Wedding week:

My brother in law is getting married Friday night, and through all of the preparations going on this week, I found these save the dates I designed for them:



They didn't end up using these (actually, I'm not even sure I presented these, as they never sent out save the dates), but I came across it last night and there's something about it that I really love. Maybe it's the fact that they chose a more traditional wedding invite (which I'll feature later on this week), or maybe it's the fun, block-y font. Either way, I'm putting this in my back pocket and keeping it around for a while...

Sara + David

So, those of you that are following along at home know that my BFF is getting married this summer--in less than 2 weeks! As part of my gift to her, I designed her wedding invitations. However, I've been holding off on posting them--well, because our camera battery died. And I couldn't find the charger.

But never fear, faithful readers! Amazon to the rescue--new battery charger arrived the other day, so let the invitation goodness commence!

Sara is easily the most laid back bride EVER. She had no requests. No colors. Seriously. I am the maid of honor--or what I have rebranded as BFF, because, I'm sorry, maid--and even worse--matron of honor sounds old. Am I right ladies? Anywho, I am the BFF, and she told me to wear whatever I was comfortable in. Like, pretty much pick a dress. Seriously, she's the anti-bridezilla.

So when it came to designing the invitations, there were no guidelines. I wanted to do something wonderfully simple and classy. A few days earlier, she had found some orchids that she really liked and was thinking about using in her bouquet. Finally! A detail I could use!



Her wedding is at a marina in Old Saybrook, right on the water. The orchids she liked were purple, so it made sense to use the combination of blue and purple. The perfect shade of blue paper was found at Kate's Paperie (of course).



Detail of the invitation, directions, and envelope.




Response card and envelope.




The whole shebang.

I'm also going to use this theme for her seating cards, and hopefully a menu or program. I seriously cannot WAIT for this wedding--I am beyond excited for my BFF and so happy that I got to contribute to what will be an awesome day!

stationery show!

So last week I went to the stationery show in NYC. I know, I should have posted this sooner, but it's been a pretty hectic week, capped off by the long weekend, and, well... Ah, I know, excuses, excuses.

Anyway, here I am, back to blog about my stationery show experience. If you're just tuning in, I'm trying my hand at branching out into custom event invitations. I'd love to specialize in letterpress. So a few months ago I figured I'd get my feet wet and go to the stationery show and see what's out there, and maybe meet some vendors.

First, the show itself was so cool--IF you're a stationery buyer. Which I am not. And it said so on the nifty little name tag they gave me, that got me in the show. So people immediately looked at it, saw I wasn't someone who was going to make them money, and stopped being interested. Really.

There was so much beautiful design. Stuff I would love to have the time to think up and do (originally, the plan was to launch my own stationery line, but that seemed like a big jump into who knows what. Custom invitations seemed more like baby steps). Of course, with the good comes the bad (hello, 80's mirror display? 1985 called and wants you back). But there was a lot of small independent little card companies with some pretty gorgeous stuff.

Then, at 1:00, the doors to the vendor side of things opened. I figured this would go much better for me, since that's what I was looking for. I figured wrong.

Don't get me wrong, the 10 vendors that were there were very helpful. It's just there weren't many of them, and none of them did letterpress printing. But they all knew someone who did.

All in all, it was nice to take some time off (sort of, I was tethered to my Palm all day long) and devote it to growing my business--something I don't get to do often. Would I go back? Probably not next year, but maybe in the future, depending on how custom invitations do...

In the meantime, once I get my stuff together, be on the lookout for tracieinvites!