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Send Invitations-inStyle
When family and friends slip your bridal shower invitations from, www.invitations-instyle.com out of their mailbox, open the envelope and glance at the card, they have already learned much about your big day -- even before they have attended the ceremony or reception.
Making a great first impression with your invitation can be a serious matter, but these days, the design options are fun. The latest looks in the fashion world inspire the paper, printing and pretty accents that give wedding stationery panache.
“No matter where you are getting married -- from the hill country to a country club -- your invitation design should reflect your venue and what type of wedding you are having,” says Connie Franco, co-owner of You’re Invited Fine Stationary in the Dijon Plaza in Alamo Heights.
Color, Layering and Ribbon
Think about the colors that are popular for bridesmaids dresses today, and you will likely find those choices in invitation stationery. Blue coupled with espresso brown, shades of pink and yellow tints are what’s hot in invitations. Also in demand are colors with metallic shimmer.
“The colors of fashion transfer to what’s en vogue in invitations,” Franco says. “When I assist a bride, I tell her to envision the invitation as a blank canvas where she’s about to paint a picture. The first thing she needs to do is choose a color.”
Still, despite the latest trends, many couples choose white or ivory for the main card. What is different today is that the card is often enhanced by one or two additional colored cards in the background.
“People really like the look of layering cards to bring out the colors of the wedding and add depth to the invitation,” says Mary Frances Churchill, Franco’s business partner.
More traditional invitations might include solid layers, but contemporary ones could showcase prints such as botanicals, damask and paisley. One very modern design offered at You’re Invited begins with an ivory card backed by Italian-inspired paper featuring vibrant orange, pink and purple flowers. The third and last layer is solid orange.
Besides paper, other invitation elements are flashing hues. For years, the interior fold of the outer envelope has incorporated color. Now, the entire inner envelope, response and thank-you card envelopes are frequently in color, too.
For instance, You’re Invited sells an invitation for a beach destination wedding that reminds one of tropical blue skies and water. The card comes in aqua, displays white shell and starfish motifs and has a white outer envelope with aqua in the inner fold while the white thank-you card with an aqua shell motif comes with an aqua envelope.
As for bows, they are still an up-to-date embellishment at the top of the card or around it, but a simple band of satin ribbon placed horizontally or vertically to the text is becoming the favorite adornment.
Pick the Printing Technique
In fairy tales, when the princess invites the finest in the kingdom to her nuptials, scrolls roll out to reveal intricate calligraphy. These days, printing methods can look nearly as elegant.
The most ancient printing method called letterpress, used since the printing of the Gutenberg Bible in 1450, is making a come-back. Letterpress uses raised letters on a surface to make an ink impression. The technique, which requires soft paper stock, allows for the finer details of letters and artwork to be revealed and appreciated. It is suitable for both contemporary and traditional invitations.
“The process gives the ink a softer look,” Churchill says. “It’s an old process, but it has gained renewed interest due to its subtle and beautiful effects.”
To present a sense of formality, many couples choose engraving, a method in which cut letters on a metal plate are filled with ink and pressed onto thick paper stock to produce letters.
“When people see an engraved invitation, they can tell the method was used because of the depression on the back made from the copper plate,” Churchill explains.
By far, the most utilized printing mode is thermography, which produces raised printing that resembles engraving, but is more affordable.
Since the 1990s, laser printing or flat printing has been widely utilized because of its accessibility and affordability. Some couples choose to print out their own invitations using the technique while others hire professional printing shops.
Other printing variations can really help text get noticed. Using combinations of typefaces, for example, script for the couple’s name and capitalized block letters for the other words, helps give distinction to the names.
For an artistic look, different rows of letters can have an assortment of letter sizes, or the spacing in between letters can vary from tight to loose. Another unconventional idea is to have the text grouped to read diagonally from the left to right corner rather than straight from top to bottom.
Printing the text in color instead of black can complement paper with color. So, a wedding with a winery theme might have purple and green words and layers of lavender and purple background paper.
Neat Little Pockets and Save the Dates
Pockets aren’t just for jeans and blouses anymore. They also make attractive and functional additions to wedding stationery at www.invitations-instyle.com.
Some pockets are located in the inside of a fold-open card, and others are placed on the side of a panel card and are enclosed with a tab. Other invitations have several tiered pockets where reception and response cards are tucked neatly inside.
“It’s really nice to have everything self-contained in pockets when you have multiple cards, so everything doesn’t fall out,” Franco says.
Pockets are especially useful for the first piece of wedding stationary -- save the date cards -- which are typically mailed about six months before a wedding date and have a more informal tone than the invitation.
Cards inside save the date pockets could list flight and hotel information or give ideas on what to do in the city where the wedding will be held. More elaborate save the date mailings might include cards for the rehearsal dinner, bridesmaid luncheon and the post-wedding brunch. Couples may have the announcements coordinate with the wedding invitation while others select a totally distinct design.
“I would say that more than 50 percent of our brides send save the dates, especially if they are expecting many out-of-town guests or if they are having a destination wedding where guests will need to make travel arrangements,” Franco says.
Text for save the dates might simply say “Please Save the Date for Our Wedding” and list the host city and couple’s wedding web site. Or, the card might use more cutesy phrases such as “He proposed,” or “I Said, ‘Yes.’”
From the first to the last piece of wedding correspondence, brides and grooms can enjoy choosing from present-day trends to express the uniqueness of their matrimonial events.
“Wedding stationery is the first representation of your wedding that people will see, and it’s also something that you will save forever as a keepsake of your cherished day,” Franco says.
