Wedding Invitation Giveaway by Elum!
Today is a good day on SMP. Probably the best we’ve had in a long time. Why, you might ask?
Well, the absolutely, positively lovely team at Elum is hosting their very first invitation giveaway! It’s one of the biggest giveaways that we’ve ever had here on SMP and by one of our all time favorite invitation houses to boot. We’ve said it a million times, but Elum equals perfection in our book.
Here’s the deal. Every Elum invitation suite is an inspired collection designed to evoke a visual, tactile and emotional connection. Each unique piece has been designed to compliment the next, but it has its very own story to tell.
So we want to know…What will your story be? In a few sentences, tell us what message you want your invitations to say about your own special day. Then, choose the invitation that you feel best suits your story from the elum line.
The contest winner will receive an Elum suite to include an invitation with printed envelopes, reply card with printed envelopes and a reception card, up to 250 sets. The winner will also be featured on the Elum blog along with pictures from their wedding day! We’ll announce the winner this upcoming Friday, May 22nd.
Ummm…hello. Didn’t I say this was going to be a great day here on SMP?
Our wedding will be at a historic restored water utilities building overlooking a lake. It has the drama of a waterfront setting, the modernity of a concrete/steel beam/exposed brick "industrial" look, and the history of its practical, engineering past. The Lucidity suite, with its simple, geometric, and dramatic design, would set the perfect tone for the wedding!
Mike and I are having our wedding at an old dairy farm not far from my childhood home. The style is rustic, earthy glamour and in place of flowers we will use peacock feathers because they symbolize fidelity and eternal life. The "Paisley" collection is perfect. It evokes the essence of the peacock without directly copying it.
Pat and I fell in love in DC, and the Cherry Blossom suite is so perfect I want to shout from the rooftops. The wedding will be held in an art museum with cherry blossoms having a prominant place - we will be planting a tree together during the ceremony. Our wedding will tell a story, emphasizing my love of literature and his love of comic books. This suite starts that story with beauty and elegance (and a touch of whimsy), and I would be delighted to have it as part of our wedding.
I adore the "Florencia" design. It is perfect for us in the way it has a hint of nostalgia within the ornate floral design. We plan to bring the romance of the outdoors in for our day, as well as tie in our scored over antique Etsy and thrift store finds. This invitation would show the laid back and comfortable atmosphere we plan to embody during our ceremony and the sophisticated fun of the reception!
My fiance is out of town for a business trip and has put me on wedding blog duty - so bare with me, as I'm not sure I can really do justice to all of the thought she's put into our wedding. Our relationship is one that never should've been - we were a long distance couple who met by chance as a result of an accident - so she and I often like to muse that fate really did bring us together. The "feel" of the wedding (as she likes to call it) is "a Jane Austen romance meets southern hospitality." She wants it to feel to our guests like they stepped into another world when they walk into the grounds of our venue. For our invitations, she's been searching for something to convey this message - something to make guests feel like this will be a magical, almost "fairy-tale" evening, while simultaneously alluding to a great sense of style. Looking at all the invitations in the Elum line, it was immediately clear to me which design she would love - the Garden Aviary design. She's been thinking about including bird details in nearly everything, so these invitations should really fit the bill. Thanks for the giveaway! Good luck to all the couples.
Our wedding will be a classic Chicago fete celebrating the joy of our love and the happiness of our friends and families. We are excited to deliver on the authenticity of the city by having the reception at the Chicago History Museum as there is nothing quite like a hot June summer day on the park over looking the lake in Chicago. I would love to utilize Headline to really shout out the extra extra news of our Chicago celebration.
We would like to convey a warm, friendly feeling for our wedding. A time where we can gather and have a great time reminiscing and having fun. The Lucidity collection is perfect for us, simple lines with a fun flair, just like Scott and I. We are simply a graduate student and a recently laid off marketing specialist and this would make our budget and special day perfect.
We love the Headline invitation. This was the very first invitation I emailed to my fiancee as something that suited us. Others have described our wedding as Chanel on vacation or casual elegance. Recently, we've started describing it as quirky elegance. To our families, our wedding will be a formal affair, but to us, it will be a really fun affair complete with a totally unique setting (a salvage company), unique entertainment (hello nerds and magician!), and bright colors that suit us. We want an invitation that captures all of this - the formal occasion complete with the laidback goofy fun that defines us. Headline does this - clean lines, no flowers, no trees, no swirls. And in midnight blue and raspberry, the invitation would just pop and capture everyone's attention!
I absolutely love the "ampersand" design. My wedding is one where me and my fiance are taking center stage. The couple that introduced us and have been with us for our whole relationship were ordained to marry us and have created an amazing ceremony that truely reflects who we are as individuals and as a couple. Our theme is simplistic elegance and the ampersand design tells the story of our day perfectly.
Our wedding is going to be an outdoor soiree at a Spanish Hacienda in the hills of Northern California. A wannabe graphic designer, I have been working hours on end trying to come up with a design that truly embodies the vibe we are going for on our wedding day, with no luck. I had previously looked at Elum's site (learning of it from SMP) and fell in LOVE with the Gilded Frame invitation suite; it is exactly what I pictured our invitations to be - one part vintage with a mix of elegance and a whole lot of gorgeousness! To me, the invitations are our guests first glimpse of the day, and I would be honored for them to see Elum's design upon opening the envelope.
I like the poster or the headline. It screams- not your average wedding which is what we are going for. Planning an untraditional wedding is the only way we've been able to stay within our very limited budget. The Elum site is really beautiful, I don't think there was an invite I didn't like on there.
I was pleasantly suprised this morning when I saw Elum as your giveaway. I was looking at their designs last week and just fell in love. I am smitten by the "garden aviary" suite. We are having a whimsical garden wedding in Chattanooga. Our site is on Lookout Mountain which is where my family is from and where we have many memories as a couple. Our story is and will be very simple. We are family oriented and want an intimate, personal wedding with all our loved ones there. We are both struggling college students and he just recently was laid off his job. Therefore we have limited time and funds to do much in the way of nice stationary. It would be so nice to have beautiful stationary that really embodies our entire affair to make our day that much more special and intimate.
We both love the ocean (we live in Southern California), and will be married on the beach this fall, to be followed by a "casually elegant" dinner with our family and closest friends. The Lucidity invitation suite is our absolute favorite - the invitation echoes the waves of the water where we'll have our ceremony, and the entire suite has the qualities we hope our wedding will have - understated but hip, casual but refined (we love the suggested water + graphite colorway, too).
Ari and I are getting married on a Saturday night this December and have been keeping our eyes out for an invitation that represents how we want our wedding to feel to us and our guests; elegant and romantic. The Empress invitation is just perfect, and we both love it! It is formal and classic with a perfect modern twist and wonderful details that we love!
Amid wedding planning, we are buying our first home...eeek...at the end of June and winning this giveaway would be so wonderful for us right now! Good luck to everyone!!
I feel like the "Composition" suite would perfectly convey the casual elegance and personal feel of our small, outdoor Austin, TX celebration. Additionally, as we're both writers by profession, I feel like it reflects us as a couple as well.
My fiance and I both write about rock music for a living, and we've been to a million shows together - our first kiss was at a show. For our wedding, we're renting out a bar and our friends (who are in bands) will be playing a show. The "Poster" design is absolutely perfect for our rock'n'roll wedding! I don't think we could have had a better design if we'd created it ourselves!
We are having a casual fun wedding and the Florencia design is a perfect reflection of our special day! We are getting married in Santa Barbara in a gorgeous garden setting and this design would be perfect with are theme! Good luck to all!
First this giveaway is awesome...Abby you weren't kidding when you said it was one of the best ever!! Garden Aviary is the perfect expression of what we will convey throughout our wedding details. The invitations are an introduction to what you can expect at our wedding. We want them to convey the rustic, romantic but simple feel of our wedding. We love attention to detail as it expresses time and love that went into making sure each guest feels a part of the celebration and walks away better knowing us as a couple. I hope the invitations will introduce our guests to the feel of our wedding as well as let them feel the anticipation and joy of our big day.
I'm even more excited that Elum is from my hometown of San Diego, I live 20 minutes away from their studio. Maybe I could even come see the process? I love paper and have been drooling over all the incredible pictures on the blogs from NSS and wishing that I could have the opportunity for some dream invitations; I hope this is it.
We'll be married underneath a magnificent oak tree in a beautiful outdoor garden which used to be a working fruit orchard. The reception will be held in what was once the horse barn, so we're calling our wedding style 'Barnyard Chic.' The day will be nostalgic and somewhat casual with lots of handmade and vintage touches; and the Florencia suite would fit this perfectly.
I absolutely fell in love with the Elum line when I started working at a stationery store - the soft luzurious paper quality and perfectly unique letterpress are impossible to beat! Even with my small employee discount I realized their invitations were outside of our budget, so I have been vicariously living through my customers encouraging them to browse the Elum album. Our wedding is going to be outdoors, in the spring, at a beautiful rustic winery. I want our invitations to give our guests the first impression that our wedding will be elegant, simple, and natural. The 'Garden Aviary' suite is exactly the look of my dream invitation and what I pine over everyday at work!
My fiancee and I are planning a nontraditional wedding with a casual, laid back feel, just like we are. Everything about our wedding says modern and simple. We've incorporated clean lines and shapes into every aspect, from floral arrangements to my dress. I am obsessed with paper and typography, and especially letterpress! The Composition set is exactly what we've been looking for! It sums up everything that we're hoping to accomplish. When my guests receive this invitation, it will set the tone for the whole event. Perfect! Winning this competition would be a dream come true!
Rian and I are getting married this summer in a Library downtown Chicago. We want our invitations to really set the tone for our wedding as a formal, summertime and most importantly UNIQUE event. Rian and I LOVE the outdoors and warm summer Chicago days & nights; enjoying nature and spending time with each other. The garden Aviary invitations suit our story as a couple and perfectly set the tone for our wedding this summer; the gorgeous letterpress is very formal, yet the garden/nature theme suits our couple style and the summer garden feel we are trying to achieve for our wedding. My mother is a florist but growing as many of our flowers as possible in her garden to achieve a garden theme for our reception.
Rian and I could be considered complete opposites from our different upbringings (he grew up on a farm, me in the city) to our opposite personalities (he is shy and reserved, I am loud and outgoing). But similar to Rian and I, these initiations are as unique as us, with completely different pieces & designs that come together and compliment each other as though they were always meant to be! Together making something so unique and special that is more wonderful as a whole than the sum of it's parts. I can't imagine a better wedding gift than these gorgeous invitations, something that without this wonderful opportunity would be out of our reach. :)
I love the Ampersand design! My fiance and I are traditional yet modern in our style and we are trying to show that with our wedding. Located at a restored home built in 1871, the home will showcase our love of history and tradition while our Asian elements incorporated will balance the tradition and show our modern side. The invitations would be the first sign of this mix with the bold lettering and letterpress.
For our wedding, we want to guide our guests through the journey of our long distance relationship. As a result, we've chosen to go with a "world travels, long distance love and 1940's glamour" feel to the whole day. We're early in the planning process and haven't nailed down all of our details yet, but we have already come up with a few. For example, in lieu of a guestbook, we'll have a vintage typewriter for the guests to leave us their thoughts and wishes. We're also using vintage luggage tags for escort cards, and each table will be named after one of our favorite cities. For our cocktail hour, we're serving drinks that allude to the cities we've lived in since we've started dating, like a mint julep for our time in Kentucky. For decor, we're using a deep emerald green accented with hints of ruby and chocolate along with cream flowers - most likely blooms of garden roses, peonies and dahlias. Looking at the Elum designs, I think the Rococo line would be perfect for us - it would ground the whimsical details we have planned so far with a hint of old-world style and elegance. We're both full-time students who're also working full-time to save for our honeymoon and contribute to wedding costs, and winning invitations from Elum would be a wonderful treat. A huge thank you to SMP and Elum, and good luck to everyone else!
I'm very excited - I've been a big fan of elum since the early days, when there used to be a photo of the water in cardiff-by-the-sea on the company website. I used to daydream about how fantastic it would be to produce in such a creative art in such a gorgeous place.
My fiance and are getting married in our very own backyard, to celebrate the fact that we are new homeowners. We've got a great space to work with and are looking forward to a stylish and modern, but comfortable, relaxed and fun celebration of our commitment in September. I think Headline would be a great first taste of our upcoming wedding for guests, and a keepsake I would treasure forever.
