIKE IT.

(I don't remember exactly how the conversation went, but I'm pretty sure I captured the gist.)

But even during an incredibly stressful, busy time, my brides have yet to lash out at me like I did at my poor mom. Instead, they've responded to my emails in such good-hearted, complimentary ways, making me feel like the luckiest invitation designer ever. 

Take, for instance, Brynne (whom you may remember from when I did her lace wedding invitations here). By the time she and I were done designing her wedding suite and her wedding extras, it was a little bittersweet to say goodbye to her. I remember an email exchange basically saying "it will be weird not to email so often!" She wanted to be a part of the design process and we truly went through each piece together, going back and forth with ideas for everything. When I think back on that it makes me realize just how fortunate I am to work with such amazing ladies.  

At the end of my time with my brides, I've started asking them if they wouldn't mind sending over some photos of their wedding day so I can see how everything was pulled together. I get to see a little snippet of their style when they come to me for invitations, but I love seeing the big picture and have been nothing short of delighted when they've sent me pictures.

So here are the pictures of Brynne and Shawn''s wedding extras. All photography is by Jean Smith Photography.

We originally made Brynne and Shawn's monogram to go with their lace wedding invitations, but we wanted to carry it into some aspects of their wedding day, too. The programs were an easy way to do that.

Brynne had me make tags for the box mailers that she used to ship her invites. Well, we ended up using the same tags for the little favor boxes, too. I printed the 'L' on the tag and then Brynne had the guest's names and table number added on. How beautiful do they look?

If you pay attention to the little details at weddings like I do, then you must have noticed the linens, the chairs (oh, the chairs!), the amazing floral arrangements in the background, the enclosed tent, and the beautiful china they used on the tables. I am 100% completely in love with everything about this wedding. For crying out loud, WHY DIDN'T I CRASH IT?!?

We designed the menus just like we did the programs. I love the classic elegance of Brynne and Shawn's style.

A huge thank you to Jean Smith Photography for taking such gorgeous photos and to Brynne for sharing them with us!

(I want a roll with butter now.)

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

Vivian Elle Invitations Wins The Best of the Knot 2013!

Before I show off some wedding extras, I just have a little announcement. 

Every year at the end of January, The Knot puts out their Best of List.

(Do you see where this is going?)

Vivian Elle made the 2013 list! 

And it's all thanks to my brides. They are the ones that took the time to review me. They are the ones that said wonderfully kind and humbling words about this business. They are the ones that make me so grateful to do what I do.  How did I happen to get so fortunate to work with them??

So I've been really excited about this honor for the last few months and just wanted to officially share it on here. I promise to not make every single blog post from here on out about it (maybe).

Moving on though. 

I've been wanting to show off some wedding extras for quite a while now. However, I really wanted to do it with the actual photos from the weddings, which I thought might be a little more exciting than when I try to take photos myself. 

The reason that I want to show these extras at the actual wedding is that a professional photographer definitely takes better photos than I do (inserting something like "duh" would be appropriate here). But I also want to do it because sometimes when I give a bride simple programs like this...

they end up looking like this...

Photography by Amanda Williams

And even if my brides don't add a little something something to their extras, the extras still look better when they're set up exactly where they're supposed to go. 

So the next few weeks I'll be rolling out some wedding extras - Real Wedding style. Starting NOW. (I envision that being said with jazz hands.)

Brandon and Mary got married back in October in D.C. They were married in a beautiful old church just a few blocks from the mall area and had their reception at Elizabeth's on L, a renovated Federalist townhouse in downtown D.C. 

The venue was gorgeous and I felt so honored to have been asked to contribute a few pieces to such an elegant evening. 

First up, Mary had me do their menus. 

I love the Albemarle Swash font they wanted to use. :)

I also did these little place cards. Mary picked the most beautiful colors for them, each one corresponding with the guest's dinner choice. They were blush pink, ecru, and gold.

For their guest book, Brandon and Mary ditched tradition and had their guests sign cards and give well wishes and advice to them to read at a later date. Here's the little instruction card.

(I am in LOVE with that bowl.)

And here are the little cards.

All of the photography was done by the talented Zareth Acosta. And if you just love weddings and would like to see her blog about Brandon and Mary's wedding, you can go here.

More wedding extras to come later in the week!

