Fear not - I shall blog about alternative topics, as hinted in yesterdays opening post!
Stationery is big news if you're... me. I wonder how many things in the world excite me quite as much as a new notebook? Not many. A few. But wedding stationery? It's a big deal. Funnily enough, John doesn't share my enthusiasm, despite loving the finished products. Our accurate spend on stationery has already exceeded what we initially planned to spend but it's been worth every single penny for the response that we've had from our potential guests. There were a few areas in which John and I wanted to do something different, not necessarily "never seen before" (that would take serious brain power!) but something that wasn't "typical", and stationery was an area that I wanted to put this philosophy into action. We didn't want to send out "a wedding invitation like every other wedding invitation - with a different coloured ribbon", I wanted to try to think of something that a majority of my guests weren't waiting for.
I limited the D.I.Y element of our stationery to the Save The Date cards, and I've decided to leave my adventures into the world of the home made wedding right there, however, over the past year I have met some incredibly artistic people who've bought my ideas to life and I'd like to share them with you, spread the knowledge, steal their ideas, or just marvel at how utterly pretty it all is, I'm not a wedding expert and some people will find these ideas unappealing, and some will love them. If you're planning a wedding or another large event and you love any of the designs below, please please - contact the people involved in producing them, because you'll be just as chuffed with the results as I am!
Pencil Us In...
When brainstorming ideas I was convinced that stationery really ought to be presented in a different, more functional fashion. A piece of card or paper is all very well, but however beautifully folded or studded with gem stones it may be, it does not serve a purpose and is likely to be tucked away somewhere, and its location potentially forgotten by it's owner when it's required for reference. I am forever rummaging on my desk for party invitations because I can't remember what time a do starts or need the postcode for my SatNav. So I laid awake for all of about one and a half nights, thinking of different every day, useful objects, that you could print a wedding date on to, thus advising people to pop it in their diaries.
At this point (no pun intended) I had an idea.
If it is unclear in the photograph, I had pencils printed with gold foil to read "John and Ashleigh's Wedding", and on the row below, with our wedding date.
This is predominantly a cut and stick project which anybody could manage. I wrote the poem to explain the relevance of the pencil, it may be unclear in the photograph so for an easy on the eye option it reads:
Welcome to the start of our Canterbury Tale,
Which begins for you right now, with this pencil in the mail,
If you didn't know, we're getting married in a year,
And as a chosen guest you need to keep our big day clear.
We've booked a pretty barn for the 23rd of June,
For vows and food and merriment, taking place all afternoon.
We'd love for you to stay at the barn all evening too,
For dancing and a hog roast and a cheeky drink or two.
So 'pencil us in', because we really want you there,
A formal invite follows, so please keep that one day spare!
To make these Save the Date Pencil Cards I needed:
- personalised pencils (you need to order these really as I don't think there's a very easy way of producing something of any quality at home.) The company that I used were very reasonably priced and could provide almost any colour of pencil, so for brides with a particular colour scheme in mind you could pick a pencil shade to match! For details of suppliers please see the end of this post.
- Green card (available in all craft and stationery shops in all sorts of colours and textures - patterned card would work well too)
- Pearlised paper (looks a little bit more special than white or ivory matt, and is available at most craft and stationery shops, also check Ebay for good deals on a pack)
- A printer
- Ribbon (you can buy ribbon in just about any colour and/or pattern that you're after, have a look on Ebay and crafty websites for a wider selection, or visit your local haberdashery - I love that word!)
- A friend with a circuit expression machine. I was very lucky to have one of these! My wonderfully arty friend Emma managed to get her hands on an apple shaped punch for her machine, and sourced some card for me that matched the ribbon I'd already chosen. Before I knew it she'd produced a pile of lovely polka dot apples to add the something that was missing. Not many people would want apples on their stationary so it would be worth shopping around for different shaped hole punches (there are a lot of love-heart hole punches out there) or stencils, to produce something similar without the need for a machine that most people don't own! However, you can always get in touch with Emma and have her design and produce your entire stationery range to avoid sticking your fingers together with Prit Stick Xtreme.
The Save The Date pencils` were very well receieved. I know some of our wedding guests are still happily using them now! Although apparently the gold foil writing does start to rub off after a while if you use them lots! The fact that people have used their pencil enough to discover this makes me quite happy though!
Following the sending of the Save The Dates I turned attention to something altogether more essential.
Tea for Two (and 70 of our friends and family)
If you're planning a wedding and you are not familiar with the polka dot pages of Rock My Wedding then please, head over there very soon. RMW was the first blog that I ever started reading regularly, and I have to admit I'm ever so slightly hooked, but it is literally bursting at the seams with ideas and inspiration for every type of wedding your mind could come up with.