We are going to be married in the Spanish style chapel at the University of San Diego where I went to college. Then our reception is in the middle of Balboa Park in a beautiful Spanish building built in the early 1900's. Rococo perfectly captures the elegant vintage vibe of our wedding. We are infusing some of the traditional Spanish patterns and Damask prints which will be perfectly offset by the Rococo pattern. Since this is a destination wedding for most of our guests we want to capture everything about San Diego that we love for our guests. Elegance, culture, history and the Southern California vibe we can't even put into words. Tempting our guests with the Rococo invitations would be a perfect way to start infusing the San Diego lifestyle into them before they even step onto a plane. (Oh and we love that Elum is in San Diego too). :)
Oh how I love the Elum invitations. I have my whole inspiration board arranged around the Fields invitation style, but now that I see the butterfly design I love that too! What I am hoping our guests will get from our invitations is the feeling of a hopeless romantic meets a fun and flirty couple! My fiance and I are both very lovey/romantic but we also know how to break it down on the dance floor. So my hope for our invitation is that our guests come to our wedding prepared to see two people so in love that they want to shout it from the top of every mountain around but also that we can't wait to share our big celebration with all of our family and friends. So friends and family if your reading this... bring your tissues and dancing shoes 'cause you will definitely need both!!!
My fiance and I are getting married in January 2010 in Florida, and I was really drawn to the Fields invitation. We are planning our wedding to be a modern, yet romantic and whimsical event, which I think is perfectly captured by the Fields invitation. We are featuring tons of gorgeous flowers in jewel-tone colors, so the invitation in grays and purples would be amazing!
We are getting married out doors with bold colors and this bride is wearing red. We are dressing more like a night out looking dapper than a traditional wedding would be. We also want to have fun and have a unique wedding, more than have it be romantic and making people sad/cry. Because of all that, I immediately was drawn to the Poster suite. It's bold, it's fun, and it lets you know that this wedding is going to be a little different.
My fiance and I have spent a significant portion of our relationship in long-distance mode, with me in one city finishing medical school, and him in another trying to establish his career. Getting married for us marks not only starting a new life together, but finally co-existing for the first time in a while. The plan for the wedding is modern and bright, yet with a nod to classic tradition. I love the modern monogram, as it combines both elements. And nothing says coming together with permanence like sharing initials with one another in the form of a monogram.
To hit on the sweet and simple details of our wedding celebration, my fiance and I are incorporating details from our grandmothers. His grandma passed away April 2, 2009, and one of my grandmas passed away a few years ago. We plan on having canned rasberry jam as favors in honor of my grandma b, and adding subtle hints of butterflies in honor of my grandma k. Grandma K collected butterfly pins for many years during her lifetime and at her funeral each of her grandchildren were able to pick a butterfly pin as a keepsake in memory of her. The Butterfly Drift invitation suite would be the perfect addition for our wedding.
The fiance and I have been looking for simple, timeless invites. But somehow those seem to be the more expensive ones. Why is that? We have even been thinking of doing our own since our wedding is a daytime affair with a Catholic mass ceremony and a restaurant reception. We're trying to keep cost down but still want to be able to celebrate with family and friends. Trying to keep it intimate and want people to feel comfortable and like they are going to a fun lunch outing with friends. The Salon suite would fit the bill perfectly! Simple, classic, and timeless.
my fiance and i met through a mutual friend, and didn't really get to connect until we both were undergoing some of the most heart-breaking times of our lives. by a great cross with fate we pulled each other out of our slums and became a strength and motivation for each other. through our relationship were able to find comfort and love in the simplest form. i think much of who we were before we met was trying to be somebody others saw fit... it's a very special feeling once you meet someone who loves you as you are, who acknowledges that you aren't perfect but that your flaws, the person you really are inside and out is perfect for them. hence, in our wedding.. as much as we are tied in to our culture and the traditions of our family, we really want our guests to get a peek/taste in who we really are. i feel that "chocolate truffle" reflects that simplicity and warmth that fiance and i were able to find in each other.
GARLAND!!! I want my guests to know they will be able to kick off their shoes outside under the open air pavilion and relax. I had this vision for our story to be pretty, but not over designed, and effortless wild flowers with a casual and fun feel and Garland fits that to a "G"! ;) We are paying for the large majority of our wedding ourselves, so it truly is a labor of love. The budget for our invites is so small that I may be making them myself. This would make our year!
Above all, Ryan and I want our wedding to be a joyous occasion. We are so excited to have people from all periods of our lives together in one place to witness our marriage and celebrate with us. I feel that the "happy couple" captures our vision perfectly. I love mix of the traditional letterpress with the whimsical illustration. I like to think it represents us as a couple: classic tastes, but never taking ourselves too seriously! We both live in NYC but are getting married on October 10th in my home state of Montana--Big Sky Country--so I would have to choose the gorgeous steel blue ink with matching blue invitations. I also love that the response cards are postcards--so green!
Jake and I are a couple who has grown through an unfolding story, and the Chocolate Truffle's long-style, 3-tier invitation would be a perfect illustration of our steps from college classmates, to city loves, to engaged soulmates. The cute and simple collection is absolutely perfect for inviting guests to our wedding. The modern simplicity of the set would be a welcome introduction to our city friends and to our family who lives in more country areas. Guests will know that I've had a hand in picking out the design when they see the scalloped edges; the signature cut I use in my scrapbooks. The casual text, with all lower-case letters exemplifies Jake's carefree spirit and warm sense of humor. The design is sweet and fun, like my fiance and I, and if printed with bright colors, would easily display the story of our joined excitement, bliss and love as we prepare for a lifelong marriage.
After living abroad in Scotland for the last 6 years, I am finally moving back home to Maine next spring, and dragging my Scotsman along, too! We are getting married August 2010, in my gorgeous home state at a small inn, perfect laid-back but elegant New England style, with amazing gardens just by the ocean. I am beyond excited to be heading home, and when you add in the fact that I'll be getting married soon after, well, I'm sure you can imagine...I'm in seventh heaven!
I adore letterpress invitations, but they are just too expensive to factor into our plans, especially with a trans-Atlantic move to pay for. I have been drooling over Elum's Garden Aviary suite for ages; it is amazing and would perfectly fit in with the garden 'vintage-chic' vibe we're going for, although our wedding will have some added Scottish touches (like a traditional ceilidh band for some proper Scottish country dancing, and plenty of men in kilts!)
This is an amazing giveaway; thank you very much for the opportunity!
This is actually for my parents. They were married almost 24 years ago at a little chapel in Lake Tahoe. Now that their 25th anniversary is approaching, they are preparing to marry within the church surrounded by our loved ones - including family from London and the Philippines. My parents are two of the most amazing people who are constantly busy and have little time to put effort into this event. I want to give them the best wedding - one that surpasses their dreams. The ceremony will be at our local church and the reception at a garden. Something simple, elegant and beautiful - just like them. I think "Orchid Bloom" would be perfect for them. It's simple and elegant... plus, orchids are my mother's favorite flower.
I want my invites to convey a message of a wedding that is more casual than formal, more kitchy than stylish, more vintage than modern, and all together warm, cozy and inviting. That is why I chose Chocolate Truffle as the best representation of the feeling I'm going for.
While all of Elum's invitations are stunning, my fiancé and I instantly gravitated towards Lucidity and knew that this invitation suite would set the perfect tone for our wedding and for our marriage. Our romance has been one surrounded by water - we met in a small fishing town in Connecticut, got engaged on a beach in Mexico, and will be married at a Yacht Club at the Jersey Shore. And while we knew we wanted water to play a role in our wedding, we did not know how we would do that until we saw your design. Lucidity brings the beauty of water to life perfectly - it shows its quiet strength, its whimsical nature and its simple beauty. It also tells the story of what we think a marriage should be - an ever-changing, forever evolving journey that is always strong, always transparent and always true to itself and those around it. We'd be honored to announce our wedding with the Lucidity suite, create a wedding decor that mirrors the water designs from the suite and embrace the wedding journey that the suite evokes. Thank you for this amazing opportunity and for capturing the essence of our Water Love Story.
Our wedding will take place on a grass lawn overlooking the beach at sunset, and we want natural elements from the beach to be incorporated in our wedding theme and decor such as coral, driftwood, sea glass, sand, and starfish. The Ampersand invitation suite perfectly matches the vision we have for our seaside wedding. The colors represent the sand and water, and give off a contemporary yet simple and laid-back vibe, which is exactly what were going for!
I love how bold Headline is, plus we're getting married on 9.19.09 which would be fun to show off with the big numbers. We're getting married in the Brooklyn Historical Society library so we have a book/paper theme throughout our wedding and these invitations would be a perfect fit. I really want the wedding to have a Brooklyn feel and get everyone excited for a fun New York weekend.
Thanks!
We will be married in true southern elegance- under a magnolia tree, guests with mint juleps and fans in hand, ladies shading themselves underneath their ornate hats. Afterwards we all will retreat to the antebellum plantation to celebrate our marriage and our new family. The warmth and southern hospitality we hope to bring to our wedding day would be perfectly carried through with the Gilded Frame theme from Elum. Thank you so much for sponsoring this Elum!
We are longtime, long-distance loves, holding our wedding in a historic amusement park in Maryland this autumn. The wonderful “Poster” invite – unlike the vast majority of otherwise lovely invitations out there – would perfectly fit the theme of the wedding, as well as our own strong style preference for the casual and unexpected. It’s just a little difficult to imagine inviting folks to a reception in a bumper car pavilion on the typical romantic, floral invitations! Plus, Elum would sate my love for beautiful, hand-crafted stationary, while sparing me, my fiancée and my innocent guests from the laughable, if not frightening, paper products that will probably result if I attempt any DIY invitation project. (The spirit is willing, the artistic skill set is weak.)
Our wedding is truly a wedding of our families and our family traditions. Navy traditions from his family woven into a traditional New England meeting house setting, and a giant party at my childhood home.
Garrett and I come from two different worlds. When we met, I was a city girl, living in Washington, DC, and thriving on the hectic pace and the bustle of city life; Garrett had made his home in a small town in the Adirondack Mountains where (gasp!) there's no cell service. Since then, I've learned to fish, and he's created a Facebook account. Our wedding happens this September at a lodge on Long Lake, NY - Garrett's friends will be introduced to my favorite band from NYC, and my friends will get a taste of Adirondack beauty. The "Poster" invitation set is perfect for us - hip enough for the city element and down-home enough for the mountain folk. It's colorful, simple, cool and just plain excellent - the best of both worlds. (Also, the map card is so fantastic and totally reminds me of old maps of Lake George and the sweet old Adirondack camp brochures.)
From the moment my fiance and I decided to get married at my childhood home, a historic farm in Maine, I've been unsuccessfully scouring every website for invitations that capture my rustic roots and my fiance's urban upbringing. I finally came across "Fields" a couple weeks ago. Although the find was bittersweet because I knew I would never be able to invest in something this extraordinary, I was thrilled to find an earthy and modern design that really translated our pasts, our personalities, and our perfect union onto paper. We will be getting married in a field, and Eva Cassidy's rendition of "Fields of Gold" will be sung and played on the acoustic guitar for my entrance. I think the lyrics of this song speak for themselves with regard to how perfect this design is for our celebration: "...I swear in the days still left, We will walk in fields of gold." Thank you for this INCREDIBLE opportunity, Elum and SMP, and good luck everyone!
I am in the beginning stages of planning my wedding, but I want it to be different from my sister's. Hers was a formal wedding in a Japanese garden with a Chinese reception. As the baby of the family, I want my wedding to be full of surprises that are out of the ordinary. My fiance Chris and I definitely think out of the box, and I would love for the wedding to reflect that. I think the Poster letterpress wedding invitations would be a fantastic way to hint (shout) that our wedding will fun and different from when you think "wedding".
We are longtime, long-distance loves, holding our wedding in a historic amusement park in Maryland this autumn. The wonderful “Poster” invite – unlike the vast majority of otherwise lovely invitations out there – would perfectly fit the theme of the wedding, as well as our own strong style preference for the casual and unexpected. It’s just a little difficult to imagine inviting folks to areception in a bumper car pavilion on a romantic, floral invite! Plus, Elum would sate my love for beautiful, hand-crafted stationary, while sparing me, my fiancée and my innocent guests from the laughable, if not frightening, paper products that will probably result if I attempt any DIY invitation project. (The spirit is willing, the artistic skill set is weak.)
Since day one, we knew that we wanted a wedding unlike any other - non-traditional, non-typical, purely us. Coming from two Asian families steeped in tradition, we've received a lot of backlash and I've shed a lot of tears, but we feel it's important to step into our new family in a style that reflects us. So rather than have our wedding day be all about tradition, we want the day to be about sharing a bit of ourselves and our style with the people we love. We would love for our invitation suites to set the tone for our fete and the Lucidity collection would say it all. Once our more skeptical guests see the beauty of its bold, modern take on classic, how could they not get on board with our vision? I fell in love with it the moment I saw it in my first bridal mag and I'm sure our guests will, too. Fingers crossed, they'll have the chance to!
This is just the beginning of our engagement and wedding planning, but after viewing wedding sites galore this past week and pouring over the feeling we want on the day of, we have decided sweet and simple says it all. If I could name a concept, an evening garden party comes pretty darn close, so garden aviary would work perfectly for our stationary. (Not to mention love birds have been a theme in our relationship right down to the horses we rode the weekend we got engaged, Pajaro was the name of mine!)
