India

India is known for its bold, vibrant colors and exotic feel.  Using beautiful handmade paper for your wedding invitations, out-of-town bags, name place cards, save-the-dates, thank-you cards etc. could be a fun way to add color and flavor to your wedding. 

While shopping in downtown Mumbai (Bombay) I came across Chimanlals.   It’s a beautiful shop filled with an array of items made by hand.  The work is exquisite and the custom wedding invitations are incredibly unique and detailed. 

Complimentary Creative Wedding Demos
February 21, 2009

All Paper Source Store Locations

We invite you to join us for an afternoon of complimentary demos, make-and-takes and inspiration for your big day!

11:30 am – Announcing the Big Day
12:45 pm – Inspired Invitations
2:00 pm – Tasteful Tabletop Décor
No matter what your style or budget, Paper Source can help you achieve a wedding invitation & stationery suite that reflects your sense of beauty, creativity and personal expression.

Whether you’re looking for classic whites, elegance with a twist, romantic flourishes, or a fresh modern look, we’ve got the materials and inspiration to help you do something creative for your big day!

bellevue

700 Bellevue Way NE, Ste 105
Bellevue, WA 98004
425-646-0100

NearlyWeds

necessarily look like a DIY wedding.  Wedding colors used to be an easy way of coordinating a look and feel for a wedding but now there are wedding “color palettes”, themes, fonts, and styles that can make it harder to pull off coordinating on your own.  One cool business that I recently discovered is called Nearlyweds.  They create custom and template wedding websites for engaged couples.  Although I haven’t tried their services they seem like they would be able to fit any budget and style.  The part that intrigued me most about their wedding websites was the ability to get matching invitations.  They work with a couple of invitation companies like mmm Paper and Izzy girl in the Seattle area.  It’s a great tool for a do-it-yourself bride.  Normally to get a custom website and matching invitations would be extremely expensive!  Other features that sound helpful are the online rsvp function and the ability to blog.

If you use them please let me know what you think!  (Although this is my opinion and not advertising if you mention AvantBride at checkout you will be charged $39 instead off $49.  Thanks Nearlyweds!)

Here are some pictures of invitations that would match a Nearlyweds’ wedding website from invitation companies mmm Paper and Izzy girl. 

Matching Invitations with Izzy Girl

Matching Invitations with mmm Paper

Photo By: Sonja Clanton

Seeing this pumpkin makes me want to have a fall wedding to pursue the endless creative possibilities!  It’s a great example of twisting something formal like a monogram and making it your own.  More and more I see couples using things like monograms, wedding colors, fonts and graphic designs to create a really cohesive feel to their event – essentially to create a wedding brand.  Hiring an event company or a wedding coordinator is probably the easiest way to create this feeling of a produced and polished event, however I’m seeing savvy couples figure out how to do it on a budget.

Marry Monograms, based in Seattle, is the type of tool that can give a wedding a polished look.  You have the option of choosing a design from their portfolio or having a design custom made especially for you.  The personalized logo costs $49.95 and the custom design prices are available by quote.  Once you have the logo or monogram the sky’s the limit: invitations, towels, gifts, gobo spotlights, favors, wine labels, thank-you cards or honeymoon clothing — whatever you can think of to put your monogram on! I think half of the fun is figuring out where and on what to stamp your new family crest.

A final thought: it might make a nice engagement gift for some recently betrothed friends.

Marry Monograms

I was reading the paper yesterday and came across an article about a Seattle company with a fresh approach to wedding invitations.  It almost made me wish I were planning a wedding again…almost.  Poster Bride is the name of the company. They create unique silkscreened rock posters for wedding invitations, need I go on?  From the looks of the samples on their website the owners are talented artists and have a knack for understanding their clientele.  It’s great to see something so innovative out there.

So you have the invitations made and ready to mail out the door 6-8 weeks before your big day.  How should you address the invitees?  You could a) hire a calligrapher to elegantly address your guests, b) print labels on your home printer, or c) write out the names and addresses yourself, in your own pristine or atrocious handwriting!

If you have the time and budget hiring a calligrapher could be the perfect touch to your beautifully crafted invitations, making the guests feel that it truly will be a unique and special event.  Oftentimes stationary stores or arts schools will know of someone local, or Craigslist will have calligraphers for hire.  However, by the time you are two months from your wedding you may not have them time or money to hire a calligrapher which leads me to the next option of labels.