I have taken tonnes of wedding ideas from RMW, including our florist Bloomin'Gayles who I shall no doubt blog about in a later Wedding Files post, but way back in the day I saw an idea that I had to steal and keep as my own.
The Original Wedding Tea Towel are only a little company, headed up by husband and wife team Karen & Ben. With a background in design they're not only able to offer a range of their own designs which you can customise with your names, wedding date and details, but they also offer a bespoke service whereby they'll design the art work for your tea towels to fit in with your theme or ideas.
This is what we went for and I must admit, at first I was a little concerned at how someone else would interpret our theme. With inspiration taken from Geoffrey Chaucers "The Canterbury Tales" - without turning the day into a Medievil themed wedding, and a touch of agricultural/rural styling to compliment the fact that we wanted every aspect of our day to represent Kentish tradition and heritage. Oh dear.
We had to make a couple of changes to the first design to adapt it to my vision of how the tea towel should look, but Karen was so accomodating and helpful throughout the whole process, and from Day 1 I knew that she had a pretty good grasp of what I had in mind. I could NOT have been happier with the finished result. Our tea towel invitations have gone down a storm with our guests and I have encouraged everyone to use them rather than hide them away! I'm so chuffed that we've not only started as we mean to go on (by doing something our guests will actually remember) but also that they already have a memento of our wedding before they've even turned up, because lets be honest - half of them will leave their favours behind!
If you're not making your own invitations, and you don't want to order more paper, I strongly urge you to consider The Original Wedding Tea Towel... I can't really think of anything bad to say about this idea! I am slightly annoyed that I didn't come up with it in the first place!
Follow The Yellow Brick Road (or the A2)
OK I've thought of *one* downside to the tea towel invites, you can't cram them full of an awful lot of information. I must admit I do rather admire invitations with paper inserts that tell you all about gift lists and menu options.
This gave my I.T consultant (read "geek") fiance an opportunity to flex his techy muscles and create our wedding website, which kind of took "informative" to the next level, but hey ho! However, when flicking through one of the million wedding magazines that I possess (slight exaggeration maybe but John estimates my collection to have cost hundreds of pounds!) I spotted an advert for a company who drew personalised maps for guests to find your venue. I loved the idea and googled "hand drawn wedding maps".
The website I found first wasn't the one I'd seen in the magazine but I fell in love with the examples on the gallery and instantly sent an enquiry for pricing and availability for a Canterbury map to match our towels. Little did I realise at the time that the artist in question, Lydia Bevan, infact lived a short drive down the road from us, in the village of Herne, and had been hankering after an opportunity to design a local map!
We arranged a get together at Lydia's house, a luxury she often doesn't get with her clients as she's drawn maps of a multitude of locations across the country and beyond, and the weddings that she designs for are very rarely on her doorstep.
2 hours later my son Sebastian had had a good go at trashing Lydias beautiful cottage and garden, I'd had a cuddle with her then very small daughter Eliza, we'd got through a couple of cups of tea each in the Summery sunshine and - we'd come up with tonnes of wedding map ideas (and put the world to rights whilst we were at it).
Lydia has since become a good friend (and Eliza is not so small any more!) and I'm delighted that she's agreed to help me to design "Order of the Day" booklets for our wedding guests, (or "programmes" as John calls them!) aswell (will blog about them when they're done!). If you're impressed by Lydias work you need to find an excuse to get these maps in your life. Lydia will do all of the research to ensure that your map is easy to follow, pretty, and full of local landmarks that your guests will recognise. They're not just great for weddings, Lydia has been asked to design maps for Christenings and corporate events plus a host of other get togethers. Personally I think she could make adorable "we've moved" cards, to send out to friends and family with your new address... oooh the ideas!
Lydias new website will be under construction in the early part of 2012, if you can't see images in her "gallery" then please be patient and check back in a little while as the beautiful new site is still a work in progress! In the meantime you can check out the Hand Drawn Maps Facebook Page for lots of pictures.
Phew - well, that's our stationery pursuits as they stand now, and I do hope that our guests love our slightly quirky take on the tradition method of invitation! As promised here's a list of all suppliers incase anyone wants them!
Engraved pencils: SilverKimbo on Ebay
My friend Emma who not only cuts out apple shapes but also designs and produces personalised bespoke stationery for those looking for something more traditional but with their own twist, through her own business, Designs To Treasure
Wedding Tea Towels: The Original Wedding Tea Towel
Hand Drawn Maps: Lydia Bevan at Hand-Drawn Maps
I love the save the date pencils - what a fabulous idea!!
ReplyDelete