I love the Ampersand invitation suite because it features two of my favorite symbols of a wedding. The ampersand itself, while simple, symbolizes a union between two people committing to love one another unconditionally for the rest of their lives. And the large wedding date on the bottom of the invitation is not only important to guests as they arrive on the wedding day; it is the date on which a couple celebrates their love for the rest of their marriage.
The invitation suites showcasing birds and flowers are beautiful. But I love the Ampersand suite because it symbolizes everything I cherish about the anticipation of marrying my best friend.
My fiance and I are high school sweethearts getting married. We met on the water and are getting married on a cliff overlooking a lake. Both being "go with the flow" type of people I think either the Lucidity or the Watermark invitations would be so fitting for both our personal style and how we want our wedding to feel: Laid back yet refined with a fun twist.
My fiance and I got engaged in December 2008 and have planned for a September wedding at his Grandparents house and reception in their barn. I've been an avid SMP reader since we got engaged and I am still amazed by the talented professionals you feature as well as the real weddings. Our wedding is going to be very down to earth; the ceremony will take place under a big oak tree in their backyard and the aisle will be lined with flowers and tiki torches as friends and family watch the most intimate moment of our lives take place. The reception will take place in their barn with thousands of twinkle lights on the rafters, oil paintings full of bold color done by myself hung on the walls and a photo collage of our families growing up and how we met each other. Our menu for the evening is themed backyard barbeque style and will have hand squeezed lemonade in pitchers and roasted pecans for our guests to munch on during our photo session. The centerpieces will be on eight foot long banquet tables and are different color hand blown glass miniature vases with white lillies and crisp white tablecloths. It's hard to imagine having an invitation suite so beautiful seeing as our budget is truly the definition of a budget. I am down to the point of having to make all of our inviations myself and it's a lot of work and a load of time away from my son. We have a year and a half old son and we just couldn't stand the thought of throwing all our money toward our special day because we wouldn't be able to afford a new home for our son to grow up in. So we decided it wasn't worth the fuss and stress of trying to make everything big and bold because that is not what our day is about to us. I am more a city girl and my fiance is so very country, but we make a perfect match and always balance each other out. Our special day is already so special without the extra glitz of a big wedding and I think the Garland invitation suite would suit our wedding perfectly to a T! It's exactly what I'd love to have but just can't afford. Thank you for the opportunity to receive such a wonderful wedding gift from an extremely talented company.
Jennafer and David
I would love to have a set of invitations that takes my guests’ breath away, much in the same way that my fiancé took my breath away the day I met him. I’ve been gazing upon the Elum site for quite some time and can’t get the Rococo invitations out of my head. With job cuts looming at both of our employers, my fiancé and I are trying to trim our budget wherever possible, but I would absolutely love to give my guests the same flutter I felt and continue to feel each time I see the wonderful man I’m so blessed to marry!
My finance are getting married at a yacht club in Michigan. The location is also where he proposed, where my grandfather proposed to my grandmother 60 plus years ago, and where my other grandparents held their wedding reception 50 years ago. The location holds a special place in our hearts, and is filled with many family memories and ones we are looking forward to making. I think the "ampersand" invitation perfectly reflect our relationship and vision for our wedding, bring the old "&" the new together. They merge traditional with modern. Are beautiful, yet simple. They are the perfect invitation for a wedding at a lake rooted in strong family memories.
Thanks!
How to explain such a complicated, (hopefully) beautiful event in just a few sentences? Jason and I have been together for 7 years, since I was 16. Because of the inevitable soul-searching that comes with age, we have watched our relationship ebb and flow, begin and end, as I tried to wade through my love of him, my love of our small town in Tennessee, and my dreams of pursuing a career in the big city. I have moved, and lived in, New York City for 3 years of our 7 year relationship. Now, we've found ourselves back together in the South, and I've realized that having a partner by my side--one who has always held my hand while I battled a chronic disease, who has always supported my crazy dreams--is infinitely more important than a 10001 zip code. We're getting married in Tennessee next April, and the Poster Letterpress embodies everything I hope our wedding will: a fun, beautiful, happy day celebrating the love of two best friends. And an excuse for loved ones separated by changing lifestyles and miles to reunite for a day of pure joy.
My fiance and I are getting married in a historical mansion. We met in high school and continued with a long distance relationship through college, and while I was traveling 2 years after for work. I want people to see our story as magical love, like a fairy tale. We both come from very different backgrounds, but somehow we can make it work, without letting little differences get in the way. Since we come from different backgrounds, we did struggle with both our families when we announced our engagement, but they are now slowly coming around. Our wedding will be inspired from our backgrounds, we will have a single ceremony with elements from both cultures to show our unity. We want guests to not only attend our wedding, but to be a part of our big day. The day will truly be a happily ever after because we went through a lot to get to it. I love the 'Florencia' design because it has a touch of whimsy, but also has a laid-back feel. I think the set would fit our day perfectly.
It is a long story, but I will try to be brief! My fiance and I used to spend a lot of time together in a public garden in my town. It became very special to us. My fiance proposed to me at our favorite spot. We have decided to get married at that exact spot. That being said, we like both the Fields and Garden Aviary sets.
Two years ago Tage and I met and fell in love almost immediately, moved in together after having known each other for two months, and just had our first baby in February. It was one of those things where, "You just know." I had always heard people say that but never completely understood what that meant until it happened to me. We have two sayings in our household, one is "Less is more" and the other is "All you need is love". Those mottos are going to be the theme of our wedding, in celebration of the simple things in life and the love we share.
(A side note: if we won this, I have NO idea how we would ever choose from all the amazing designs! We might have to ask SMP readers to help. :)
From the moment my finance Chad proposd, my whole family has come together to help give us "our special day." My mom and stop Dad surprised me with my dream dress, my Dad and step Mother have surprised me with my dream wedding band and the adventure of planning this wedding has really made me and Chad feel loved by everyone! I told them from the beginning that I would be willing to make my own invitations in order to cut costs. I think it is amazing that Elum is helping one lucky bride out and I would love to use this as a way to surprise and giveback to my parents. They are working so hard at making this day perfect for us and I think it would mean so much to them to take pride in gorgeous invitations, which reflected the love put into this day. The Fields design is simple and elegant and would def. bring joy to my whole family.
By July 2010 Andy and my wedding will be six years in the making. I will not say that it has been a long and arduous road and neither will I say that it has been perfection. Rather it has been steady growth of intimacy. Over the years we continue to find deep joy and peace in our relationship. For two of our six years we were separated, he living in New Jersey and myself living an ocean away in southern France. The separation, rather than being a time of loneliness was one of growth. We were reunited a stronger and more mature couple who are even now, able to truly appreciate what a great gift it is to have one another. We have many friends and family, all of whom seem as excited and eager for our big day as we are. The Ampersand invitation suite seems to communicate this sentiment perfectly to me. The names seem to proudly announce to the recipient the names of couple. For us it would communicate, “The date is set! We, Andy & Lisa are getting married! We are overjoyed to share this news with you! Please be a part of our happiness!”
We are getting married in my hometown of Pittsburgh, though we live together in NYC. For our venue, we picked a modern art museum, tucked away in the up-and-coming North Side neighborhood. It's like a little bit of New York in Pittsburgh. The headline invitation suite reminds me of what we're going for -- modern and fun (like NYC) but still warm and inviting (like Pittsburgh).
My fiancé and I are aiming for a small, eclectic wedding—mostly vintage, partly colorful and contemporary. Texture, fabric, and color play a huge part in our wedding décor and our lives (he is a chef and I am a designer/marketing director). We will be married in September in an old army barracks hall on the Washington Coast and our wedding will be exactly a year from our first date… a date that we were unexpectedly set up for by a mutual friend.
I am thrilled to see the Paisley suite! My mother is an excellent seamstress and we are including a wide variety of vintage and modern fabrics throughout the wedding. The groomsmen are even wearing purple paisley ties. We would be so blessed to include these pieces in our wedding. Thank you for the opportunity to share these beautiful pieces with our guests!
Our wedding will be laid back and fun, while still relatively formal. Elum's poster invitations strike the perfect chord - exciting and atypical - and they'd look amazing in buttercup and midnight blue: our colors.
Our story started 6 years ago on our college campus. At that time, we promised not to hold each other back and to allow one another to truly explore the world and pursue our professional dreams. We knew that if it was meant to be, we would remain faithful to one another no matter what obstacles we faced. As it worked out, each time one of us moved away to pursue those dreams, a series of serendipitous events would always lead us back to the other. Koreans believe that ducks and geese are a sign of faithfulness, and being Korean American, my fiance and I hope to use birds throughout our event to symbolize our faithfulness during the last 6 years and our vow to remain faithful to one another for the rest our lives. Our ceremony will be held outdoors at a vineyard and the reception will be held indoors at a 19th century french country chateau. Throughout the event we hope to evoke a romantic and vintage feel that incorporates both our ceremony and reception locations. I knew as soon as I set my eyes on the Garden Aviary invitations that they would seamlessly incorporate all of the elements we hope to incorporate into our big day.
I want my invitations for our special day to represent the love that my fiance and I have for each other, and for our family members that will be sharing that day with us. Family is extremely important for both of us and our invitations must evoke that feeling of love.
I heart the "Fields" suite.
It has all the elements we are looking for. It's sweet, whimiscal, and full of spring. The message I hope to convey is a welcoming invitation that is youthful and fun.
The Watermark, which is urban-cool and showcases the date of the wedding, would be a perfect invitation for our wedding, which will be Sept 9, 2009, at 9 am. We love the idea of an impromptu weekday morning wedding - especially since when we met, we were both working backstage in the theatre, when the only times you're not working are weekday mornings and Mondays. We're both born on the 9th day of our respective birth months and have found all kinds of ways the number 9 is significant to us. We're casual people who enjoy the city to the fullest, and our courtship started in the Oriental Theatre in Chicago, where we'll be married, and was continued (and continues) among the buildings, museums, streets, trains, parks of Chicago, so we're inviting our friends and family to enjoy the city with us for the day...culminating with a delicious dinner at chef-owned Sola at...of course, 19:00.
Our wedding story celebrates the college campus where we fell in love, and the lasting friendships we made there. The ceremony will take place just steps away from the freshman dorm where we (and all of our best friends) met five years ago. The wedding is a college reunion of sorts, with a heavy emphasis on music, cocktails, and reminiscing. We both adore the Elum Poster suite, because it has the perfect balance of modern sophistication and fun that we want to convey to both our friends and family. Thanks very much for this fantastic giveaway!
wow. all of these are truly beautiful.
i was drawn to the 'poster' invitation immediately. the first time my FH and i hung out was at an outdoor jazz concert and ever since then we try to attend as many live music events together as possible. i think this invitation showcases us and the vision of our wedding day perfectly! laid back, casual and fun, while still maintaining a formality that will make mom happy. :) thanks so much for this opportunity!
The garden aviary suite would be perfect for my wedding invitations. My fiance and I had a sweet baby girl, Cora, one year ago. We have been so overwhelmed by the outpouring of kindness and support that our family and friends have showered upon us that we are determined to throw a lovely wedding full of thoughtful details as a thank you party for all of them! Throughout the day the theme of the "family nest" emerges-- our centerpieces are bell jars with moss, nests, and little eggs in them; the garlands that will drape the altar have little paper birds hanging from them. We have worked hard this year to make our home a loving nest for our little chick and we want the unity of our family threesome to come across on our special day. With this in mind, the three birds on the Garden Aviary invitation would be perfect!
Hi there!
My fiancee and I are having fun pouring over all of these gorgeous invitation suites! But it only took us about 30 seconds for us to decide that Neopolitan is the perfect invitation for us! We want a traditional wedding with a modern twist, and we feel the invitation suite does a great job articulating that! Our church ceremony is at a big, beautiful Catholic church...and the reception is at the W Hotel in Dallas. It is a lot like us...a little bit classic, a little bit modern...and a lot of fun! Our wedding will only be about 100 people, because we want to surround ourselves with the people that mean most to us. Thank you very much for this opportunity!
Cheers,
Mary
Ever since I first set eyes on the Bone China suite, I fell in love. The elegant, floral design would fit our Spring 2010 wedding perfectly. Our story is simple. We met four years ago as freshmen in college, fell head over heels in love, and have been inseparable ever since. It is now May and three weeks before our graduation, he proposed. Now to be honest, I have been dreaming of my wedding since I was eight years old. This suite conveys everything we, and our wedding, are about. It has graceful details as well as a somewhat rustic look. I am about as feminine as a girl can get and my husband-to-be, well he's a small-town country man. Our wedding will take place in his family's Church with a tented reception in a large open field. To have initiations with such beautiful symmetry and lovely artwork would complete my dream wedding.
