creating our bespoke wedding invites
If you read the previous instalment of this series it will be no surprise you that I started my invite design process by creating a mood board of sorts. Not the collage kind, more of a brain dump; a rough squiggle of the ideas I had in my head. I wanted to create something really unique and beautiful for our invites; something that would stand out and would match the level of beauty and care that goes into the flowers, the dressing of the venue, and the outfits.
The idea of the cut-out Land Rover seemed oddly obvious to me. It was one of the only things I felt super strongly about for our wedding day at the time. I didn’t want to turn up to our ceremony in a big fancy car, I was hoping to go in something more casual and my Dad’s defender seemed like a wonderful choice. Partly I created these for our Save the Dates, and partly I was trying to convince my parents that was a good idea .
the process
I drew the car in pencil first, painted it in watercolour, and finished it off with coloured pencil. I had it professionally scanned and sent to me digitally. I didn’t have an iPad at the time so I used the programme Affinity Photo (similar to photoshop) to ‘clean’ up any dark spots.
When it came to printing I already knew I would use printed.com. I had purchased sample packs from a few online printers and their papers stood out by a mile. They felt thick and luxurious. Ideally I would have loved to use someone more local, but we were still in the middle of lock-down and that just wasn’t going to be possible.
The small Land Rovers arrived printed onto small A6 card. I had to cut them out individually one
by one to make them the Land Rover shape. My Mum laughed at me whilst she helped me address envelopes, which was also something I chose to put extra care into. Printed.com would have provided A6 envelopes but, A. Having cut out each car these were now too big, B. They only offered white or brown and I knew I wanted something that matched more beautifully.
I searched the internet and found an amazing website called KSM Envelopes. They offer samples of any size envelope in every colour and shade you can imagine. I ended up going for a deep blue. They were perfect.
the main invites
It was a few months before I started working on the main invites themselves, mainly because we weren’t even sure if we would be getting married; so many of our friends had had to postpone/cancel their weddings and we were 90% sure we were going to be the same. Eventually though we thought we better do something.
I wanted these to be just as playful as the Save the Dates and just as individual to us. The image at the top of the invites is from a photo taken in Anglesey; we are sat by the sea with our longboards, both wearing Vans trainers, it’s very, very ‘us’.
The process was similar to that of the Land Rover, I drew it, water-coloured it, added some coloured pencil detail and then had it scanned in professionally. THIS time I did have my iPad and so I brightened and neatened it up using an app called Procreate.
I had known I wanted to do a ‘quad fold’ style for some time - but I had no idea how on earth to begin creating these or how I would get them printed. I made a few mock up folds with scrap paper and created a size I was happy with. Folded they are just smaller than A6. Printed.com offer a bespoke service but I was nervous it wasn’t going to work, especially as all communication with their bespoke team is via email. But long story short it worked perfectly. I requested one draft, made a few amendments and requested another.They were perfect.
Next we will be talking about something I spent far, far, far too long on. And is arguably the thing I worked hardest to hide!
I so hope you are enjoying the series so far!
Much love
Georgina x