Brad & Katie are Getting Married!

I've been pretty excited to show off this suite since I finished it a few weeks ago!  This suite is a fun little "package" that I'm sure the couple's guests are going to love receiving!  The bride-to-be, Katie, contacted me last fall and was looking for an invitation suite that was fun and playful and would reflect their town square wedding in Flagstaff, Arizona this June.  Katie told me that for their wedding, the groomsmen would be wearing linen suits and driving caps and the bridesmaids would be carrying parasols.  Their colors were light pink, light green and chocolate brown and she wanted a design that would go well with their semi-vintage wedding theme while still being fun, playful and unique.  I ended up creating a sweet little package design for them that included a square invitation and invite envelope, a polka dot reply card and a fun little monogram tag with a green ribbon to tie everything together.  You can see all of the pieces in the suite (except the invite envelope) at the top of this post. 

Katie and Brad's suite has a lot of unique and fun little elements to each piece, so I'm going to briefly go through each one.  Let's start with their invitation envelope: 

Katie and Brad chose a square design for their invitations, and because of this, needed a fun and beautiful, square invitation envelope to go with them!  They chose to use a square envelope with a European pointed flap from Waste Not Paper in Khaki for the envelope and I printed their return address in chocolate brown ink on the back flap.  To add a little color and fun to their envelopes, Katie had me line them with a really fun and quirky polka dot paper.  The paper is a light green with an irregular pattern of different sized pink polka dots.  I love this paper as a liner for these envelopes and think it added a lovely and playful splash of color to the suite!  

The main piece inside those beautiful envelopes was their invitation: 

Katie and Brad's invitation is a 5.5" square shape printed in chocolate brown and light pink inks on Crane Lettra 100% cotton paper in Pearl White.  You can see the invite with the envelope and polka dot lining in the photo above.  We chose to use a really fun and playful script font for Katie & Brad's names in light pink and then used a classic serif typeface for the body of the invite text, printed in chocolate brown.  Here is a close-up so you can see the pretty fonts: 

The vintage-looking, chocolate brown designs in the corners were images I made that were inspired by some floral lace.  They are fairly abstract, but still reflect the intricate lacy pattern.  Here is an image of the full invite: 

The tiny lines and dots of the floral-lace patterns give the invite a really pleasurable texture from the letterpress, as well as being really fun for the eye!  

Sticking with the polka dot + vintage theme for the reply card, Katie chose a design with a wide chocolate brown border with white polka dots.  We thought that this piece tied both the polka dots from the envelope liner together nicely with the chocolate brown and pink vintage looking design of the invite.  

The reply card is a standard 4bar size, once again printed on Crane Lettra Pearl White paper in chocolate brown and light pink inks.  It turned out beautifully!  The card was paired with a 4bar Khaki envelope, also from Waste Not Paper, with their address letterpress printed on the front in chocolate brown ink.  

While the designs, patterns, colors and textures of this suite already make it fun and unique in and of themselves, one of my favorite parts of this set is the chocolate brown monogram tag belly bands that we made to tie the whole thing together (literally!).  Katie wanted to somehow incorporate a small monogram into her suite, but didn't necessarily want to use it on the actual invitation.  So, in order to do this, we came up with these small, 2" round, chocolate brown tags printed with their monogram in light pink ink.  

Each tag had two 1/4" round holes punched across from one another through which we thread a 1/4", double-faced, light green, satin ribbon.  I then layered one invitation with a reply card and the monogram tag belly band and tied the ribbon in a small overhand knot behind each invite.  Here is what the package looks like put together: 

The reply card envelope was slipped into the package on the backside, behind the knot, like so: 

And here is what it looked like put together with the envelope:

Pretty cool, don't you think?  I love the way that the monogram tag belly band tied the whole package together while keeping with the fun, playful, vintage theme.  I also love how we managed to incorporate some sort of polka dot element into each piece without making it too overwhelming.  Katie and Brad's suite turned out absolutely gorgeous and I know their wedding this June is going to be just as fun (if not more so) than their stationery!  

Congratulations Katie & Brad!