Clean, elegant, decadent, Elum’s NEOPOLITAN design would whisper romance from the moment our guests opened the envelope. These invitations would be the perfect glimpse into our vintage, white washed event which will be held in a rustic farmhouse in Pennsylvania. The decorative wrap would be a graceful compliment to our bridesmaid’s champagne cocktail dresses and blush bouquets, while the rich latte, mocha, and chocolate details presage the groom’s indulgent four tiered ice cream sandwich cake. I can’t envision a more perfect invitation for our special day!
our wedding day will very purposefully be our 7th anniversary, so that is definitely the story we want to tell, and are telling, with our date, venue, and atmosphere. we saw the "headline" invitations a few weeks ago and were immediately drawn to the style... that date (11.16.09) is very important to us, and we loved the idea of having the date front and center on the invitations. we are having an intimate, "diy" wedding, planned in seven months, at our favorite tapas restaurant, surrounded by beautiful architecture and the city, family and friends we love so much. unfortunately, while we both have a love of design and my fiance is beyond talented when it comes to designing and diy-ing, letterpress is simply not in the budget for us. were money not an option, the headline in merlot (and maybe smokey lilac) would be the perfect finishing touch to our tapas and sangria, urban "themed" wedding. thanks for the opportunity to win such an amazing gift... i can't imagine a better one, for any couple planning a wedding. please keep up the amazing work!
We are both in our 40's and met about 3 1/2 years ago and have been together for almost 3 years. Our relationship has been a wonderful surprise (like the watermark on the invitation). We are planning an October wedding. This will be my fiance's second marriage and my first -- and his 9 year old daughter will be our only attendant. The wedding is about our great joy and our new family -- and about having had the courage and luck to find each other at this stage in our lives. We are hosting both the ceremony and reception at one of our favorite restaurants and want our sheer happiness and excitement to punctuate the day. The Watermark invitation suite is classic and bold and a great complement to our wedding. The simplicity and elegance of the Watermark suite mirrors the sophisticated and unfussy wedding we are planning.
We want our invitations to echo the beautiful, simple, and modern romance story we're creating for our wedding...but we also want something just a little more sentimental. Family is so very important to both of us. We will be incorporating orchids in rememberance of our family members who are no longer with us. The orchid was the favorite flower of a beloved aunt...We believe Orchid Bloom would make a statement that many of our guests will acknowledge & appreciate. Thank you for such a marvelous opportunity.
For our wedding we want to invoke the feeling of intimacy, candle light, charm, and a touch of the gilded age. Little accents of silver and lead crystal all over the place with a vintage air. I must say, the Empress invitation really embodies this perfectly. I love small details; little accents that add so much character more than a big fanfare could ever do. The envelopes for the Empress line just hit that in a surprising and pleasing way. I love the filigree across the envelope's fold. My wedding is about the little details, like the bridesmaids' necklaces of woven silver matching the detailed silver of the groomsmens' boutonnieres. I'd love to have the Empress line be the first impression our guests have of our wedding - I think the line reflects our wedding theme exquisitely.
I met my fiance at church, after 29 years of waiting for the "perfect" guy. And let me tell you, he is the perfect guy for me: loving, consistent with his words and actions, fun, sweet. Hmm...I could go on & on! We come from families who love us individually and as a couple. Each of our families is most excited as Jeremy and I begin our marriage. Our wedding will be in the Fall, a dream I've had since I was young. The church where we'll be married is simple; the decorations, a celebration of fall: leaves, acorns, pumpkins; again, simple. The invitations that would perfectly accompany our celebration is Ampersand. The simplicity of the invitation is fitting, and the symbolism of joining families, meaningful.
We are getting married in a traditional English garden with the ceremony in a castle. More than anything we want our wedding to be simple, romantic, elegant and fun. The cherry blossom invitation would be a perfect match for everything we are trying to incorporate into our day simple and romantic at the same time!
I turned 30 in 2006. There were lots of life changing and exciting things that happened that year: I bought a house, a new car, traveled to wonderful places, changed career paths and met the most amazing guy. The last part is my favorite.
As I look back, the timing was perfect. In my 20’s, I was all about me and having fun with friends and I didn’t have a clear vision of what I wanted in a relationship. But as I got older, I had a better understanding of what to look for as I obtained a checklist of sorts in my head (In no particular order: Good looking – check, stable job – check, funny/goofball – check, thoughtful and loving – check, etc...)
To my surprise, he managed to check off everything on my list and he added more!
He is truly the love of my life and the year I turn 34 will be another life changing, amazing and wonderful chapter in my life!
We are getting married at St. Joseph's Cathedral downtown and our reception will be at the Westin. Both very traditional and formal, I think the Rococo design will be perfect! I studied architecture in school and love the French style - I think Elum captured it perfectly with a great balance of ornament and elegance! As for Dan...he's in finance, so he just wants to make sure we're within our budget and that we don't have pink bows at the wedding :)
We're going for a Moroccan theme for our wedding. We're using rich jewel tones, plum & turquoise, so the PAISLEY design will be just person to impart that exotic feel.
I was the girl who sat in the front of the class, the kind who wrote down every single word from the teacher’s mouth as gospel truth. He was the guy in the back of the class making jokes. I was the girl that planned pep rallies and he was the guy that went to the library. While he recalls me as the girl who constantly gave him dirty looks in geometry, I am completely devoid of that memory! However, eight years later at a Christmas celebration we ran into each other and after a fabulous blue dress (on my part) a bit of courage (on his part) and a month to debate, I finally got a phone call. While our story is not one of high school sweethearts, I still treasure the idea that maybe he loved me all along. In a world obsessed with high school drama, our story while obviously special to me, also confirms that life DOES exist after high school. All you must do is grab it by the hand.
Some might say that falling in love is the easiest decision you will ever make, but staying in love, working through life and still loving is the true milestone. I hope to begin the milestone with the Watermark or Salon options, so the date might be forever on imprinted upon our hearts. Simple elegance is the hope for the black-tie, backyard wedding.
Our wedding day is about us and what we share together. Matt and I have looked at each part of the wedding & reception together, making decisions based on what represents our relationship. What we share together is all about having fun. Each morning we wake smiling and laughing with each other and it is the same each night. Even through some bumps in the road, with the economy being what it is, we still find a way to have fun and enjoy ourselves. So, that is what we want to express in our special day - it is all about having fun and enjoying ourselves with our favorite people around us. We are planning to have a bbq as the rehearsal dinner and than lawn games at the reception & so much more. We want this day to be last great party of the summer with a rocking band, great music, great food and great friends/family. We have fallen in love with the Poster invitation by elum. It represents the fun and fantastic time that will be had by all at our wedding, with us as the main attraction. That is the message I want to send through my wedding invitations - that this will be the best and most fun day of our lives and we are the rock stars.
One of the many ways my fiance and I are planning to include friends and family in our wedding is by using flowers from my mother's garden for the arrangements and bouquets. We are hoping to keep as many things close to home as possible to create a relaxed, intimate and approachable feel for our guests, most of whom are coming from out of town. The Garland suite would be a perfect way to invite our guests to share in our big day - it is warm and fun and features flowers just like those my mother grows each year! Thanks for the generous offer!
I love the Lucidity suite! Weeks ago I looked at Elum and these are by far my favorite invitations that I've seen anywhere. Unfortunately, letterpress invites are not in our budget so winning them would be a dream come true! I picked this suite because I want our wedding to be classic, elegant and stylish. I want to be able to look back on it in 20 years and know that every part of it is timelessly elegant.
We want our message to be "timeless" because my fiance and I have known each other for 20 years now! We met when we were 9 years old at summer camp. After years of growing up together we somehow made it together as a couple. We really have stood the test of time!(And today's my birthday so it would be a great present!)
the vision for our wedding is for it to feel like a laid back celebration of us, our family and our friends. As I describe the "day of schedule" we have the ceremony, and then the band starts so dancing eating and drinking can begin. The band is actually going to be a mix of musician friends just rocking out. So essentially our wedding will be a ceremony and then a big rock concert. And so, the poster collection would be our dream invitations.
Thank you for a great website and amazing give away!
My fiancee and I met while in school in Washington, D.C. before relocating to Tennessee. With our wedding and after party, we are bringing our love of urban style home with clean lines, chic design and a bold color palette of graphite with tangerine accents. The "after party" will be a modern soiree held on a pedestrian bridge overlooking downtown. We want the timeless look of letterpress, while still having an invitation suite that lets our guests know that they should come ready to party. I think the Headline invitation suite will be the perfect prelude to our modern celebration.
I hope that our day is fun, unexpected, but grounded in tradition, friends, and family. My father will perform the ceremony, we'll incorporate some elements of a Quaker wedding, there'll be occasional stray goats and peacocks wandering through the ceremony and reception. I want our wedding to make people think about what really matters in life and love, and the only way to do that is to do things that may be unfamiliar. But after all is said and done, I want people to have a good time, reconnect with good friends, and and honor those who've come before.
Because of this, I think that the watermark suite is perfect. The placing and width of the watermark is a little unexpected and fun, but is grounded by the well proportioned block of text. It's perfectly thought out, and would fit our day perfectly.
Thanks for the opportunity.
We want our wedding to be simple and fresh, yet classic. I love the Ampersand collection! Neither of us like a lot of fanfare and frill and these would perfectly match our style.
We are having a rooftop wedding in downtown Nashville. I instantly fell in love with the Metropolitan Slim suite. It evokes everything we are trying to create for our wedding. The shape of the invitations, the clean lines, the postcard-syle reply cards--all give off a casual elegance that is exactly what we have been looking for.
My fiance and I are planning on bringing both of our families histories into our wedding. His family and mine have been in the forestry business since settling in Oregon in the 1800s. Our families actually settled nearby each other in King's Valley. Our reception venue is located in King's Valley just a couple minutes from where we currently live. Our hope and dream for the wedding is to have a chic forest inspired wedding using simple country elements. Wooden disks, pinecones, mason jars, tree bark candles, rich velvet ribbon and more. Our plan is to have our wedding have a homemade, cozy feel. We hope to have a warm, inviting, romantic wedding that shows tribute to the family roots that brought us together so many years later.
Elum is absolutely the best of the best when it comes to wedding invitations. We both looked at the designs and were very excited to see the Lucidity collection. Although, from it's title it indicates a water feel, it reminded us both of faux bois (well, he didn't know the term, but loved the wood grain look).
I don't know how we could possibly stand out with all these amazing entries. All I know is I would love for us to have a wedding that is beautiful and personal. Most of all...I can't wait to marry my fiance!! I love him! :)
Greetings, Abby!! Thank you + Elum so much for this amazing opportunity!
The story of my husband-to-be Dan and I began more than two years ago when a musician/property developer (him) and medical student (me) (well, physician, in one week!) met and fell in love. Our individual, varied interests and cultures – he is Jewish, plays tabla (an Indian drum), loves Mexican food; I am Filipino, a neophyte seamstress (I’m DYI-ing wedding favors, etc. during Intern year) and love Mexican food (who doesn’t?!) – synthesize together in this subtle, palpable and organic rhythm that makes me giddy to discover what our family and future will be.
Our hope for the wedding is that it will be a celebration of our family and friends acting as witness to our commitment to each other and becoming family. We are also hoping for a to-the-bone joyful and humor-filled time, none too stressful and surrounded by good, warm people eating, dancing and making connection. As Dan and I begin to plan our wedding, we also see it as an opportunity to realize our values and be intentional about working with local and/or eco-conscious vendors and products and to minimize the “unnecessary” (completely subjective term I know) as much as possible. Not because it is trendy or noble, but because it is right. And exciting!!
“Simplicity and elegance” is our mantra. And, in terms of the latter, we cannot let go of Letterpress as our choice for invitations (though we’re creating a ‘Save the Date’ video sent out via email as a low-impact compromise). Letterpress is the quintessence of elegance in stationery and Elum does a superb job at living up to their vision of creating small works of art. We are getting married at Bartram’s Garden, a public community garden in Philadelphia, PA. I would love love love the Fields invitation suite to be the call to our family and friends to join us for our wedding and also to serve as a lasting chronicle of our special day for years to come.
Thank you again!!
Simplicity: a word that sums up the vision of our wedding - and more importantly - the basis of our relationship. My fiance and I are high school sweethearts who began dating our sophomore year (just like his parents!), and our relationship is as wonderful and exciting now as it was when it began seven years ago. My fiance and I will be married in a traditional Catholic ceremony at a church near our hometown, with a reception to follow at a yachting center on the water, where we will celebrate the next step in a beautiful relationship with our friends and family. We hope to keep a minimalist approach to the celebration, with the goal of keeping the love we have for eachother and for our families as the focus of the attention. We feel that "Clean Lines" invitations will help us convey to our guests the simple, yet beautiful celebration we have in store for them.
