{Real Weddings} Rebecca & Chris

Rebecca is an old buddy of mine from college. We actually met in a web design class. Since graduating Rebecca has moved on to become a Graphic Designer for INT Design, where she currently designs collateral, print and websites for a variety of clients in industries ranging from entertainment, education, technology, retail and more.

I was so excited to hear from Rebecca when her and her now husband Chris got engaged. Knowing what a fantastic designer she was, I couldn't wait to see how she would design all of the elements of her wedding.

Just about every element of her wedding was handcrafted and either designed and made by herself, or by a very talented friend or relative. One of my favorite things she decided on was her color palette. The green, copper and peachy colors not only blended really well with her existing event space, but worked perfect for the season (the couple was married in June).

Being a graphic designer of course Rebecca made herself a fantastic wedding website which was a great reference for us guests in regards to her big event. Rebecca also designed her own invitations and other stationery and printed them out herself using stocks from LCI Paper. Her handmade, unique centerpieces were a beautiful addition to her tablescape, and only cost her about $8 a piece to make!

The focal point during her ceremony was a beautiful wood sculpture of her main design element, a lotus flower, which her uncle helped her make.


Rebecca's gorgeous wedding gown was also custom designed and made for her by her friend Abigail Worthington and Abigal's mother. The dress was stunning and the fact it was created for her by one of her bridesmaids made it even more special.

Overall, Rebecca did an awesome job planning her wedding and it was an honor and pleasure to be a guest at it.

Photography Credit: Melissa Lin Ellis

Submissions

Invite Couture would love to feature reader and event professional submissions on our blog. In particular, we're interested in DIY event projects done by graphic designers, interior designers and other design professionals not currently working as part of the wedding and event industry. We are also interested in submissions by event professionals and DIY brides as well.

If you are interested in submitting, please email the following information to corrie.feld (at) invitecouture.com. Please include "Submission" in the title of the email.

For DIY Event Projects:

• 5-10 images in jpeg or png format, minimum 72 dpi and between 500 and 1,000 pixels wide.
• A description of the event, including the background (purpose) of the event, what items were created DIY and any additional information on what you did to create the items.
• A brief overview of your inspiration for your designs.
• Information on yourself and your current profession (i.e. graphic designer). If you have a portfolio website please feel free to include that as well.

For Event Professionals:

• 5-10 images in jpeg or png format, minimum 72 dpi and between 500 and 1,000 pixels wide.
• A description of the event, including the background (purpose) of the event, what elements you contributed to the event as well as credits to any additional vendor's work featured in your photographs.
• A brief overview of the inspiration for the event/product designs.
• Information on yourself and your business i.e. where you are located, your website and contact information, the products/services you offer, as well as how you got into the event business.

If I need any additional information, I'll be sure to contact you. Thanks so much!

My Interview with LCI Paper

Thanks to LCI Paper for the awesome opportunity to do an interview about Invite Couture and what we're all about. Read the interview here.

Redesigning My Blog

I decided I wanted to jazz up the design of my blog a bit. What do you think so far? I'd love to hear. Of course it'll be an ongoing work in process depending on my mood, so we'll see what I finally settle on in the end.

I'm also thinking of redesigning my website as well. I fell in love with the background I've been using on my blog and twitter homepage and would love to incorporate it somehow. I guess we'll see what I come up with.

It's 7:45 am in Brooklyn and already hot hot hot. Enjoy your day and stay cool!

Choosing Stamps for Your Wedding Invitations

USPS 2009 Wedding Designs

Nowadays there are so many great services out there for creating your own custom stamps, like www.zazzle.com , but for budget brides these stamps come at a price. Sometimes when weighing whether or not to go with custom stamps, it just doesn't make sense in your overall budget.

Good news is your not limited to liberty bell stamps for your beautiful wedding invitations. The United States Post Office every year features new designs made specifically for wedding related stationery (save the dates, wedding invitations, bridal shower invites, etc). Even better news is they don't cost you any more than the libery bells, so it's a great option no matter which way you put it.

Below is a sampling of designs both currently and previously available. For my own wedding invitations I sent out last year we used the "Wedding Hearts" design and it worked out beautifully!

Mad for Mad Men

I absoutely love AMC's show Mad Men, and if I had more time in my busy schedule would have (and probably should have) planned a Mad Men premiere party for tonight. If I were to have planned such a party, I would have used the below images as inspiration for the planning.

Of course it would have to be a "theme" party where guests would be asked to dress in period attire. Whether I invited guests via an evite or a formal, drop in the mail invitation I'd use the below period ad as inspiration for the design. And what 60's retro party would be complete without retro receipe cocktails and appetizers? Sandwich loaf and fondue anyone?

