paper good(s).

A lovely commenter pointed out that I hadn't shown off my invites yet, which was a kuh-raaaazy oversight on my part. I think that I took some snaps, decided they were pretty terrible quality, and never got round to blogging them. But I should. So y'all can come crash the reception, non? (um, no. Please).

The invites were by HeatherJeany on etsy, based on one of her other designs (with the colours changed and a bee motif removed). They don't look so great through the plastic wrapper they're in. You can't tell that the brown-ish text is actually metallic copper (yay!) I would totally and utterly recommend Heather if you're looking for invites. Her work is reasonably priced, she is very organised and professional and her invitation design skills are just awesome.


The hand-screenprinting comes out flat, maybe a little raised where the ink is thick. There is the odd tiny imperfection which I like. Reminds you that they're handmade. As well as invites and rsvps, we got her to do thankyou cards and order of service booklet covers for us.

The 'bells' references on the rsvp ('borrowed' from this wedding here) was well worth it. We have had one guest terribly confused and concluding it means 'bring a partner' (wha? Ah well!) Someone that couldn't attend explained that 'they're allergic to bells - what are the odds?' Another guest is 'with bells' while her partner ticked 'undecided' and added 'apprehensive about bells since that incident in 2007.' And our darling MC indicated that he would be there with bells on 'and only bells on.'

$8k wedding: Invitations

Now that we have a venue to inform the feel of the wedding, it's time for invites! Print-at-home is your friend. Failing that (or in preference to that, if you want to print on thicker card, or want the colours to look really lush) you take your stuff to a printing centre like KwikCopy. To be honest, I can only make an educated guess about the cost of printing colour papergoods at a print centre, but I am guessing you'd be looking at a couple of hundred dollars to do your invites plus a little more (rsvps, menus or thankyou cards, maybe?).

And etsy is so very much the place to look for your invitations. There are loads of simply stunning options for pdf-downloads to print at home. I think this would be perfect for the retro town hall dance wedding:

Country Fair printable invites by SugarFlowerDesign

And maybe this one for the casual-elegant Italian do?

Monogram printable wedding set by EmPaper

If either of these are busting the budget, I even found this lovely monogrammed, flourished printable set for $15!

Another lead?

Chatting to the Best (wo)Man and her Man last night at a party. About wedding stuff, in part ("I don't want to wear a suit anymore," "Okay, don't. Wear what you want," "But you have to tell me what to wear!" "But I don't really care very much," "Should I wear the same dress as the bridesmaid?" "NO! That would be awful!"* "Can I wear an inversion of the bridesmaid's dress then?" "Um... what? Okay. Sure. Whatever.")

Anyway, just as we left, I had a sudden brainwave. Best (wo)Man and her Man both have fine arts degrees.
"Best (wo)Man, you don't own a gocco press, do you?"
"A what?"
"For silkscreening."
"I can silkscreen, but I don't have the stuff to do it."
"Okay. But ohmygod - you could design the invites, right?!"
"Nuh. But Man can. It's like, what he does. He's done invites before."
"Man? You can do invites? Without big floofy roses on them? Because if I see another invite with nineteenth century floral illustrations I'm going to throw up.** What I'm really into is good typography. Can you do good typography?"
*Man smiles*
"Yes. That is my thing. I love typography. I could totally do your invites."
Thus followed a discussion of whether the typewriter font was 'over' (all agreed yes) and the merits of turning our own handwriting into a font.

Now just hope Best (wo)Man and Man stay together for another year or so, when we'll actually need the invites.

* I have nothing against matchy-matchy bridal party in general, except that the bridesmaid is very girly, very buxom, very feminine. The Best (wo)Man is not so girly, unco, and built like a teenage boy. There is no dress on the planet that will suit them both.
** Again, just a personal preference. I have nothing serious against floral invites.

I heart kraft paper

From Twig&Fig, via RitzyBee

These invites were apparently inspired by the film Juno. While I query letting a comedy about teen pregnancy dictate your wedding styling, I adore the results. Like, loads. I'm all about the kraft paper and hand-lettering right now.

I haven't really noticed an Australian letterpresses doing much in the way of really interesting typography - they seem to concentrate mostly on graphic elements. I wonder if this is a customer-driven thing, or a personal thing?