SALON is the Invitation Suite that best fits what I hope our Wedding and more importantly our marriage will be. A Classic and Epic Love Affair...you know, the kind of love that generations to come in a family will still be talking about. Our children will respect it, our grandchildren will admire it, and our great-grandchildren will even know of it. So far, our story sets up for the perfect life long love story. We have known each other our entire lives. As it so happens his family and my family vacation at the same 'family resort' in Northern Michigan every summer (think Dirty Dancing, with one common dining hall where everyone eats their meals, a wild staff that wears whites and throw famous parties, no tv, no a.c., no phones, even a talent show at the end of the week - pure uninterupted fun). Families have been going here for generations - and our families, despite being from different states, just happened to visit the same week each summer. I became good friends with his younger brother, and he ran in the same crowd as my older sister; but we only saw each other for one week each summer. I always had a crush, but the age difference was just too much. Finally, the summer I turned 20, he suddenly noticed me. We shared our first kiss in front of my family cottage after he walked me home from a party...and we've been together ever since. Despite being nearly 1000 miles apart for two years, NOTHING could come between us. We fell in love fast - and are more in love 6 years later, than I ever thought imagineable. It seems sureal to have found someone so truly wonderful. But we are planning our CLASSIC wedding for this fall, October 17, in my hometown...and the Salon Invitation Suite would truly be the perfect way to announce our CLASSIC love affair to all of our family and friends!
Family--to my fiance and I, the biggest thing that our wedding day is about is family--having our families which are spread across the countries come together, seeing our friends that are family, and becoming a family of our own! We are so excited to be blessed with amazing families, and are eager to share our love with them and pray that our marriage will echo the outstanding examples of love that our families have provided. For that reason (and of course, the budget restrictions all graduate school/service teacher brides face), we would adore our families receiving the "ampersand" invitation, as our day is about us AND about them!
When I close my eyes and try to imagine our wedding, complete with all of the the idiosyncrasies of our crazy friends and family coming together to celebrate us I can't help but smile. Our wedding is the one time in our adult lives when all of our loved ones (flying in from 11 countries and over three dozen cities) will gather for a happy occasion - the happiest occasion - our union. We've lived all over the world for school and for work and our wedding will exemplify the richness of these experiences. It will honor the cultures that have influenced us and will be illustrative of how we will bring our two cultures and histories together to create one shared future.
I almost forgot the most important part!!!
When I close my eyes and try to imagine our wedding, complete with all of the the idiosyncrasies of our crazy friends and family coming together to celebrate us I can’t help but smile. Our wedding is the one time in our adult lives when all of our loved ones (flying in from 11 countries and over three dozen cities) will gather for a happy occasion - the happiest occasion - our union. We’ve lived all over the world for school and for work and our wedding will exemplify the richness of these experiences. It will honor the cultures that have influenced us and will be illustrative of how we will bring our two cultures and histories together to create one shared future.
Having said that... the Lucidity line personifies the tone we are trying to evoke - it is simple, beautiful, and in one word: perfect!
We will be tying the knot on a picturesqe mountaintop, in a small western town, located on historic Route 66 in northern Arizona. Most of our guests will be traveling to Arizona for the first time (mainly from the East Coast) so we love the idea of incorporating the beauty of the mountains and the local vintage flavor indicative of Route 66 and the wild west. Naturally, the POSTER suite is perfection in paper design for our event! Fits in beautifully with our location, as it is reminiscent of the old western posters found plastered to many of the historic buildings in Flagstaff. We envision a rustic-vintage feeling ceremony in the forest, with a wild western party to follow in a historic ski lodge. Fun for all!
Adam and I are working hard for our wedding day to reflect us and our story (past, present and future) in true and meaningful ways. Lucidity fits perfectly within our vision and story because it is:
Creative: We met in a box office after we both realized that performing wasn’t the right path but supporting artists and creative communities was. Seven years later, we’re still devoted to the arts in both work and play.
Urban: We love urban energy. Our wedding will take place in a true urban oasis—a beautiful park in a lively city.
Modern: We aren't into rules or formalities, and love new and creative ideas.
Organic: We ARE into a simple and natural lifestyle.
Playful: Among other hijinks, we've been known to sing musicals in the mornings. (And we’re not ashamed of it!)
Elum and ludicity are a perfect match for us! Thanks for the opportunity!
Our lives are full of color and joy, my fiancé, Moises, and I are middle school sweethearts! For over 10 years we have shared our ups and downs together, as he served in the Military and I completed Graduate School. We are now ready for the next adventure in our lives.
We are welcoming our closest friends and families to celebrate the big day. Our wedding will be an outdoor ceremony with the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwest Virginia. Our style is free and light, causal yet polished. We're looking for invitations that welcome happy emotions. All of the designs are beautiful, but the style that captures us is “Garland”.
Thank you- this would be wonderful!
We want the story of our invitations to emphasize the meaning of our day while infusing a little bit of "us". We love the Orchid Bloom elum line because it reflects our love for contemporary charm and includes a hint of personal reminiscence. We hope to infuse orchids as a main wedding flower as it reminds us of our travels to Thailand and the realization that we couldn't imagine being with anyone else.
Best of luck everyone!
We want our wedding invitations to be personal, cheerful, unique, and a little bit of a glimpse into the wedding's design. We love Garden Aviary; it is playful and formal at the same time. We also love that they carry our theme (leaves) in a unique, subtle way. Lovely!
I'd like our invitation to convey the overwhelming joy that we feel in bringing our loved ones together to celebrate our marriage. The Gilded Frame collection is perfect for us - the design is elegantly festive, and evokes a strong sense of tradition. In these tough economic times, eloping definitely crossed our minds. In the end, we could not give up on the tradition of the wedding ceremony... It meant too much to us! Our ceremony and reception will be next May at Boscobel House and Gardens, by the Hudson River. We're having one of our great friends marry us. Our reception will be a casual, chic tented affair. I'm delighted to have found a caterer who will serve fresh, locally grown food at a reasonable price. I'm determined to make good choices for my wedding, so I was happy to see Elum's environmental statement and commitment to make their business as green as it can be. -Barbara
the "poster" suit. hands down!!
our story started at graduate school orientation in september 06. he was wearing a funky dinosaur t-shirt and funny sneakers; i was in flip flops and a simple dress. we chatted it up about music under the palm trees on our beautiful campus in santa barbara-- have you seen so-and-so live? heard this album? wanna start a radio show together? from music to books to love to family to forever and back again.
We are having our wedding in a old cinema and the reception in a jazz bar. We both love music and film and so the location fits us perfectly. We want our invitations to be classic but modern at the same time drawing on a feel from movie posters and cinema and music.
My favourite invite which matches this is the Watermark Wedding invitation set. The layout just feels excatly like us.
We are law school sweethearts. We had planned to spend two years apart, since we got jobs in different cities. But, last Wednesday, my job offered to pay me to stay in Chicago, so we moved our wedding up to February! We're getting married near where I grew up in CA. We think the Gilded Frame Invitations would evoke our venue, a Victorian-style boutique inn in wine country, perfectly.
Our story isn't really that different from most of the other's here - meet, fall in love and now, marriage. After spending the past four years together we've found out what makes us alike (we have the same ridiculous sense of humor and a love of mid-century modern design) and how we are different (I obsess over "Lost," he obsesses about the Yankees). But, no matter what, we always meet in the middle.
That is why we were drawn to the "Headline" collection - bold yet classic, modern but still traditional, this line of invitations speaks exactly to what we are hoping to achieve on our wedding day: laid-back luxury with all of the trappings of a traditional wedding, but with a modern, totally "us" twist. Our reception location is a movie theatre (recently reopened and restored to it's 1920's glory); our 9 piece band has a horn section (that they use to rock out on songs like "Born to Run"), we have a large wedding party, (an unmatched, honestly, rather motley crew of characters) at our sides. "Headline" walks this line perfectly, cool but still romantic, luxurious but understated. Plus, to put it simply, they're just gorgeous!
Long after his rental tux is returned and my dress has been preserved (whatever that means), we want to look back on a day that was meaningful and beautiful but without being stuffy at all. "Headline" captures that feeling and aesthetic perfectly for us - thanks from the bottom of my paper-loving heart for the opportunity to win it!
PS - We are both beyond amused that we love a suite called "Headline" - we met when I was hired to work with him at (you guessed it!) a newspaper!
I first came upon Elum after a friend referred me to them shortly after he wedding. I have to admit, I was daydreaming about my wedding and colors long before my boyfriend got down on one knee to pop the question. After going through hundreds of websites for invitations and listening to so many people's advice over who they used and who they thought was best, I was a little hesitant to look up Elum on advice of a friend. But one night I was bored and gave it a try. It was then that I saw the Cherry Blossoms line and my whole vision of my wedding changed. All of a sudden I started visualizing getting married with a small ceremony in a garden, with my step dad playing guitar and my grandpa officiating. I went from wanting this grand entrance and huge wedding cake, to not really caring if I have a cake at all. This line spoke to me simplicity and love, everything that is important to me in our wedding. This shouldnt be an event for your parents or your friends, it should be a event implicating the values that you hold as a couple. Trust me, we are not over the top grand entrance type of people. After telling myself I couldnt deal with the heartbreak of losing another Style Me Pretty giveaway, I saw this and just couldnt resist. I sure do hope we win!
Our wedding story is simplicity - boy has loved girl for a long time, girl has loved boy for a long time. Our day will not distract us from that simple truth.
We are not having flowers, expensive cars, churches or DJs. We are focusing on the importnant things to us - each other, our family and friends and champagne.
We want our story to be true to us and the lucidity invitations look perfect. I would love our guests to recieve the lucidity invitation and realise that sometimes the most beautiful things we have are the simplest.
My fiancee and I have been engaged for almost three years - because I could not decide where to have the reception! I keep thinking, you only get married once - but there are so many choices! Despite all of the back and forth on the planning, Simplicity suite definitely represents our style.... whether we had at the beach, in a ballroom, or in the backyard! We have finally decided on a destination wedding and I have been obsessing about these invitations! Thank you for having a contest!
Love the "Headline" design! It would be perfect because it's both simple and funky at the same time, definitely different from the norm. Our wedding is all about having fun and celebrating life and love. We plan on good food & dancing all night, two of our major loves. No lacy beaded dresses, no expensive flowers. And lots and lots of DIY because that's what we're all about.
Tim and I will be getting married at our church, at which we've been members for over 20 years. Our reception will be held in a quaint historical building. I'm envisioning the party to be feminine (but not frilly), sophisticated, and classic... can't go wrong with Rococo!
We are high school sweethearts who have finally decided to get married after 10 years of being together. We are just looking forward to being married. We have no colors or themes. We just want to be married at the end of the day. We are having a very short engagement and we would love to win the invitations. I would love the invitations to be fun and full of culture. Our wedding is the combination of four cultures-Chinese, Cambodian, Israeli and Finnish.
I looove the Ampersand invitation set!
Being Greek, we're having a traditional big fat Greek wedding and I am trying so hard to add some style and flair to our wedding. I'm so happy I found stylemepretty because if I was every to create an inspiration board, it would be this website! Thank you for introducing me to a whole new world!!!
I've always believed that the wedding is not just about that one day, it is about the process that you take to get you there and doing it with those you love and those who love you! Every Saturday since we've been engaged (5 months) my mom, sister and I pick up a coffee, blast the music and drive around the city doing wedding stuff...we are creating the best memories every weekend.
If there's anything I hope my invitations and my wedding day say about us is that we're having a blast with all the planning and I hope my invitations make our guest excited to come and create more amazing memories :)
The Empress suit is my dream wedding invitation. Having dating for 8 years I got the most amazing surprise when Erik bent down on one knee and told me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, in my favorite room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We have had our ups and downs and now we are ready to start the rest of our lives together. A new chapter that will be as elegance as these invitations and as simple and modern. I can not think of a more perfect representations of us and and our love, it would be a dream to send out the empress suit as our invitations.
Our story is all about new beginnings! We met, both after big, life-altering breakups, and started fresh together by fortunate coincidence. And we've marked a lot of milestones in the process! He helped me believe in myself in new ways (it was with his support that I bought my first place!), helped me see some good things I was missing and reminded me of the importance of a great sense of humor! I think its fitting that we're having a Christmas wedding on December 19, since to me, Christmas marks the return to light! Our colors are deep green and gold, and we're using lots of candles and fresh greenery to symbolize life and light. I think the Rococo suite would fit beautifully with our theme! It has a rich, botanical quality, but with a bright cheerfulness to it that brings just the right touch of whimsy and elegance. It would be such an honor to send this to our guests!
Until I met my fiance, I didn't know how to relax or take time our from living a jam-packed life in a big city. In short, I wasn't all that happy. When I met Brian, not only did I find a soul mate and best friend but found inspiration -- and a great reason -- to focus more on the people and activities that enriched my life. He is so good at finding the balance between work and play, and his outlook on life is always so positive and easygoing.
The Fields suite of invitations are an ideal mix of elements that convey our attitudes and approach to life as a couple: clean and structured yet playful and vibrant. When I first saw these a few months ago (right after we got engaged, actually), I knew they were absolutely perfect for us. The invitations completely reflect us and the type of party we want to give for our guests: classy and beautiful, but one where everyone can truly relax, have a blast and forget about the rest of the world for the evening.
Thank you so much for this opportunity! All your designs are truly amazing.