Labels have come a long way since the drab, office-white, rectangular style.  It’s possible to get many different sizes, shapes and opacities.  In addition there are software programs that allow you to add graphics or different fonts.  (Avery does a great job of this).  On a tight schedule they’re definitely the way to go.  But, if your invitation is handmade or carefully crafted, a label may not be congruent with the rest of the invitation.  We get junk-mail in our mailboxes everyday, and receiving a wedding invitation with a mail-merge label sometimes just doesn’t feel personal enough.  It’s a shame to sometimes see an otherwise beautiful invitation ruined by a label, even a clear one. 

A third option then of handwriting the invitations yourself?  It depends on your handwriting and time allowance.  My solution was to learn calligraphy.  I’m definitely not the artsy one in my family, and was both elated and disappointed in fourth grade to receive the only “needs improvement” on my report card in penmanship.  Who needs penmanship anyway? I thought.  If only I had paid attention, I wouldn’t have been bent over a bunch of library books trying to crudely imitate the different alphabets of calligraphy.  Surprisingly, it didn’t take too many evening sessions before I could properly address an envelope.

How to Learn Calligraphy Quickly:

1. Order a couple of calligraphy books from the library. 

2. Go to your local arts store to buy a calligraphy pen.  I used a Sheaffer pen in black and with a fine tip.   In the Seattle area Aaron Brothers Art & Framing has a great supply. 

Once in the groove they didn’t take that long to complete and I didn’t end up using as many extra envelopes as I thought I would.  In the end I do think I managed to trick the few people (who noticed such things as the envelope on a wedding invitation) into thinking that it looked rather nice. 

Here are two books that I found helpful from the library.

The Calligrapher’s Bible by David Harris

1-2-3 Calligraphy!: Letters and Projects for Beginners and Beyond by Eleanor Winters

There are three groups you could fit into based on invitations I’ve seen.

1. The Free Spirit – unencumbered by the word “etiquette” at all.  In this case feel free to address the envelope (if you even use an envelope) however you’d like: Mom and Dad, Judy and John, Auntie Maggie and Uncle Dave the sky is the limit!

2. The In Between – You don’t quite want to lose all sense of etiquette but you’re not comfortable calling your girlfriend Mrs. Joseph Jones.  There are many solutions for brides who feel that “proper” etiquette is old fashioned and inegalitarian.  One solution is simply adding the woman’s name.  Instead of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Jones try Mr. Joseph and Mrs. Susan Jones, or Mr. and Mrs. Joseph and Susan Jones.  It is still formal, but perhaps updated for a new generation who is not used to abandoning their names!

3. 100% Pure Etiquette – There are a million books recommending the proper etiquette for those who wish to go by the rules of formality.  Generally in addressing a married couple it is recommended to use Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Jones. 

Of course, this is only the tip of the etiquette iceberg!  There are dozens of situations that you’ll doubtlessly encounter and for those I recommend a book on invitations or etiquette.  Just view this information as a guideline for navigating your way diplomatically through the invitation process, you have the ability to pick and chose what you want to follow and what to leave out.  See my blog on the must-have book The Wedding Invitation Handbook by Julie Holcomb for more detailed information.

The Wedding Invitation Handbook by Julie Holcomb

Typefacing, fonts, colors, how to order, etiquette and wording.  Julie covers all of the bases for invitations; whether you make your own or order them.  If you are sending invitations, this book will be helpful no matter what kind!

If you need more encouragement, both Martha Stewart and Kate’s Paperie give it their blessing. 

I don’t see it readily available on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but here’s what the publisher says:

If you don’t have your invitation or reply card envelopes preprinted with your address you might want to consider having a personalized rubber stamp created for you.  Handwriting is nice but time consuming and labels can sometime feel like an impersonal, last minute afterthought, slapped onto an otherwise beautifully created invitation.  (Although I have seen them done nicely.)

I highly recommend Impress Rubber Stamps.  They have wonderful custom stamps and great customer service.  Their website is easy to use;  you simply type in your text and then choose the style and size.  Within a day or two I had a draft emailed to me and then a few days later (after my approval) it arrived in the mail.  I actually liked the stamp and the font so much that I ordered the font from My Fonts.  Then I used the font through-out the invitation to maintain continuity.  The font cost $19.95 and the stamp was $13.50 plus $4.95 shipping and tax.

Another note to mention is the idea of just using your first names, that way the stamp works before and after the wedding on thank-you cards and whatever else you want to use it on.  Also, if you do want less of a stamp look on your invitation you can opt to emboss the address. You can find embossing powder and embossers at any Joann or Michaels store.  Then you simply stamp, add the powder, emboss with hot air for a couple of seconds and let dry.  Embossing powders come in any color of the rainbow including metallics.  This also might ensure that the ink doesn’t run in the event that your invitation comes in contact with any rain!  Happy Stamping!