Katie and John's Formal Floral Wedding Invitations

I met with Katie and her mom months ago and Katie's taste was just elegant and formal and pretty. 

When I thought about how I wanted Katie and John's wedding invitations photographed, I knew it had to be paired with one thing - my Pottery Barn Emma plates. Because they're formal and elegant and pretty, too.

The floral backing is subtle but eye catching behind the invitations. We brought out the floral a little more in the RSVP card.

Fonts are Adios Script Pro and Trajan Pro.

Congratulations, Katie and John!

All images are from Casey and her Camera. Check out her website or visit her on FB here. 

Ashley and Michael's Mackinac Island Pocket Fold Wedding Invitations

This invitation holds a special place in my heart. Probably because I love Michigan, and couples who incorporate anything Michigan related into their wedding invitations.

Here are Ashley and Michael's Mackinac Island Pocket Folds.

Ashley and Michael wanted to add a Mackinac Island touch to their wedding invitations, since they're getting married on Mackinac this summer. We decided to add a picture of Round Island Light on the invitation, which was created in Illustrator.

They chose a beautiful kraft card stock for their pocketfold, and balanced it out with metallic papers.

Pretty Please RSVP. :)

A beautiful invitation for such an incredibly sweet couple. :)

I couldn't be more excited with the invitations I've worked on so far this year. The couples I work with have the most amazing, unique tastes and I love seeing their personalities come to life in their invitations.

More to come next week!

Psst - the Novi Bridal Expo is this weekend, February 15 and 16. We'll be there from 12-5 each day. Come on out and say hi!

Colleen and Maxwell's Mint and Pink Gate Cards

Today I'm so excited to show you something I don't get to show very often - Envelopment's beautiful gate cards.  I'm an admirer of these gate cards, and Colleen and Max picked out one in mint, which makes it even better.

Here's what guests see when they pull these cards out of their envelopes.

And here's what they see when they open the card.

First, we have the invitation. I love that the invitation is backed with a dark green and gold, even though the rest of their colors are light. It adds a lot of depth to the invitation.

Colleen and Max wanted a formal feel to their invitations with a modern twist. We thought that the gate card took care of the modern twist, and the script fonts and beautiful papers showed off the formal side of their wedding.

Easily one of my favorite fonts of the year - Adios Script Pro - was used as the script font. Novencento  Wide was used for the block font.

The invitation came with two inserts - an RSVP card and a reception card.

Here are all three pieces together.

Loving these gate cards, loving the fonts, and loving that mint is still going strong as a color choice for weddings in 2014. :) 

John and Andrea's Wedding Invitations

A long time ago, we started playing volleyball with John, who I will from here on out call Palmer because that is his last name and that's what we call him. Palmer had this girlfriend that came to all of our games, but sat about 50 feet (I'm a horrible estimator, so my husband will probably correct me on that) away from us on a picnic table. We never talked, but she looked really athletic so I imagined that she just sat there and thought about what fools we looked like trying to play volleyball (spoiler alert: my game hasn't improved much since then). 

Since that time, Palmer's girlfriend, Andrea, began playing on our volleyball team, and come to find out, was an absolute delight to play with (which for me basically means she doesn't make fun of me too bad when I foot fault to lose the game, which by the way is a true story). Luke and I started to get to know Palmer and Andrea better and years later, they are our good friends. 

So many years later, when they got engaged and then came to me/were forced by my husband to use me for wedding invitations, I was completely glad to help them out. 

Here's what we came up with.

Andrea and Palmer wanted something nice and formal and simple. They thought a custom monogram would be an elegant touch, so we through a simple P together in an ornate frame.

Fonts are Trajan Pro and Hiatus.

The ecru invitation was backed with a nice subtle patterned paper. 

Everything that Palmer and Andrea's guests need to know is right on the back of their invitation. I love the simplicity of having guests RSVP to a website - I've noticed that several of my brides lately have chosen this option. It saves on postage and keeps the bulkiness of your invitation to a minimum.

We'll be gearing up for another volleyball season in November with these two, but first we're so happy to celebrate with them as they get married off!

Next week I'll be back with a starry night wedding invitation that I'm really excited about. :) Until then!

Greg and Erin's Formal Wedding Invitations

Erin and Gregory came to me a few months ago wanting help with their wedding invitations. Erin was a bridesmaid in this wedding and just like her friend, Erin wanted a formal, classic wedding invitation. She wanted to keep it simple - black and white, with no color. 

Here's what we came up with. 

 

For me, this invitation's main feature is the script font - Adios Script Pro. How amazing is the swirl on the 'h' in Elizabeth?

We backed the actual invitation with black linen card stock. The invite itself was a metallic ecru. 

Again, can we marvel at the beautiful font?

Look at those swashes (yes, this is the technical term, I looked it up). Love love love love love love love.

That's it. Simple. Traditional. Beautiful.

I'll be back next week with some shower invitations for you and then we'll continue on with the wedding hoopla. See you then. :)

Natalie and Nate's Lace Wedding Invitations

One of the joys of this business is getting re-connected with people from my past. Like Natalie. 