Photo Credits: Clothing, www.bananarepublic.com; fondue, www.lestout.com; assorted retro appetizers www.bettycrocker.com, retro party spread, www.swellvegan.wordpress.com, glassware, www.edibletulip.typepad.com; punchbowl, www.bonappetit.com, retro cocktails, www.boston.com & www.yumsugar.com

All-Systems Satellite Distributors Corporate Invitation

At my day job I'm a Marketing Executive for All-Systems Satellite Distributors. They are one of the 5 independent Distributors of DISH Network Satellite equipment. I'm normally busy designing advertising campaigns for DISH Network's independent retailers (of whom are All-Systems customers) but this time had the fun opportunity to show of my inviation design skills designing invitations to the cocktail party we were holding at DISH Network's Team Summit event. Team Summit is kind of like the large, nationwide conference DISH holds every year for their retailers.

DISH Network had specific graphics and fonts they were already using for the event, so I decided to piggy back on some of what they were doing by including the same fonts and imagry of the rockies (the event was being held in Denver).


The invitation came out great! It was colorful yet fancy enclosed in a gold lined envelope. A great first impression of the cocktail party soon to come.

Patrick's Birthday Invitations

Amy contacted me back in May about designing invitations for Patrick's birthday. We spoke on the phone once about the party, but then mostly corresponded via email. The pre-design phase went really quickly and efficiently being Amy knew exactly what she was looking for. A few items included on that list were:

• A definate, NYC vibe... maybe even something with a broadway theme?
  
• A black and white design
  
• A pocket envelope invitation with an inserted RSVP
  
• Potentially including a photo of the "birthday boy" on the invitation.


• The Dear Joe Four font was a must, it's one of Amy's favorites :-)
  
  

Amy chose a beautiful, snow white pocket envelope in a shimmer finish and a kind of ecru-ish shimmer decorative card and envelopes. From there, we got to work on the design. We had worked out a special package for her were we did two different concept designs and the hour of revisions, as opposed to our normal packages.

For the first design, I made the photo of Patrick the focus point. Overall although she liked the design, Amy worried after thinking about it for a bit Patrick might not appreciate his image all over all the invitations that went out to the guests. So we scrapped that one.

The second design featured a very prominent, NYC Skyline, which Amy loved. We took the design concept a bit further, trying several different versions of the skyline including some options that included the Upper West Side (and important part of the city for the birthday boy). In the end, they settled on a beautiful aerial shot of mid-town with a focus on the Empire State Building. As an additional "surprise" for the guests, I designed the RSVP card to include a skyline image at the bottom of card so when guests took it out of the pocket envelope, it would be an unexpected design element.

We even designed and printed the envelopes featuring the very cool Dear Joe Four font. In the end, the finished product is one of my favorite invitations we've designed to date.

Happy Birthday Patrick!

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Kelly & Merlando Double Wedding Invitations

Kelly and Merlando are getting married on Long Island in October. Kelly had found out about Invite Couture after attending the Great Bridal Expo at the Marriot Marquis in NYC when she received one of our flyers in the bridal take away bag. I later met with her and her family to discuss what she was looking for as far as a design goes as well as to choose potential papers stocks and such.


Kelly was initally looking for a very modern design and had done much research and provided me with several examples of invitations she liked. She in particular wanted something with gold text printed on purple cardstock. After looking at some samples of my past work, she liked the graphic "scroll" element of the invitations I did for my own wedding, so we decided one of the design versions I would create for her would include a scroll graphic. Also, considering both the bride and groom's family surnames begin with the letter "M", they were interested in seeing a design with a monogram on it as well. So overall, my challenge was to create for them a modern design with a traditional twist (maybe with a scroll), a traditional invite with a modern twist incorporating a monogram and then a standard, modern design.


Since Kelly was most interested in an invitation that was a purple background with gold text, to keep her budget in check what I suggested was to go with a full color printing design on white paper (to simulate purple paper) as opposed to going with a pantone ink on the purple paper. Overall it would be less expensive for her as well as still have the affect she was looking for. Kelly also then chose a pocket envelope design with a deep purple pocket envelope and spicy gold accent cardstocks and mailing envelopes.


After completing the design process, Kelly was so happy with two of the designs she couldn't choose between them, so instead of choosing she decided to do both designs, creating one to mail to half the family and the other to the other half! It is such a compliment for me to have had both designs produced. Both designs also feature a cool, puzzle like design for the insertion cards where when in the pocket, the image is seamless. It was the first time I created designs like this and overall the results were awesome.

Working on Kelly and Merlando's invitations was such an enjoyable process and Invite Couture is so happy with the results of the finished product.