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

James and Danika's Wedding Extras

I'm in the middle of a three week period of the summer when my husband and I work at a community college to teach a "kids on campus" program. I teach a class on starting your own business (I know...I still laugh that I'm somehow qualified to teach this class). I have the same kids from 9-3 each day, Monday through Friday. It's not a summer camp. We don't run around outside or sing songs. These kids are straight up learning each day and for some reason, they really seem to like it.

Throughout the week, the kids get into groups and actually start their own businesses. They make a product, market the product, and sell the product at the end of the week to other classes and their parents.

(FYI - duct tape products are really in with 5th and 6th graders this year)

We also spend some time looking at real life young entrepreneurs. Each year, I'm absolutely amazed at just how much I learn from these young entrepreneurs and I honestly feel like I encourage myself even more than I teach my students. One thing this year that really stuck out to me as my students and I looked over different interviews from these young entrepreneurs was a quote from Arjun Rai. At the time of the interview, he was a junior in high school and was already the COO of an online advertising company and starting another one. (Pretty much the same as my high school accomplishments...)

Rai says, "For me, being ambitious means taking a risk and following a passion of mine. In most cases, that means building a company that caters to a need and is an extension of myself (source)."

I love that. I am going to find Arjun Rai, hug him, and let him know that his 17 year-old self inspires me to no end. "Building a company that caters to a need and is an extension of myself." Yes, please.

You see, I kind of feel like I tapped into something special with this little business. When I read extension of myself, I thought, yes...that's exactly what I feel like this is. I will be working on invitations and I will start to think, "am I really getting paid for this?" It may not be that special to anyone else, but it certainly has been to me.

 All that to say, I am fortunate to be teaching something for these three weeks that reminds me of how much I love what I am doing, and I'm hoping that it shows in my work and in my correspondence with my brides.  

But today I want to look at a particular bride's wedding extras. I've had a decently long relationship with Danika. She came to me in the fall of last year for me to help her with her Save the Dates, wedding invitations, and extras. The first two were finished by this past May. Then we got started on the extras for her wedding.

First up, the menu.

I'm telling you - I so wanted to eat this food. But I refrained from beginning the tempting, yet ultimately disastrous habit of crashing my brides' weddings. 

We stuck with the Estilo font for everything. Same as the invitations. It's so modern, but the paper product Danika chose added such a softness to it.

Place cards.

Love the yellow patterned paper. These place cards were held up by moss place holders at the wedding. I can't wait to see pictures of how they looked all set up.

The programs. As I've said before, I worked with Danika's mom, Terri, on most of her stuff. Terri's brother has a design business and good design definitely runs in the family. Terri's taste is just so classy and modern (just like her daughter's) and I adored how everything turned out.

There was a lot to fit on the programs and we did it with 4x11 folded program.

So lovely. I am constantly inspired by my brides' tastes. Each one of them is so unique and I can just imagine that each wedding is so beautiful, inspiring, and tasteful.

Next week I'm sharing the most intricate wedding invitation I have done to date, and I'm thrilled with how they turned out!

Kendra's Wedding Extras

I hope everyone had a wonderful Fathers Day weekend. I wasn't able to get a post up last week, so I thought I'd post twice this week. I mean, I received hundreds of emails/comments asking where my post was from last week, so I'm just trying to give the people what they want.

**Awkward silence.**

(In actuality, I received no emails/comments asking where last weeks' post was.)

In honor of Father's Day, before I get into Kendra's wedding extras, I'd like to share a conversation I had with my dad just this past weekend. 

My dad and I try to go out to lunch once each month, just the two of us. Our conversation is usually about one of the following things: family history, any interesting cases he is working on (he's an attorney), or who we would give our possessions to in the event that we die an untimely death. 

We ate at a local Japanese steakhouse that is literally less than a fourth of a mile from my new house.  After lunch, we get in the car, and in the two minute car ride back to the house, the conversation that started out with my dad suggesting I read both 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 transitioned into this:

Dad: "Sometime in your generation, the government is going to completely take over. My advice to you? I have property up on a mountain in Tennessee. Go there, where they can't find you."

(Dad and Jennifer pull into Jennifer's driveway.)

Dad: "Alright, thanks for lunch! Love you!"

I'm still so confused.

