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This is one of the recent projects I am really excited about — it’s our first booklet-style invitation. I’ll be blogging about it in depth later this year after I have some photos of the big day from the bride and groom. In the meantime, I couldn’t resist posting a little bit of it now!
It’s an orange and gray soft-cover booklet printed on bright white stock and bound with bright orange satin ribbon. Four pages tell the couple’s story, invite, and inform, while a tear-off panel acts as a reply postcard. The design itself is also really fun and preppy, so we’ll be adding it to our Ephemera collection soon along with a few others.
Fun!
–Tara
Source: Randy Heisch, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
We’re back! We were in the great state of Texas for a wedding over Easter weekend. It was a total whirlwind of activity, and lots of fun. The wedding was also totally blogworthy, so look for that on the horizon.
The Texas Hill Country was looking pretty spring-like with tons of bluebonnets and other native flowers springing up all over the highway. Dave and I took a drive to Austin to visit a few of our favorite places, visit old friends, and eat chicken fried steak (ever elusive in the Pacific Northwest):
Yowza.
On our drive around Austin, we passed a turnoff for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, which made me think of Ashley and Matthew, who are getting married there very soon. It’s sort of funny… Back when we had all that insane weather in December, the whole city kind of shut down and I snapped this picture of their poor little invitation stuck with me in the snow!
Not to worry, Ashley and Matthew… Spring has sprung in Texas! Actually I’m sure it’s been sprung for awhile down south. I think it’s finally arrived in Western Washington as well. Hopefully brighter evening hours will help me blog a bit more often this season. Lots to say! Thanks to all you loyal readers… I endeavor to deserve you 
.
–Tara
I have long admired Stephannie Barba’s work at Couture Maps, and have been meaning to blog about it for some time. She uses hand lettering, letterpress, hand painting and tons of other techniques to create these gorgeous, one-of-a-kind maps for her clients. They are so perfect for destination weddings in particular, but it’s easy to see that anyone would want their wedding maps to be this adorable:
Pretty impressive, right? Well, what if I told you she is also incredibly organized? Last year I received this paper delight in the mail:
That’s right. It’s one of her maps, but it features her vacation destination that year — the Seychelles. She must have brought all those cards and envelopes on vacation with her, and then bought the stamps and sent out a custom postcard of her very own! How rad is that? I’d like to think that someday I will be that together, but it is really unlikely .
Thanks, Stephannie, for letting us spotlight your work. I hope you’ll keep me on your mailing list!
–Tara
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d blog about Amy and Tim’s lovely raspberry red August 2008 wedding. I just love the colors in those flowers… so pretty and pink without being too feminine overall. Of course, we made sure to match Amy’s raspberry fabric swatches in the ink for the invitations… She went with a modern, dotty version of our Vintage Flourish design, and paired it with a raspberry damask envelope liner.
Our calligrapher, Brigitte, did all the addressing — it was a rich gold color on deep brown envelopes. She also got to help Amy directly with place cards and miscellaneous signage at the wedding. Check out the “Bride” and “Groom” scalloped-edge chair labels below.
Amy and Tim also made the cutest table number signs — instead of a plain old “7,” they got creative and included old photos of themselves from age seven. The photos on table 8 were from age eight, and so on. Love it!
And finally, one more fab photo of the happy couple on a San Francisco beach. Thank you so much to Amy and Tim, and Jennifer Kloss Photography (Bay area) for sharing these photos with us. You pulled off a stunning event!
–Tara
As you know, I love seeing pictures from the weddings of the couples I work with — but look at this one!
This is Anna and Min wearing their gorgeous hanbok during part of their wedding celebration — the Korean Paebaek Tea Ceremony. Anna was kind enough to forward me the explanation of the ceremony from her wedding programs:
In Korean tradition, the marriage between a man and a woman represents the joining of two families, rather than the joining of two individuals. This ceremony was originally intended as a way for the bride to pay her respects to the groom’s family, with whom she traditionally lived after the wedding.
In a private room, the bride and groom will enter together dressed in ceremonial Korean wedding attire. Their parents will be seated in front of a table laden with various edibles and tea. The bride and groom will first bow deeply to the honorees, then kneel to pour tea. Once each honoree drinks the tea, they impart wisdom, advice or a wish for the bride and groom’s future.
Finally, the honorees will throw dates (symbolizing girls) and chestnuts (symbolizing boys), which the bride will try to catch in her skirt. According to legend, the number of dates and chestnuts caught signifies how many children she will bear. Later in the evening, the bride and groom are supposed to eat the dates and chestnuts that were caught.
The Paebaek ceremony was originally a way to pay respect to the groom’s family. Since brides no longer live with the groom’s parents after the wedding, many couples have modernized the tradition. Relatives on both sides of the family are often invited to participate and offer blessings to the couple.
I would love to have seen them trying to catch the dates and chestnuts! Here’s the bride in her wedding gown:
And of course, the invitations!
Thanks to Anna and Min for sharing your story with us, and to photographer Henry Chan (New York) for the great pics.
