As a graphic designer I have been thinking about creating my own wedding invitations for years. My typical design style is bold & busy. For our wedding invitations I wanted something beautiful. Something just, stunning, with pretty script fonts and pale colors. I confess, I also wanted an elaborate map, a schedule of events, a policy-sized (4" x 9") invite, possibly a photo strip, baker's twine, a paper bag, printed envelopes and perhaps a custom stamp! In my first attempt, I created seven different font combinations, only to be denied by The HTB. In my second attempt I tired all new fonts, introduced some colors and still, he was not impressed. Honestly, neither was I.
So I took some time off from designing. I looked over and over at the collection of the invites I loved. I made the HTB look at hundreds of invites to get me going in the right direction. I finally realized that while I loved the beautiful scripty invitations, they just weren't us. It wasn't my design style so everything I designed just wasn't good enough. Plus, I hated the way a capital A was looking in every script font I picked! I found some serif and sans serif fonts we were both really digging and all of a sudden, the invitations were starting to come together. We kept all the designs to ourselves until they were almost complete. I think we surprised quite a few people with the designs and color choices, but we couldn't have been happier with the outcome.
I will pass along two pieces of advice, which we learned the hard way. 1) Create a numbering system for your RSVP cards (i.e. Aunt Tillie is #16 and a 16 is written on the back of her card in light pencil), because you will get some RSVP cards back without names. 2) Don't use an inkjet printer to print the addresses on the outside of your envelopes. After the Post Office processes them, they'll look like this:
We were lucky in that only one was returned to us and what was on the inside completely blew everyone away so they immediately forgot about the outside (at least this is what my Mom and sister told me after I saw these two arrive in this condition).
I will pass along two pieces of advice, which we learned the hard way. 1) Create a numbering system for your RSVP cards (i.e. Aunt Tillie is #16 and a 16 is written on the back of her card in light pencil), because you will get some RSVP cards back without names. 2) Don't use an inkjet printer to print the addresses on the outside of your envelopes. After the Post Office processes them, they'll look like this:
We were lucky in that only one was returned to us and what was on the inside completely blew everyone away so they immediately forgot about the outside (at least this is what my Mom and sister told me after I saw these two arrive in this condition).