A long time ago, when I came home from my year off after college (read - my year to prolong any real decisions) and decided to go back for more college,  I worked with the youth group at my church. Natalie was in the youth group at the time and so when she came to me to make an appointment about wedding invitations I was like WHAT THE HECK HOW ARE YOU OLD ENOUGH TO GET MARRIED.

But she is old enough and she fell in love with a guy from the church who also happened to live right down the street from her and now they are planning an August wedding. When I met with Natalie, I smiled as I listened to the story of how her and Nate were brought together. It was not only good to connect with her as a bride, but great to re-connect with her in general. 

Natalie had a beautiful vision for her wedding invitations. She wanted them to be dark gray and pink, with lace. Here's what we came up with. 

When we first started working on the invitation, we had a very simple design with no frames on the edges. This is what we originally thought might work well with the lace and ribbon, but it just looked a little too simple. 

So we added these frames and I absolutely love the invitation now.

We used Albemarle Swash and Trajan Pro as fonts.

As beautiful as the invitation was without anything else, we tied everything together with ecru lace and pink ribbon.

It completed the set perfectly.

So congratulations to Natalie and Nate! Based on her selections for the invitation alone, I know that the wedding will be gorgeous. :)

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

Emily and Joseph's Mackinac Island Wedding Invitations

I love Michigan. 

When I was 18, I went to Tennessee for college. When I graduated, I decided to postpone any real decisions about life by moving to North Carolina for a bit and then to Colorado. During those six years, I came to appreciate my home state in a way that I never had before. I love that I have childhood memories of heading up north to Frankfort where we would spend summers on the lake and winters snowmobiling. I love that I have memories of my brothers' hockey tournaments in the U.P. And most of all, I love that my husband and I have begun making our own memories in west Michigan, where we go for the weekend each year for our anniversary. 

So when brides come to me and have some kind of Michigan theme in their wedding, it's more meaningful than it would have been before I left Michigan for a while. What I'm finding is that whether you've moved to Chicago or NYC or Colorado or North Carolina, there's something about Michigan that you come to really appreciate.

This happened most recently with Emily, a bride who is getting married to her groom on Mackinac Island, with only their closest family and friends. We started out with these Save the Dates a few months ago and suddenly it was time to start designing the invitations. 

Here is what we came up with. 

I am not sure what I love the most about what Emily picked out. I knew immediately when she selected the papers she wanted that she was going to have a beautiful invitation. But then she picked out this vintage font and mentioned throwing a tandem bike in there and I was pretty much over the moon excited to see how things would look when everything was finished.

Sverige Script is the vintage font. Josefin Slab is the block font.

Another favorite thing about the invite is that Emily wanted one of the inserts to be "Top Ten Activities on Mackinac Island."

She also had an accommodations card since all of her guests are staying at the same resort.

And a sweet little RSVP.

Emily is such a kind, thoughtful bride and was ever so gracious to work with. I love that she and Joseph have decided to have the small, intimate wedding that they've always wanted. And I can only imagine that Mackinac Island will be the perfect place to have it. :)

Jessica and Jeffrey's Pocket Fold Invitations

Sometimes I get ridiculously excited over the smallest things. Like this past week when I got out of work early (on a 70 degree day) and came straight home, removed every door knob in our house, and started oil rubbed bronzing them.

(You may not know what oil rubbed bronzing - or ORBing - is. Basically I spray painted things using this spray paint.)

So our amazingly beautiful gold door knobs (sense the sarcasm) are now oil rubbed bronzed. Every last one in our house. And I was so excited about it that I whipped up this before and after picture, just to give you a taste of how it updated things around our house. 

Even my husband said later that night, "these look really good, babe." (This was a surprise, as I was definitely not expecting him to have an opinion on door knobs.)

So there's one thing that was on the "summer to-do list" that's already crossed off pre-summer. Isn't that the best feeling ever?

I hope that you are enjoying your spring and are loving your time outside, doing whatever it is that makes you happy. :) 

Other than ORBing everything in sight, I've also been taking care of business, Vivian Elle style (what does that even mean?). 

I met with Jessica not so long ago now. She came to me feeling like she had done so much for her wedding, but had waited too long to take care of invitations. Luckily, we had just enough time to complete everything with a little bit of time left over.

The thing that I love most about Jessica's invitations is the floral artwork we added to it (courtesy of Envelopments).

The block font is Baskerville and the script font is Hiatus.

We used a textured matte card stock for the pocket and a metallic ecru paper for everything else.

In addition to purple, Jessica is having light green as one of her wedding colors, too. We brought that in with a couple of metallic envelopes.

We didn't want to overuse the flower, but we did bring it into the wedding suite one more time on the RSVP.

And we were done. A lot of brides ask how long it takes to design invitations. Ideally, brides will come to me six months before their wedding. However, brides have come to me three months before their weddings and we have been able to get everything done in time for them to be sent out. Jessica's invites are proof of that.

Besides ORBing and putting together invitations, there's something else I've been spending my time doing this spring. I'll be back on Thursday to tell you all about it. :)

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