It would be really remiss of me not to post something about my wedding before 2018 is out. It’s been an awfully long time since I posted on my blog, my attention throughout 2017 and into 2018 was turned towards wedding planning - my marriage to the lovely Alistair.
Having recently completed the online surface pattern design course with Make It In Design, it seemed a natural step to design my own wedding stationery and how exciting to be involved in the process from design through to print.
Alistair gave me free reign to do what I wanted, and I consulted with him along the way so he knew what was happening. He was the perfect client, happy with my work and if he saw something he didn’t like he told me and gave me a clear reason why. It was incredibly useful to have a second pair of eyes.
The design
I knew I wanted something floral and wanted to draw inspiration from flowers that are in season during September (the month of our wedding). I love sunflowers, gerberas and gypsophila and used these as a starting point for my research online as well as treating myself to a small bunch of flowers to sketch from (a definite perk of the job).
Having chosen a church wedding, followed by a reception at a contemporary venue, I wanted to design something that reflected the romance and beauty of a church with a contemporary feel.
I wanted to keep the hand drawn quality of my original designs to portray a more informal relaxed feel to my design and teamed this with the beautiful Wild Ones script style font.
Colour palette
I was very relaxed about the colour palette, I knew that the groomsmen would be in navy, but had no strong ideas about contrasting colours. I very much wanted the process to evolve, to enjoy the planning and not be governed by a set colour palette that might cause me and everyone around me too much stress trying to a make things match. By putting total faith in my goals of what I would achieve each month things naturally evolved.
The colour palette emerged once I had chosen the bridesmaids' dresses. The dresses were from Chi Chi London and I stumbled across them one evening whilst looking for something to wear for another event.
The subtle yet boldness of the design immediately caught my eye and I fell in love with the print. All of my bridesmaids loved the design too and pink became a key colour in the palette.
If there is one thing I have learnt since taking the Make It In Design course is that my tastes, my choice and my wardrobe have all started to change as I have become increasingly confident in choosing and designing patterns.
Stationery
After choosing the bridesmaid outfits I was able to finalise my colour palette to start working on the stationery. I designed a range of matching wedding stationery which included:
Invitations
Order of service
'Thank you' cards
Individual thank you cards for each place setting
Place cards
Table numbers
Seating plan
Table confetti
I worked with a local printer for the invitations, order or service and 'thank you' cards. This worked out more cost effective than ordering online and it's good to shop local.
Getting Crafty
Wanting to keep within my print budget and have an element of handmade in the mix, I made my own table place names, table numbers, table confetti and seating plan myself.
Table numbers and seating plan
My invitations were double sided, so I was able to use one side to print a table number on to white paper which I double mounted by gluing this onto a piece of pink paper before placing this on the front of the invitation. The reverse showed the floral design.
My table plan was constructed in a similar way to the table numbers. I used a piece of 5mm foamex board to apply each individual table's seating plan. My venue displayed this on an easel which looked great.
Place cards
I bought blank name cards and made a label template using Indesign which I added elements of my design and the names of my guests (a similar effect could be achieved using the label template in Microsoft Word). I printed these off on my home inkjet printer and cut each one out and carefully applied them to the blank name cards. I chose to use a steel rule and scalpel (watch those fingers, I suggest using a cutting mat or similar) to cut out each name card as this guaranteed a perfectly straight line. I used a spary craft glue to fix each name tag to the card. This took me a little time and patience to get this right.
I’d recommend using the spray glue outside on a piece of newspaper to avoid mess and give yourself plenty of time to apply each name tag and cut them out.
Table confetti
For the table confetti/sprinkles I bought a flower and heart shape die cut. I used any left over invitations and different shades of pink card to manually punch out sprinkles for each table. This was a little time consuming, but I loved the small elements of my design that poked through on the blue hearts that I punched from my invitations.
Taking this extra bit of time for these finishing touches was definitely worth it. To see all of the printed cards, place names and sprinkles together in the venue with the floral centre pieces and paper globes in the ceiling looked amazing and was definitely worth the effort.
Photo credit: Bridesmaid, table setting with number, Julia's name card and seating plan on easel all by Geoff Daley Photography
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