Mike and I are very opposite in a way that compliments each other. He has this heightened impulsive energy and I tend towards more subtle grandeur. Our plans typically start with ideas that are night and day but merge into these amazing inspirations that are so much better than each of our thoughts alone.
Elum's designs are all so unique, Mike liked some, I preferred others, each of us leaning towards the look that reflected us individually. When we got to the Gilded Frame, I looked at him carefully, hopefully... he was smiling ecstatically. We knew this exuberantly rich style would be the one that showcased our personalities and gave us a forum to blur those distinctions in ourselves into one unified message that would engage our guests both visually and emotionally and give them a sneak preview of the wedding and celebration that is to come!
Rococo - Used with Graphite, Sunshine and Lavender will be the perfect invitation to introduce our colors (themed after the groom's love for the Lakers, which is a sacrifice of love and challenge the bride). With the modern monogram, there is no better way to make a statement with such an elegance piece.
With our 380 guest count (the majority being family), we are definitely in need of help to revive our budget.
We are getting married at the Institute of Contemporary Art on Carlton House Terrace in London, partly because we are both very interested in contemporary and conceptual art but also because we are interested in the interaction between modern art and the lovely Georgian architecture of the rooms in which we will have our celebration. The clean modern design of the Composition invitation looks so much like a label that would appear next to a piece of modern art in one of the galleries - it would be the perfect representation of what we want - a wedding of minimalist simplicity and modern elegance.
(Also, although it is more expensive for us to have the wedding in central London, it will be much simpler and cheaper for our guests - we didn't want them to have to spend any money in this economic climate to come and celebrate with us!)
I absolutely adore the "Poster" suite! My fiance and I are currently living in Kenya- where I work- and planning our wedding that will take place in my hometown of Milwaukee, WI. Our wedding doesn't have any exact theme- we just keep making choices together that reflect our fun-loving spirits and how amazing overjoyed we are going to be to see all of our family and friends in one place as the share in this special day with us. Much of our day will revolve around good music (guitare ceremony, African drumming during cocktails and an awseome DJ spinning during dinner and the reception), good food and amazing company all within the parameters of an eco-friendly outdoor ceremony and a reception at a local nature center on the shore of Lake Michigan.
Thank you so much Elum and Abby for putting together this contest. After all my web-surfing (and that takes quite a long time with Kenyan internet) the "Poster Suite" really captures the spirit we want our guests to be in on our special day.
Pat and I have been together for 8 years now. He was my highschool sweetheart. We started dating in the spring, but he proposed in the fall. I want our invitations to show our love for those two incredible seasons that bring such great change to nature. In Ottawa, where we live, Spring brings the tulip festival and beautiful blossoms all over the city. In the fall, the Gatineau hills glow with the colours of the autumn. We want our invitations to be youthful and artistic, like us. We want them to be strong, a blend of his masculine to my feminine. For us, it’s all about being together forever, through all of the beginnings and endings. We both lost our fathers over the past few years. Despite this incredible loss, we were able to hold each other up and move forward in to our new lives together. I am in love with the Fields suite, in our colours – Brown for the fall and Green for spring.
What a fantastic competition! Our story is wrapped in the love of our family and friends. Over the years they have loved and supported us completely - our parents have even become great friends with each other! Our wedding story is going to center around being young and in love, community and the beautiful river city we live in.
Elum's Lucidity set would be perfect for our wedding stationery because it captures that fresh young look in a great modern design. I love how the different patterns interact with each other. Zac has often brought me little Elum note cards as a surprise, so winning this competition would be a great way to indulge my love of gorgeous stationery and have wedding invitations we wouldn't otherwise be able to afford.
Thank you Elum, thank you Abby!
The story of our wedding will be a story of beginnings. Set in the 13th century college we met in while students, our wedding will centre around the chapel and dining hall that formed the backdrop for our relationship. Being married in a place that is meaningful to us both is very important to us because we now live 6000 miles away from one another 8 months of the year. The Gilded Frame collection mirrors perfectly the English renaissance setting of our wedding and reception. The elum Gilded Frame invitations would frame the announcement of another 'new beginning' for us.
Our wedding is all about keeping our family's traditions and yet making them our own, while taking a break from our loud, busy lives for a peaceful, joyous union. The sculpture garden where we're having the ceremony and reception fits perfectly with elum's Cherry Blossom Suite in conveying to our guests that our wedding will be simple, beautiful, and perfectly romantic!
While some people get excited about their wedding dress – I get excited about letterpress! There is something absolutely enticing about the look and feel of letterpress that makes my heart skip a beat. I have admired ‘Lucidity’ for a few months now – the design literally stopped me in my tracks when I was walking by a local stationery store window. Nothing that I have looked at since has compared to it! Although it is out of my financial grasp, I have not been able to get it out of my mind.
I love the modern simplicity to the design – it seems to have a flow and motion to it. I am a west coast bride getting married in an urban east coast setting and I feel this invite marries both environments. The natural elements of the west coast - water and wood grain - are represented without being literal. The shape of the invite and simplicity of the font and design makes a quiet effortless statement of modernity. It is important to us that our wedding is relaxed and comfortable, stylish yet not overdone. This invite captures the spirit of the environment we would like to create and sets the tone for two lives intertwining in a union that was simply meant to be.
Our wedding story is about trees and the way they symbolize deeply rooted love, the kind that stands the test of time. Our day will take place at his family's farm, a place that's been in his family for generations. We're going to plant a tree that day at the farm that will grow with our marriage and that our kids' kids will see for years to come and remember our love. It will symbolize their roots as well. I believe that the "cherry blossom" invitation is perfect for our story because of the beautifully illustrated tree. We could even plant a cherry tree!
"Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
- Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
My fiance and I want the story of our wedding to be an intimate, whimsical celebration of the joining of our families. We have limited our guest list to 50 and reserved a beautiful garden inn in downtown Pittsburgh for our day. The Garden Aviary invitation suite perfectly complements the look and feel that we are striving to achieve! Thank you and best of luck to all!
As soon as I saw this give away for the gorgeous Elum invitation sets I was dying to enter but actually had to think over my answer for quite a while. My fiance and I haven't really been able to narrow down a theme for the feeling we want to portray on our wedding day yet. So far we are getting married in a beautiful old cathedral in my Australian home town (? traditional), I am wearing a floaty goddess dress (? whimsical), we are having a sleek restaurant style reception (? modern) and my metal head brothers are groomsmen (? rock and roll). The only thing these all have in common is that we just love them and that is the same with the 'field' invitation set from Elum. I think if you just go with things you love for your wedding, you can't really go wrong!
Picking a theme was the easiest part of the planning process. We are both hikers from the Pacific Northwest and love everything about the outdoors. Our November wedding will represent our nature side and be very woodsy, dark and romantic. For example, we are creating tree arrangements on wood slabs for some of our centerpieces, and the rest will be large lanterns surrounded by moss. The bridesmaids dresses are 2-tone chocolate and ivory. Every aspect of our wedding will represent us, our families and our Washington home as we start our journey through the woods.
Thank you for this opportunity!
Both my fiance and I are both a mix of traditional and ultra modern styles. We work through this dichotomy in many of our life's decisions:
Where to live? After much deliberation, we bought a condo in a building from the early 1900's with an sleekly modern interior, for example.
Where to wed? We are having our reception in an amazing Catholic cathedral only to follow it with a hip, modern, non traditional reception in an airplane hangar.
What better way to incorporate these styles than with the Composite invitation suite from Elum. Traditional letterpress elegance + modern typography = Kurt and I. Not to mention, being able to save on the stationery bill will be a huge bonus for a wedding budget being almost completely funded by us!
Thank you for your consideration!
My fiance have tried to implement vintage details - including the rings, my dress, the venue. The rococco invitation suite is perfect. It has a vintage design with a modern pop of color. It is a gorgeous invitation that sets an elegant tone - yet still casual and fun - just like us!
Can and invitation look like a person? As I scrolled through the absolutely gorgeous invitations on the ELUM site I felt like I could see the personalities and people they could represent. The "Beach Blanket" looks like my best friend from grad school who I swear has saltwater in her blood. The "Poster" reminded me of my star-struck cousin in Nashville who's talent amazes me. And then, I felt like I was looking at my fiance (and for a football-loving, guy's-guy I never thought he would agree). The "FIELDS" suite seems to have a personality that is natural, a little rustic, organic, and comfortable (like you're home) which, is how I would describe my fiance and the wedding and relationship we are planning. It would be an honor to present any of the invitations from ELUM to my family and friends but it is the "FILEDS" suite that looks like "us".
It’s said that wedding invitations are the central overture that insinuate a couple’s sentiments about both one another and their wedding day. My fiancé and I cherish the unassuming moments, everyday adventures, and amazing people that shape our story together. While he’s the kind of guy who uses his amazing artistic talents to make Christmas presents, I’m the kind of girl who prescribes to the whimsical possibilities of the love letter. Together, we live for long walks in the evening, eating dessert for dinner, loud music, making each other laugh, and revealing our passions in life (which, to him, means running marathons, and, to me, means great literature, art, and not running 26 miles “just for fun”). While the Elum site quickly became a bookmarked favorite in our planning process, the stunning Salon suite delights us as if it were custom-made. Classically understated and luxuriously letterpressed, the design promotes enduring elegance and effortless simplicity—elements we hope are in abundance during our intimate wedding day. Above all, the pristine design honors the union of two names and denotes the connection and love that binds everything together. Though the current economic climate has motivated us to eliminate many wedding luxuries, the Salon invitation would serve as the perfect prelude for our day—simple, pure, elegant, and timeless. Thanks so much for this contest!
My fiancé and I are getting married at the Hotel Valencia, a SF Bay Area hotel that has special meaning to us. (I treated my fiancé to a stay there for his twenty-first birthday and we both LOVED it!) The hotel manages to perfectly balance Italian-inspired architecture, which appeals to my design aesthetic, with Asian decor, which appeals to his. Orchids are placed throughout the hotel, so we plan to use them as our event's motif and the primary flower. We may also give orchid bulbs/plants as favors.
All that said, I'd just about die if we were lucky enough to win the "Orchid Bloom" collection. I've been coveting the suite for weeks now, despite letterpress being slightly out of our budget. I think they'd be the perfect introduction to the elegant Italian/Asian-fusion event we're working together to plan.
Thanks so much for this opportunity!
We want the invitations for our New Year’s nups to say: prepare yourself for something precious, exciting, and genuine. Despite the wintery Michigan weather, we’re working up a fierce celebratory lather that will keep your heart warm through Spring!
We’re a touch vintage, a touch modern, and a dash kid at heart. We’re completely unsubsidized and are doing everything we can to create a really exciting celebration for our fam and friends without making them feel like we’ve skimped (man, our budget is TIGHT!) and, at the same time, not putting too much pressure on ourselves to keep up with the wedding Jones’s of the world.
When our guests flip through that menacing stack of mail and come to our beauty of an invite, we want them to say WOW. Not WOW- that must have cost a pretty penny. Or JEEZ- this is going to be fancy. More like AWESOME- this feels so personal because it is so THEM (he and I). We want it to stand out, just as they do in our lives, as something special. Afterall, that’s why they’re being invited.
The Watermark Suite fits us like a glove because it’s modern without being cold. Fun without being juvenile. Sophisticated without being stuffy. Substantial without being heavy or overdone. Aaaand we love letterpress. Oh, I could go on forever but in I’ll stop now. Thanks for this awesome opportunity!
We plan to be married Spring 2010. Our inviations should say something like.... "From the moment they met they were destined to be together except they didn't know it yet. Just a matter of time before love crawled into their hearts and whispered each others names. First comes love then comes marriage. Please join us as we unite our hearts forever beating as one from this day on." The Palm design woud be ideal since we plan to wed on the beach surrounded by nature.
Hafiz, the great sufi mystic wrote:
"Our
Union is like this:
You feel cold
So I reach for a blanket to cover
Our shivering feet.
A hunger comes into your body
So I run to my garden
And start digging potatoes.
You ask ask for a few words of comfort and guidance,
I quickly kneel at your side offering you
This whole book --
As a gift.
You ache with loneliness one night
So much that you weep
And I say,
Here's a rope,
Tie it around me,
I
Will be your companion
For life."
Our Union is like this. Ours is the story of all lovers throughout time, the story of a single soul longing for home while yet in this world. We waited for each other (40 and 47 years respectively, neither of us marrying, both of us knowing that it mattered who you chose, that somewhere in this world was a soul meant for our own). I had known many soul mates. They are everywhere if you look. But a companion for life, that is something else. Our story is about knowing the value of that, that it matters more than anything. The day, our wedding day, is just an open door. It is not our life. It is, rather, the gate way to the larger life that's been waiting for us. Our day will be spent surrounded by beauty, and by family and friends. It will be visually beautiful (that matters to me), but it won't be for show. It will be so that our souls sing. A friend in a beautiful orange dress. A little girl in a beige dress with orange beading. Pink and orange and coral flowers. A patio lined with petals. A dear friend singing. Pot luck. A dear sing reading verse. My father officiating, delivering our wedding sermonette, as he calls it, giving us his great gift from his big heart -- a gift big enough to overshadow all that he could not be.
