Tag Archives: invitations

Press this.

Mar. 27, 2010

Yesterday morning I was climbing the walls. Our invitations were in LaGrange, on the truck for delivery, but weren’t scheduled to be delivered until 4:30 pm. After refreshing the FedEx tracking page about 400 times, I began to consider chasing down the truck. How could I possibly wait all day when I knew they were in this tiny town? Right as I was contemplating how best not to sound like a crazy loon, the doorbell rang. By the time I realized what was going on, I was standing downstairs next to my father and JP, while my father was threatening to stab-open the box with a Swiss Army Knife. (Both he and JP enjoy pushing my buttons).

My father and his Swiss Army Knife of (possible) doom.

Okay, okay, I’ll get on with it! I will save you the gory opening details, but everything is here, accounted for, and completely and 100% fabulous. These beauties are all on yummy Lettra, and printed in Rhodium Red, Process Blue, and, well Black. As with other posts of this nature, you’re probably only here for the pixxx, so go on, give our delightful invites a once-over.

I am totally in love with the results– the feel of the paper, the deep indentations, the weight of it all, the perfect floods… I really cannot blabber on enough about these.  It’s just magic in cotton and ink form.

A big thanks goes out to Colleen of Cleanwash Letterpress, and Brooke (Mrs. Cupcake!) for referring me to her. They both really rescued me during my printing conundrum, and Colleen did such a beautiful job printing these guys in a jiffy.

Now comes the yellow-lining, the website-sneaking-in, and the writing. Oh boy. This will either spell disaster or awesome-aster. I’m hoping for the latter.

How many backflips did you do when your invitations came in? Did you design them yourself then have them printed, had someone else design and print them, or go the totally DIY route? Oh yeah, and what do you guys think?!

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Pressing Decisions: Hold Up

Mar. 7, 2010

The one part of the invitation design process that I have loathed is the whole response card mess. It has been the beast that has spurned 1,000 arguments, sleepless hours, and just general angry thoughts in the past week.

Well over a week ago, I thought I was 100% finished with the meat of the invitation design– all I had left to do was decide on ink color and all that jazz. I sent the proofs to my mother and JP for a thorough run-down.

Honestly, I expected four thumbs up, a green light, and much rejoicing. From JP, I got much praise, excitedness, and much pumping-up. It was awesome. From my mother, I got this in response to the fact that there was no specific “number showing up” area:

My response is, how many people know this? I mean, let’s take [names removed to protect the not-so-innocent]. We’ll invite five, but if past history is any indicator, we’ll have at most two.

Now, insert much whining, complaining, moaning, and general not-happiness on my side. I didn’t want to have to re-space the whole dang thing, figure out wording, try not to make it super annoying, and, well, yeah. I wasn’t happy. At all. I told her it was not possible based on the amount of space with which I had to work [not true], that I’d have to re-design the entire suite [not true], and this would be a giant hassle for me [true].What can I say, I was acting a little like a brat.

I let it sit for a few days, determined not to change it. Finally, I got off of my stubborn horse and made one with a “number attending” part, so now we have two options.

Option 1, of course, is the original design. Still my favorite. Option 2, is the [insert grumbling here] number-attending design.

This decision is still up in the air, and I really don’t know what is the best option. So, which way should we go? Option 1, and call the always-failing-members for guest-count confirmation, or option 2? (Though I know people will screw this up somehow. It’s apparently a proven wedding fact. I vote for a book of butchered RSVP cards). How did you all handle this bidness?

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Pressing Decisions: Part One

Feb. 21, 2010

We’re doing letterpress invitations, a fact that I’m pretty freaking excited about. I thought letterpress was going to be way out of our price range, but thanks to my beloved Boxcar Press, and the quote they gave Colleen, I found out that letterpress was 100% doable for us. She told me to stop whining, get a quote, and, well, I did.

We’re having…

  • 80 A7 Invites
  • 80 A7 Reception Cards
  • 80 4-bar RSVP Cards
  • 240 Envelopes (Inner, Outer, RSVP)

…pressed in 1-color for around $600. My custom design, which is what I was planning to do in the first place, but again, I thought it was way out of our range.

Now, insert some neuroses. I had a a mini freak-out about the fact that I was going to be designing for the ever-exalted letterpress. That was pretty silly, given that I have such a strong graphic design background, as well as the fact that I have extensive experience with doing intaglio printmaking. I totally psyched myself out. I couldn’t think in 1-color. Everything I kept sketching out was either too elaborate, not suited for letterpress, or just not my design aesthetic. Thankfully, some of my lovely fellow bees calmed me the hell down, and I took a step back. I could do this, right?

I closed and deleted all of my failed attempts, and started with a blank slate, some of my favorite fonts, and a clear head. (Said fonts are Gotham, an old standby, and Carousel, which was referred to me by dear Colleen, who shares my love for fabulous type). I started with the main invitations, and then moved onto the reception cards.

I, of course, wasn’t a total fan at first, but was soon reassured by e’erybody. I think I like them now, which is saying a lot for me.

For our invitation suite, I wanted to use traditional wording, for a few reasons.

  1. I’m going a slightly funkier route as far as the invitation design goes, and given that it’s a more formal wedding, I thought that it would set the correct tone for our wedding.
  2. I’m a sucker for mixing tradition into our wedding.
  3. My sanity. Less decisions to make? Yes, please.

Now, I know you’re probably thinking, “Um, black and white? I thought you loved color?!” Yes, yes I do, but that is a whole ‘nother story, dears. You’ll have to stay tuned to see what wondrous things I have up my sleeve as far as color goes!

How did you decide on your invitation-printing-method? Did you freak out when beginning the design process for your invites? What do you guys think about these puppies?

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Possible STD

Nov. 15, 2009

smallsavethedateposs

I obsess. Over everything. It’s a well-known fact. Most of the time, I like to imagine that it adds to my charm, my character, my overall interestingness.

Sometimes it makes me want to poke my eyes out.

As an artist (ugh, that sounds so pompous), I felt that I needed to design all of our paper goods or I’d kick myself. So, I’m designing all of our paper goods. There’s a catch-22 in that I’ve also been kicking myself for making that decision! I’ve been obsessing, obsessing, researching, obsessing, and making mock-up after mock-up after mock-up for months and months and months. I’ve nearly driven myself mad over it.

Fast forward to fairly recently, when a sort of calm idea passed through my brain while drooling over Max Wanger‘s work. He does some beautiful things with text and photographs for his blog posts. I thought that it [the style] would be an awesome way to approach our paper goods. It could be quirky and fun, but also a simple enough design not to drive me bananas.

Today I made a few mock-ups of  possible save-the-dates. One is posted at the beginning of this post, and the other is going, well, right after I finish this paragraph. (I also realize that the second one doesn’t have any “formal invitation to follow” jazz on it. These are really really early stages).

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I also need to figure out a way to have our wedding website plunked on there without getting too wordy. Maybe I’ll throw in another  small card or a (hello, I’m now a wedding-sheep) magnet.

I envision these printed digitally on heavy, thick, matte, and grainy stock and sent out in kraft envelopes.

So ‘fess up. Who else obsessed for MONTHS over a detail only to solve it in an afternoon? Or, is this a totally lame idea and should I scrap it entirely?

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