Best,
Tara
I feel like we’ve been a bit heavy on the green around here lately, so here’s something to mix it up — our cute Floral Whimsy design in a combination of wine and antique gold for Jennifer and Geoffrey’s September wedding in New Jersey. These two are adorable together, so their invitations had to match!
The Feel Script typeface Jennifer fell in love with goes perfectly with this design. Brigitte did her usual calligraphy magic by matching the typeface perfectly when she addressed the accompanying envelopes in a great purply-wine gouache. Of course, I have no picture. I promise I will start taking pictures of the calligraphy she does — it is to-die-for!
These two love cupcakes, so the cake above was actually designed by Pink Cake Box to look like 3 large cupcakes on top of each other. The ruffles represent cupcake wrappers, and are made from glistening fondant with a tiny little dotted swirl pattern, à la the invitations. How cute is that?!
My favorite thing about this wedding is pictured below: the seating “cards” Jennifer made for each guest. The rocks are something you can buy in any craft-type store, and she simply used a metallic Sharpie to label them with each guest’s name and table assignment. Definitely labor-intensive, but what a great visual impact for minimal cost.
Jennifer and Geoff — thank you so much for sharing all these with us. It was a pleasure working with you, and I wish you all the best in your new house! Wedding photos courtesy of Patten Photography (New Jersey).
–Tara
[So I have to tell you that I seriously considered titling his post "People Who Are Too Attractive." Haha. But in all seriousness, look at them. It's a little ridiculous!]
Nyema and Jamal’s June wedding invitations were definitely one of my favorites from this year. Their palette of green, gold, and shimmering champagne was just too delicious for me to handle. We used a cute dragonfly ornament for the invitation, lined the envelopes with metallic gold-dotted white paper, and printed it all in the most luminous and fresh grass green color. They even ordered some fun champagne-bubbled coasters as favors for the reception (yes, we can do that!).
A few more shots of the newlyweds are below. I love Nyema’s dress — especially the little lace jacket for the ceremony. It is so perfect!
Thanks so much, Nyema and Jamal! It was great to get to know you, and bond over Battlestar Galactica. (I am DYING waiting for the conclusion of season 4 next year!) Beautiful photos courtesy of the wonderful Jessica Messer of J. Messer Photography (Alabama).
Keep in touch!
–Tara
Green has always been a favorite of mine, so I am naturally in love with the pale colors of Sarah and Hamish’s August wedding. We started with an apple green dahlia ornament, and added a little brown bee for a touch of whimsy. That bee buzzed around everywhere, including the front of the invitation envelope.
I adore their cake design below as well — from the slightly minty green tint to the little champagne-esque bubbles rushing up from the bottom tier — so cute!
And so scrumptious!
Thank you so much to Sarah, Hamish and Hy Studio (San Francisco area) for sharing these wedding day photos with us.
–Tara
One of the reasons my husband and I moved up to the Pacific Northwest was — wait for it — The Weather! Yeah, yeah, the Seattle area has a reputation for being rainy, but that actually sounded really good to us. Keep in mind we are from south Texas, and were completely over the oppressive heat that reigns from April to October. I can get my Vitamin D some other way, thank you very much. We were ready for a change — for cool rain, towering tulips, rust-colored autumns, and even some snow once or twice a year.
But I miss thunderstorms! Every time I fly home, I secretly hope for a flash flood because I miss the dramatic sky and violent thunder. And I’ve been away so long, that thunder actually scares me now (which I always thought was pretty lame).
Knowing how much I love the rain, you can imagine the thrill I felt when I saw the photos below from Michelle and Frank’s July wedding right here in Snohomish, Washington — they are stunning! The hot, bright orange colors are such a surprising contrast to the dark sky. I would think a lot of couples would be bummed by the threat of rain on their wedding day, but look how wonderfully this turned out:
For their invitations, we used another of our vintage floral ornaments — a poppy this time — and printed it in a very hot, bright orange color. (Now, I took the invitation pics above, so the orange is not looking quite as hot as it actually was.) They were very simple, but so bright and attention-getting.
I had to include a photo of Michelle’s DIY seating card adventure — she made all these herself! It’s a board covered in fabric and ribbon with the escort cards tucked in. The cards themselves were made using an alphabet stamp kit — she stamped every letter of each person’s name! I love how quirky and perfectly-imperfect it looks. What a cute and inexpensive (but laborious) idea!
I had to include this photo of the bridesmaids with their pretty parasols. So cute!
And one more great shot of the newlyweds. Thanks so much, Michelle and Frank! All the wedding photos above were taken by the very sweet and talented (La La) Laura Totten of Totten Photography (Seattle area).
–Tara
I’ve been meaning to pass on these lovely shots from Linnea and Jesse’s Death Valley engagement photo session by Peter Holcombe Photography. I especially love the colors of the landscape in the bottom photo. It makes me want to camp in the desert. (Well, almost… I have a heat aversion. And also a camping aversion.)
Even though this was a rushed invitation project, we still had time to do a quick custom illustration of a hummingbird silhouette for it. I love the muted, unique colors of this one. Linnea even had cool names for them like Smoked Celadon and Pacific Blue. Ahhh…
Thanks Linnea, Jesse, and Peter Holcombe Photography (Colorado)!
–Tara
