Invitation update

So I dashed all over town today looking at paper stock, envelopes, houses and meeting with printers and our very talented graphic designer friend, who I'll call K/B, or B/K, and the invitations are coming together!

My major battle has been an unexpected one: since day one I've wanted cobalt or turquoise blue invitation with white text. Turns out that none of the usual suspects can really print opaque white ink. It's either really faded looking or it's a really expensive process i.e. foil. Not only that, but it's been impossible to find the "right" color paper and envelopes.

Then, finally a breakthrough: it occurred to me that should just do it the opposite way around and print all of the blue and not the text onto white card, so that the white card shows through the blue = white text. Does that make sense? Probably not, it's been a long day and it's complicated, but it's relatively inexpensive, will take about 6 days (2 days of which are drying time because it's so much ink), and it's exactly what I want. Yay! I'm waiting on the official estimate, but I think it's a go as soon as the venue is locked and therefore the layout is locked.

Today I also finally found hot pink envelopes and bought 170 of them (figuring I'd need lots of spares), and the plan is for the printers to start printing the return address on them in white (yes it will be faded but it's just a return address) tomorrow, so that I can start addressing them mid next week (I'm thinking of handwriting all addresses myself with silver ink like I did with the Save The Dates). That way I'll have all of the envelopes addressed by the time the invitations and the RSVP postcards are printed, and they can ship right away, about 7 weeks before the wedding (it's currently 9 and a half weeks before). That would be pretty amazing considering we don't even have a venue yet!

I'm so grateful that I had the time to do all of this running around and exploring different options, rather than choosing the paths of least resistance - either an invitation I didn't particularly like, or spending much more than we budgeted/ seems rational. Hopefully they'll turn out as planned and all my efforts will be worth it!

They're definitely colorful - turquoise, cobalt blue and hot pink - but I wanted them to really set the tone for the wedding, bright, fun, festive, and definitely not your typical wedding! I'll post pictures when they're done!

Save The Dates

The Save The Dates are done!  We're only sending Save The Dates to out of town guests... hope that wasn't a mistake!  They're not exactly what I wanted but I'm happy with them, they were cheap, and they're (almost) all addressed and on their way!

I'm not sure these photos show the colors accurately so here are some swatches from Paper Source's website (where we got the "papaya" cards and red envelopes):

Etsy

I am newly obsessed with Etsy.  It's like Ebay for handmade items - arts and crafts, jewelry, vintage items, the list is endless!  

It's proving to be a great wedding resource for me and my quest for an inexpensive but stylish wedding.  In fact I'm just about to order our "Save The Date" cards from an Etsy seller Fading Flowers.  Here is some of her work:

Mrs Fading Flowers uses a Gocco, which from what I understand is a self-contained screen printing system using flash bulbs that originated in Japan in 1977 and is a bit of a cult item.  The "Save The Date" will be designed on a computer and then individually "stamped" onto the paper, which I think lends a really lovely rustic feel - each one will be different - while being very cost effective.  I can't wait to see them (hopefully they'll ship end of February - though they are just going to the out-of-towners)!

Here are a few of my other favorite items from Etsy which I love not just for all the great stuff you can buy, but for how it inspires me to be more creative and crafty every day!

I LOVE these handmade White/ Blue Porcelain Cups, $15.50 each from New Moon Studio.  It's really tempting to get a few of them!

This Purple Porcelain Vase, $28, is also from New Moon Studio and I just love the colors!  I may have to hint to Andy that it would make a great Valentine's Day present!

These prints are by Etsy seller and fellow Australian (though she is based in Adelaide) Naomi Murrell:

You can even buy mustaches on a stick on Etsy!  And don't laugh, I actually own these!  Yes, I saw them online at somethingshidinghere and I had to have them, they are really fun!  I had planned on having our photo taken with them for our "Save The Date" cards but we decided to go with the Gocco print instead.

I bought these adorable glitter forget me not elephants, $12 each, at the same time and they look really cute lined up on our kitchen shelf:

Last but not least I find myself totally fascinated by this Blue Sinking Fairytale sculpture by poodlebreath, $75.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I spotted it a while back!

Invitation musing: fonts and whatnot

I'm currently really into the idea of having our invitations and/ or envelopes be a bright color - cobalt blue, red, pink, orange, or turquoise - with white writing, similar to this logo for the blog of West Egg Design's Amy Wiltbank.  Great font too!

I'm loving fonts that look somewhat handwritten like this invitation below:

Some samples from a calligrapher that I like Pen & Ink Calligraphy, although I don't think calligraphy is in the budget!

I've blogged about this "font" before that was used on an invitation by Linda & Harriett but a graphic designer friend recently pointed out that it's not a font at all, it's custom (you can tell because no two letters are the same) - shame!

I'd been starting to seriously lean towards nothing decorative on the invitations, text only, until I saw this honeysuckle print on this Little Tree Press invitation - adorable!

Wedding Paper Divas

Some more cute invites from Wedding Paper Divas:

Monograms & Crests

I like the idea of creating a monogram or crest for the wedding, especially since I spotted these on Style Me Pretty that were designed by Lisa Hoffman of Ceci New York:

Invitations - Linda & Harriett

I'm loving the invitations and other designs from Linda & Harriett, some of my favorites from the website are below:

I'm also LOVING this font! 

I just think this card is adorable!

Love the flowers on this birthday card, great color combo too!

The oysters on this "save the date" aren't exactly appropriate for our wedding but they are stunning!

I also love me some pink flamingos!  Mental note: buy some of those adorably tacky glowing ones for the garden, whenever we get a garden!