Meeting in late life we know what this life means and we celebrate, for our Union is like this:
"A hunger comes into your body
So I run to my garden
And start digging potatoes."
Salon fits our story, for in its simplicity, it reminds us that it is the essence of the thing that matters most. Our love is like That.
We are getting married at my uncle's home in Big Sur, California on a cliff overlooking the Pacific ocean. We are only inviting close friends and family, and they will be free to roam around the property and throughout the redwood forest during the cocktail reception. We have hired a jazz trio to play during our outdoor dinner, and my brother has become ordained so that he can marry us. This will be a very intimate outdoor wedding celebration. The decor will be simplistic so as not to overpower the breathtaking scenery. The "garden aviary" best evokes the feeling that we hope to convey for our wedding.
I am loving the Ampersand suite... an absolutely perfect blend of fun, modern, and traditional. The message my fiance and I want to convey through our invites? "You are so special to us; please join us in our celebration of life, love, and friendship... we couldn't imagine starting our married lives together without your presence"
Throughout the the crazed wedding planning process, I have often had to step back and remind myself of the significance of our special day. No matter what the theme, the colors, the venue, the food... it just wouldn't be the same without being surrounded by our loved ones. I hope that as each of them opens their invitation to our wedding, it brings a big smile to their face.
In just under one year, Jonathon and I will take a break from our busy lives and commit our lives to one another. There won't be any school or work, just the two of us, and those who love us most in the world. I think the Cherry Blossom suite would best suit our wedding. Jon and I are getting married next spring in Washington, DC which is the most beautiful place in America to see the blossoms. They are a sign that soon the days will be longer and sun filled, and, for the two weeks the cherry blossoms are in bloom, we can take a break from our hectic lives and sit and enjoy the beauty of nature.
We want our wedding invitation to say this day will be formal and elegant, yet easy-going and comfortable. The Ampersand invitation is simple, yet absolutely beautiful. My fiancé and I have a very relaxed and easy-going approach to our relationship, and life in general. We are not a very flashy or extravagant couple, yet our relationship is the most beautiful thing in the world to me. Throughout our wedding day planning process, we’ve tried to maintain that simplicity and beauty in everything we choose. To me, the Ampersand invitation is the definition of that understated elegance.
We met as design students, leaned on each other as close friends, and learned through the years how much our lives have been intertwining without us even knowing. We're having a May garden wedding for many reasons: our love of the freshness & new growth of spring, the timing of our first date, as well as a tribute to my grandparents that recently passed away. We'll be kicking off our life together at the historic art center and gardens, an "American Castle," near our hometowns. It is absolutely PERFECT! It reflects us as artists, allows us to give back to local artists and history, and fits our love for the outdoors. To sum up the feeling we would like our day to have, I would say "ethereal garden meets goofy, fun and lovable artists—suckers for romance and whimsy". I think that about sums it up... :) "Watermark" has just what we need for our big day. Many thanks for even considering us & for your generosity! Mu-AH!
The Garden Aviary invitation would be a beautiful complement to the rich, bird-filled native garden where we are holding our ceremony and reception. The quote on our invitation will read: "The river that flows in you also flows in me." Our wedding is bringing water to the desert, since we are water lovers living in Tucson, Arizona - he loves the river and I love the sea. We are using ocean blue (like my unfired sapphire engagement ring) and sunny yellows and greens (like the gardens) as our colors, and the colors on this invitation suit our theme so well. Best of all, the paper is tree-free cotton, helping us further realize our "green" wedding dream.
We want people to open our invitations and get an instant feel for what our wedding will be like, modern and fun. The "Headline Suite" speaks to this perfectly. Our wedding will take place in Los Angeles at and all green event space. The bold font and concise wording of this invitation is exactly our style and exactly the way to convey the modern venue. The contrast in colors and paper is so exciting and that is what we want people to feel when when they get the invitation to the wedding. We want people to be excited for the party we are planning a fun party with all of our friends and family and this suite is the perfect way to covey that.
The Headline Suite would suit our New Years Eve Wedding, we want to announce to the world in bold writing that we are getting married to the loves of our lives. We want our guests to receive the Invite and know from the style to prepare themselves for a memorable day/night celebrating this joyous moment in our lives and theirs and it will be a new years that will never forget
Micah and I are getting married this November. We are an olderish couple. I thought I might never get married and here I am at 36 getting ready to walk down the aisle with the love of my life. We met fourteen months ago, and with Micah I am truly happier than I have ever been in my life. I am finally comfortable to just be myself and he says the same. In September due to a National Disaster, my home flooded and I lost everything that I own, except my Great Grandmother's table and chairs. It was Micah who was smart enough to lift them on to the top of the counter. After the flooding I was homeless for five months. Micah took me in, helped me heal and re-build my life. Now we live together engaged in my/our new and improved home. Because of the flooding and the lack of insurance money we are having to be very mindful of our wedding budget. My engagement ring was his Mother's and my wedding band will be my Grandmother's. We want everything to be as special as possible and an invitation suite from Elum would set the tone, for what I hope is the most intimate and loving day of my life.
Ben and I would choose "Fields" as our invitation suite, in the lemonade and warm grey shades depicted, reflecting Ben's fun, blowin'-in-the-wind carefree attitude to life and my sunny, always-look-on-the-bright-side approach to the relationship, families and our love.
We are from the UK and live in a beautiful city just outside of London called Brighton. I guess its a little crazy to want to ship designs from California over the large pond to Brighton, but if we win, we promise to mitigate the carbon footprint the plane journey will make to get to us!
There are so many reasons why the design represents "us" and our special day. The fields represent my move from the big smoke of London to Brighton and the "real outdoors" (I moved cities to live with Ben - not that common in the UK), the understated elegance and layering of the design represents how we compliment eachother day to day, and the two-tone contrasts as per the invitation will bring together our two very different but very beautiful English and Pakistani cultures on the one special day. We'll match as a palatte and I'm pretty "chuffed" about that (as they say in the UK)!
Wow, what a neat opportunity to both see great print as well as be inspired by others' weddings.
My best friend and I have been engaged since January and we are finally this close (please place fingers very close together) to signing paperwork on our reception site! Yay! So now it is finally time to work on our invitations!
Our reception will be at a historic home in Phoenix (a vacation rental property) and will fit perfectly with our retro/vintage personalities. We are very excited to have our wedding reflect who we are as both individuals as well as a couple, as well as ensure that everyone is comfortable and enjoys themselves.
I am a girl who fancies a good letterpress, my fiance enjoys a good rock-a-billy show, so 'Poster' would be the perfect combination for us.
Thanks for the opportunity!!
Dave and I view our wedding not only as a celebration of our relationship, but also as a much-needed celebration of the joys of life for our families after the past three years that have brought a number of tragedies, including the deaths of my father and brother. With this in mind, we're hoping to create a joyful, music-filled evening incorporating our own history as a couple (the wedding will be held at the college where we met and feature some of our favorite foods like gourmet pizza), the histories of our families (we hope to have bluegrass and blues performers during the ceremony and the reception--evoking the music that has been a central part of every family gathering in my family since I was young, and was a favorite of my dad's), and American history (our ceremony will take place on the lawn of the original statehouse in historic St. Mary's City, Maryland). The Poster Suite will perfectly work in these elements of our story--inspired by classic concert posters evoking the past (and including a map of the rural area and surrounding historical places of interest), our invitations will convey to our guests that our wedding will be a fun, music-filled evening--a time to remember the past but in the context of coming together to finally celebrate something good!
The "Fields" suite would be perfect for our outdoor spring wedding. We both love the outdoors and frequently go on camping trips and long walks through the park, so bringing the beauty and feeling of nature into our wedding was very important to us.
Our ceremony will be outside under a beautiful old pecan tree and our reception will be in a ballroom made sustainably from the wood from an old farmhouse. The ballroom has two walls made entirely of glass, so we'll be able to see the twinkling stars and bright moon while we enjoy our guests.
The "Fields" suite captures the feeling of our wedding so perfectly because it is a modern, lovely dipiction of nature, which is so important to our day. I love the softness of the layering of colors. I would choose two greens, I think Kelly Green and Spring Green or Green Apple, to go with our colors, which are varying shades of green with black and white.
Our wedding in January 2010 will take place outdoors on the beach on a private estate in Honolulu, HI. We've chosen green as one of our main colors as well as green dendrobium & cymbdium orchids. We think it's very important for the wedding to reflect original aspects of ourselves and not just choose "commerical-y" styles the retail world has to offer. Embracing Hawaii and Japanese culture will be on full display, which is why the ORCHID BLOOM eLum invitation suite would best reflect ourselves. Orchids are amazing flowers with 30,000 species identified and new ones being discovered every year. They can grow in snowy wastes of Northern Canada to deserts of the Sahara. We can only hope our love will also extend this vast range!
I am a second time bride and I didn't really think that I would ever want to take that leap into the unknown again. I don't think either of us was looking for a relationship and I know the thought of dating a single mom terrified him. Somehow, despite the roadblocks, challenges and general messiness of life we've managed to create a beautiful relationship and a wonderful family. We are hoping that the day will be full of laughter and happy tears. The three words that we are using to desribe the day are whimsical, charming and vintage- the playful wink of a kate spade ad meets the visual "ooh la la" of anthropologie. The reception is going to take place in a local barn that was moved board by board to a new location where it has been lovingly restored. I think that the lady trail suite says everything that we are trying to convey with the day. It is whimsical and charming but in a grown up kind of way.
We are looking forward to a super fun stress free wedding held in an old tack mill. The POSTER ivites would be perfect - our guests would know to expect great food and lots of dancing!
What a wonderful giveaway! Thanks so much to Elum and SMP since letterpress is a luxury our budget cannot afford! It was actually a difficult decision trying to decide which suite best conveys both my fiance and me and our vision for our wedding day. We're getting married on Lake Michigan (where we we walked on our first date) so immediately I was drawn to Lucidity, which invokes water and clean, modern lines (absolutely reminiscent of our reception location). I then pondered Daisy Garden since on our first date, when he proposed, and whenever he wants to make me smile, my fiance brings me a daisy (they will be the only flowers we use at the wedding). But then I got to Poster and this invitation screamed "us"! My fiance lives for music and concerts. Some of our first special dates, when I knew he was the one for me, involve swaying back and forth together at various different concerts. Moreover, the Poster invite itself echoes a concert playbill that was one of the first things we bought together for our new house. Finally, it's just fun and above all, that is what we want for our wedding - a fun, fabulous time to celebrate our love, the start of the next chapter of our lives, and the family and friends who made us who we are. And, of course, to sing and shout at the top of our lungs on the dance floor with all of these special people as we do at all the best concerts. :) Thanks again.
Our May 2010 wedding will take place in a historic bank that is now a great event venue in downtown Troy, NY. Very special and unique, exactly the sentiments we would like to embody on our wedding day. I think the "Ampersand" style really suits the look we are going for. Clean yet sophisticated.
Our wedding is being held at Bernardo Winery - the first winery in Southern California. We love it's charm, it's casualness, and the vibe it gives. We want our invitations to represent who we are as a couple and what we want our wedding to be - simple, clean, casual, and FUN! After looking (and looking, and looking...) we've decided that Headline suits us the most. The modern font, the cool element it gives off... it's perfect. We've already had to up our wedding costs and wedding count due to hurt feelings (both of our dads are one of 8 kids), which we love because we want to share our day, but not having to worry about invitations would the icing on the cake!
Matt and I would be honored if we could call Headline ours! Thanks for this great opportunity!
Simple, yet chic-that's what our wedding will be. All too often, I think people try so hard to do what's "in style" that they loose their own personalities along the way. I want mine and my fiance's personalities to show through every aspect of the most important day of our lives. In going with that theme, we love the Headline Suite! It so simple, yet shows just enough "trend" to really capture us! I think this design is one that will hold the test of time and will never be outdated. We are getting married in an outdoor ceremony and all we ask is that people walk away thinking they had one of the funniest times of their lives...and I think these BOLD invitations will be a great start to that!
My fiance, a graphic artist & musician and I, a social worker, are planning an easy-breezy wedding. We'll be married in Central CA at Grant Park underneath a beautifully simple cross overlooking the Pacific ocean. Because we can't afford a typical(expensive) reception, we're focusing our energies on the evening back at our home with live music & yummy cocktails! Our love of music will be the unifying theme & the Poster invite would compliment this idea beautifully!
Thanks for your consideration,
Pati & Terry Phillip
My finace and I struggled to find our venue, one that reflected the feelings and images we felt and saw when we thought of our wedding day. We finally found an old department store in an art-deco era building that had been converted into event space and knew right away that it was perfect. We love that they retained the art-deco influence throughout the event space. We want the invitations to convey the same things we love about the reception space and reflect the feelings and images we associate with our wedding day--warm, modern, with a touch of glamour. We think that the Modern Monogram collection would be perfect for us!