But seriously, I simultaneously think my dad is the coolest and craziest guy I know. He is kind of like if you mixed Ron Swanson with Atticus Finch. He is a great dad and I'm fortunate to have him.

But I'm here to talk about a wedding. 

You may have read about Kendra and Bob's ombré wedding invitations here. Kendra and Bob live in NYC, but had their wedding a few weeks ago here in Michigan. They really wanted to bring a lake feel to their paper products, but do it ever so subtly. Kendra thought that bringing ombré into the paper products would be a great way to do it.  We did this with their wedding invitations and then it was time to focus on their wedding extras. 

(To clarify - wedding extras are things like programs, menus, place cards, seating charts, table numbers, favor tags...any paper products that you would use on your wedding day.)

We had three extras to think about - menus, programs, and place cards. Kendra, Bob, Kendra's mom, and I all met together one morning to talk about everything. Kendra knew exactly what she wanted and it was my job to bring her vision to life. 

First, the wedding menus.

Instead of having the ombré design on each individual menu (like we did with the invitations), Kendra wanted to actually have each menu printed on a different shade of blue card stock. When the menus were placed around the table, they would create an ombré effect.

How great is it that she wanted to use the outline of Michigan on the menus? And how fantastic does this food look?

Next up, her programs.

We only used three colors for the programs. Kendra was going to have these placed on the back of each chair so when you walked into the room, it would be a sea of blue.

Each program was a tri-fold so we had plenty of room to put everything that Kendra wanted to include in it.

We put the basic information on the front of the program.

When you opened it up, there was a quote that one of Kendra and Bob's close friends had written for their wedding day.

When the program was opened, you had the wedding party on the far left, the ceremony in the middle, and a thank you from Kendra and Bob on the final page.

Lastly, we made place cards in the same colors as we did the menus.

On the front was the guest's name and their table (the table names were Motown singers/groups...loved that). The back told which meal their guest had chosen.

Notice my foot in that one?

Kendra was one of the most creative brides to work with and I enjoyed working on her wedding so much. Congratulations, Kendra and Bob!

Abby and Seth's Wedding Extras

I met Abby several months ago now and we've been through a lot together in a little bit of time. First we worked on her wedding shower invitations. Then the wedding invitations. 

Last, but certainly not least, we have Abby and Seth's wedding extras. The programs, the menus, the table numbers, the seating chart...those extra things that help your guests figure out who those people are at the front of the church, where to sit at the reception,  and what they'll be eating. 

The best part about Abby and Seth's wedding extras? I actually attended this wedding, so I got to see them in action (in other words, looking nice in their respective places). 

You see, Abby married my father's cousin's son. So we are kind of related now. She might be my second cousin twice removed...I'm still not sure.

The wedding was beautiful. The food was fabulous. The bride was stunning. And it was so cool/weird to look everywhere and see work that I actually did. Seth and Abby used the custom frame that we come up with for their wedding invitations in so many aspects of the wedding. When we walked into the reception, they actually had it projected onto one of the walls. You might think I took a picture of that.  Not so. 

But I did take a picture of the extras that I had worked on. So let's roll these out, one by one. 

First, we have the programs. We kept everything consistent with the papers and fonts we already had used. We used a simple piece of 4x9 First Snow card stock to print the programs on. We had a lot to fit on there (16 members of the wedding party + the ceremony),  but we managed without having to use super tiny font. 

We also used the same size card stock for the menus. They set two of these at each table. Let me state again...the food was GOOD.

Here are the table numbers. We used the White Snow card stock and Majestic (purple) backing.

My mom even stole their table number and it sits on her dining room table to this very day. A thief, that one.

And finally, here's the seating chart. This was set outside of the reception, so guests could use it to find their tables. It's great to have everything in one place, and easy to reference because the names are in alphabetical order...especially helpful for larger weddings.

Their wedding favor to their guests was a photo booth. They even put the frame at the bottom, with their wedding date in it. My family loves a photo booth. I particularly love that half of my mom's face is covered by the horn on my husband's hat, and that my dad is just grinning from ear to ear in the background.

My family and I had a wonderful time at the wedding, and it made it even better that I had the chance to  get to know the bride beforehand. She's a wonderful girl and will be a great wife to my cousin.

Congratulations, Seth and Abby!