last wednesday, i got a very cool & totally unexpected shout-out from
brides.com: inclusion in their
"10 best wedding invites of 2010" story! so, because of that and as part of my year-end purge, i thought i'd share one last tidbit from our wedding: the invitation suite design (and then, i'm calling it a
wrap!)
the how-to for those on a real budget:we wanted to keep the entire wedding artful, handmade, modern & simple, all on a very serious budget. inspired both by nature and the city (we call both the midwest & nyc home), we wanted the wedding & invitations to reflect that.
i started making little
watercolor blots, not knowing exactly where i was going with them. i scanned some of my favorites into photoshop and realized that they made great mountains. one of my prized possessions is a drawing of mountains by husband, so i knew right away that it was the perfect image for us.
we hired the amazing
betsy dunlap to do the calligraphy. she sent us a digital file of our names in her beautiful hand-written style - a very affordable way to have a customized look without the custom price! i assembled the image, names & text in photoshop.
after a long search, i found a reasonably priced printshop in soho -
soho reprographics. i gave them my files, and they digitally printed & cut the invitations - about 100 invitations for under $100. i was so happy with their price, paper, & print quality, especially after many disappointing visits with some very expensive (not to mention, cheap-looking) "wedding" printers.
we included a small rsvp card that i ordered online via
overnight prints for under $25. we took a small instant photo (fuji instax) of the manhattan skyline from our neighborhood in brooklyn. the photo became the front of the rsvp card, and i added the online rsvp info on the back. i printed the cards two-to-a-postcard and cut them in half myself.
the invitation, rsvp card, and a small square of matching tissue paper were tucked into a kraft paper envelope (about $50 at
jam paper) and sealed with matching washi tape. betsy also hand-addressed each envelope, and i had a custom return-address stamp made in the same font as our invitations (also from
soho repro, about $30).
the mountain design was featured throughout the wedding - on programs,
fabric, signage... i got lots of mileage out of those little watercolor blots! for more of our wedding,
clickie here.
now, back to the
freaks & geeks marathon and plotting my new-year-all-veggie-all-the-time-run-yoga-go-to-sleep-early-read-a-book-and-make-shit-happen plan...
a few months ago, i purchased a sample kit from mcmc fragrances that contained one small vial of each of anne mcclain's six handcrafted scents: Maine, Maui, Noble, Hunter, Garden, and Humanity. i have never been much of a "perfume" girl, but it feels very natural to me to have worn one of these scents everyday since. each one really is lovely & subtle. i especially like mixing them together based on how i feel that day. 