Despite having a teeny tiny budget I am trying so hard to put together a very romantic yet whimsical wedding together. My fiance and I are two people who just get each other and everything seems to constantly flow with out too many disruptions. I want the wedding to have that same feel. Everything flows and you feel at ease. I adore the "fields" design and since we are having an outdoor ceremony I think it would be absolutely perfect. Thank You so Much for offering such an amazing prize as there a plenty of us who can only day dream about such pretty things.
I'm keeping this short since you have so many entries to read. The wedding....vintage...baseball...fun. Think lace and trophies.... hot dogs and ice cream.....dance til you drop party! Theme....LOVE WINS! It's going to be an old fashioned outta the park home run! And The Poster would be perfect hit in charcoal and red. Thanks for such an awesome giveaway! You rock!
The Headline invitation tells the story of our engagement perfectly. You see, my fiance had been trying to propose prior to this particular weekend when both of our families were coming to visit. However, for various reasons, his plans kept being disrupted. Finally, on the night before our relatives were to arrive, he had arranged a night out on the town with a visit to the spot where we went on our first date, but he was called into his hospital for overnight backup before the night even began. He came home from work the following morning to find me making breakfast in the kitchen and dropped down on one knee and proposed.....at seven o'clock in the morning. The irony of this situation is that it was so early in the morning that we were not able to call any friends or family - everyone was still in bed. With the Headline invitations, our family and friends will be sure to get the news about our wedding day!
The Fields suite is the perfect way to begin our wedding story! Brian and I are planning a backyard garden chic wedding and the modern, yet whimsical invitations will set the perfect tone for our guests! We are planning on having a day ceremony and reception with games like croquet. The setting is my best friend's parent's backyard, that is filled with mature trees, a flower garden and a vegetable garden. Plus the colors in the displayed suite are incredibly close to ours: gray and butter yellow, with navy and the palest pink accents. I especially love the reception card with the woven detail as we are planning on using burlap to add texture to our table tops! What a wonderful and perfect invitation suite that would truly wow our guests and get them into the garden party mood!
We are balancing the rustic beauty of fall with the history and grandness of the museum where we will hold our reception. We are young but we love collecting antiques, a fact that makes us a little "different." :) Our decor will incorporate everything that is fall - from mums to artichokes to wheat - we could not be more excited to create that warm "first sweater day" feeling. We LOVE the Rococo design - it balances the old with the new, and is simply perfection! Thank you for such a great contest!
Even though I have maxed out every credit card (jk) I still dream about letterpress everynight :) Will and I will be getting married on a hill top in Queens, New York (overlooking manhattan). The place symbolizes us to the tee, little bit of country in a big city :) Our theme is fall elegance, with your inviation the memory of our wedding would look /feel: TIMELESS!! Neapolitan is our dream invitation.
I absolutely would love the "Ampersand" design for my wedding. I've been thinking about using a decorative "&" symbol to use in all aspects of the wedding rather than a monogram. The "&" symbol is a perfect representation of my fiance and I combining our lives together - we're becoming a "we"! Our wedding will be a celebration to combine our two families, families which have known each other since the two of us were in middle school. We have been close friends for almost fifteen years, and fell in love two years ago. This wedding will truly be a combining of best friends.
I also love that it's modern, but still has classic touches. That is exactly what I picture for our special day - a classic wedding with modern details mixed in.
My fiance and I have overcome a lot of obstacles during the last two years of our relationship. We spent the majority of it long distance and supported each other during the grieving process for the death of a close mutual friend. My fiance is also coming off of making a complete recovery from a health scare that could've ended his life. To top if off, we will be moving back to our home state of Texas the week before our wedding. When we got engaged, it was instantly clear to me the story I wanted our wedding to tell: a celebration of our journey. I want the day to celebrate our relationship, our survival and our health and also to celebrate our friends and family - we never could have made it without their help. We're using bright colors - poppy red linens and bridesmaid dresses with touches of marine and emerald details throughout the day. We're also trying to make the reception feel like a true celebration by serving dinner family style and hiring a swing band. Our hope is that this wedding will really serve as a switching point, a celebration marking the start of our lives together and our return to our home state. So far, finding the perfect stationary design has eluded me - until now. We were looking for something to announce our celebration in a big way - something that commanded attention while simultaneously radiating the joy we want the whole day to have. In a nutshell, we want our invitations to say to our guests, "The sun has just come out from behind the clouds for this couple - and it's here to stay! Come celebrate with them." Looking at the Elum designs, it was immediately clear which line fit us: the Poster design. The mix of playful fonts seems so happy and joyful! I also think our colors would look stunning on it! The one design element that just floored me, however, were the rays peeking out from behind the names on the invitation. I feel like those rays sum up everything we want for our day. We would feel so blessed and lucky to win this, but I know so would so many other couples. A HUGE thank you to Elum and Style My Pretty. Good luck to everyone!
Composition is the suite that aptly conveys the feel of our relationship and thus our wedding. Our eyes met at a party, they danced across the room and when the music of both the party and life stopped, we found ourselves together. There were some bumps in the road, but we weathered them with the strength garnered from a love composed of what truly matters: an undying love and respect for each other. We want our Halloween wedding at the Parker Hotel in Palm Springs to surprise, delight, amuse and entertain our guests, much the same way our love does for each other and the Composition wedding suite is the perfect opening act for the "show."
My fiance and I are getting married at my cousin's loft apartment in the West Village/NYC. The atmosphere we are trying to create is that of a super fun, fabulous party where we just happen to get married as well. I think the Watermark invitations represent this style because they have elements of traditional wedding invitations but the whole feel of them is much more non-traditional. They would be the perfect way to invite our friends and family to our *hopefully* chic, fun party of a wedding.
My fiancé and I would love the salon suite for our multicultural wedding for this Nov.
I am from Bombay and I came here for my higher studies. I used to volunteer for a homeless ministry and he was the organizer. We were friends before we started dating. We had a whirlwind romance that encompassed more than four years and two continents, from India to Chicago.
This marriage symbolizes the union of two cultures. His folks are very traditional; just as my parents. Our parents always wanted a traditional wedding and they were so excited to hear our theme that we choose. Since I am catholic as well we will be having a classic white wedding. Lucky for us our theme is vintage Hollywood; this was such a no brainer.
Since he belongs to the film industry and we still wanted to maintain the classic timeless elegance associated with weddings, we decided to have that theme.
We are having our wedding at the beautiful St. Monica church, followed by the reception at Hotel Culver. Hotel Culver is an old school glamorous Hollywood Hotel (wizard of oz was filmed there), owned by Charlie Chaplin (My grandfathers all time favorite comedian) who lost it in a game of poker to John Wayne. All our guests who will be flying in from India, London, New Zealand, and so many cities in the US will be staying at the Hotel. We will be staying in the John Wayne suite for our honeymoon as well
We are renting out the lobby and the bars. Our getaway vehicle for the day is the 1957 Bentley. We will be having a red carpet, complete with search lights. Our save the dates will have a ticket designed after the Oscar ceremony ticket. The flowers are classic white with a lot of candles. We will be having a grand white piano playing classic jazz music for the dinner, with a dance floor in another room.
My dress, oh my dress, is the Melissa Sweet MILA dress *swoon* without the ugly flower at the side…
All in all the vision is not to dwarf the “Wedding” in itself but add to it classic details that will complete it. I originally did envision letter press invitations for my wedding and am currently on the look out for the perfect set.
So this contest is definitely a blessing in disguise.
The salon suite fits perfectly into this themed wedding. I envision the colors for the invitation to be: Fog and Black
The font that will be perfect for these awesome invites will be Bickham Script 2 with the optional Bickham Swash Caps *GOSH love these fonts, so Chic and Classic*
The icing of the cake for me is the 330 gram card stock paper.. I have been looking for the heaviest kind of paper and this made me jump with joy!
I am so excited and eager about my upcoming dream wedding and I think these invitations really set the tone for the festivities that will follow. Thanks for this contest and giving me at least a chance to try.
I am really impressed by the Clean Lines invitation suite. It's description, "simple sophistication", is perfect. My fiancé and I want our guests to get a feeling of simplicity with a touch of elegance, and this invitation fits that bill perfectly. Good luck to all and best wishes on your weddings!
Elum's style actually helped me refine our wedding look when I stumbled on their "fields" design several weeks ago. I intially was thinking green, black and white for our colors but absolutely fell in love with the grey/yellow combination of the fields design, and the overlapping floral images. It completely crystallized our reception's feel and gave an image on paper (well, computer screen for now!) to the thoughts I had running through my head.
To me it's elegant, modern, and fresh - three things I genuinely hope describe our wedding-to-be!
LOVE. I want our wedding invitations to be opened by our lovely "guests to be" and the only thing I want them to think, see and feel is Love. Don't get me wrong, I'm obsessing over our theme, colors and really every little detail every bride thinks about, but to me the ceremony is the most important part. Love. Isn't that really what it's all about?
Gilded Frame invite says this absolutely perfectly.
I love, love, love Lucidity, Garland and Fields!! How could you just pick one?! The colors they feature on their website are perfect too!! Our wedding will be at the historic fish booth hatchery in the black hills… it's this beautiful place hidden deep inside a wooded area. Everything we're using is inspired from nature, it will be clean and elegant. These 2 designs fit into our vision perfectly. And there is nothing more classic and elegant than beautiful wedding letterpress invitations! We’ve struggled for so long to find an invitation that we love and feel that fits our personality. Lucidity matches the clean elegance of what we envision in our decorations and apparel and Garland and Fields match the natural beautiful surrounding of our location. Any of those would be a treat!
We love POSTER! We want our wedding to not be the usual kind. Not "sophisticated", "romantic", or "chic". We just want people to be able to let loose and have a great time at a celebration! POSTER steers away from the usual wedding invitation and would is a perfect fit for us!
My fiance and I had one of our first outings (NOT a "date!") at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. We've decided to have our reception at the Museum as well, not only because it was the scene of the crime, but because we love the contemporary, clean, and stark but very beautiful feel of the art museum. I showed my fiance the all of the different suites and we were torn between Watermark and Headline. However, we love headline the most because one of the first things I told my fiance when we first got engaged was, "NO SCRIPT ON OUR INVITATIONS OK?"
You can't get any less scripty than Headline! Just cool, clean, modern lines of typography. Love it!
Matt and I are two sides of the same coin. At the heart of it, we share so much in common: a love of travel, cooking, architecture, music, theater, hiking, and dining. I'm a New York transplant who moved to North Carolina for a change of pace, a new life, and new adventures. He's a North Carolina native who loves the hustle and bustle of Manhattan and the city life. And our plans for the wedding have been the same way - I want a quirky, colorful celebration at a downtown Durham loft or museum with local vendors, decor, and music, he wants to have it at a more traditional Jewish venue on Long Island, pulling out all the stops for a fabulous cocktail hour, dancing, and floral arrangements galore. But regardless of where we have it, one thing's for certain: Florencia is the absolute perfect invitation for whichever kind of wedding we end up having. It's that unique mix of modern style that I love and the traditional elegance that he's looking for, a perfect expression of who we are as a couple and the feeling we want to have for the wedding. Whether it's going to be minimalist for me or "maximalist" for Matt, Florencia takes care of both of our visions for the wedding.
"Florencia" is perfect for my fiance and I! I want our invitations, and our whole wedding, to reflect who we are. And who is that? Two quirky, funny people who are full of surprises and who love to make each other laugh. Above all else, that's all I really need and want... someone who knows me in and out... someone who knows what I need when I need it... and someone who can make me smile when that's the last thing I feel like doing.
So, the invite set "Florencia" is just like us: beautiful, fun, and surprising. It will tell everyone how we hope to spend the rest of our years together with laughter and surprises.
Thank you for this opportunity!
I stopped looking as soon as I saw the Gilded Frame Invitation set. As a child I loved Cinderella and when I watched Ever After as an adult it quickly became my favorite movie and still is. Although I loved this fairy tale all my life, like Cinderella I was never the girl who grew up fantasizing about her wedding with prince charming and never thought something so wonderful could happen to me...that is until I met my very own prince charming. As soon as I saw these invitations I knew they would be perfect for giving guests a glimpse into our special day-our very own ball! These invitations are romantic and give off that Fairy Tale feel perfectly - which is the look and feel I want to portray at our wedding. All of the wedding planning can make you lose sight of the reason for it all, but a glimpse of these invitations and quickly the feelings of being swept off my feet and marrying my prince charming comes sharply into focus.
The invitations are absolutely beautiful. I feel they are perfect for our wedding because they are classy, elegant, yet original! The Neapolitan letter press would be perfect for my fiance and I. My fiance is a traditionalist who would love the neautral colors and simple lines. I am more of a free spirit who loves the tones and complete set! The colors of our wedding match the invitations as well!
Headline, for sure. We're a creative duo. He's a musician, photographer and artist. I'm a copywriter and music reviewer. The clean lines and bold font of the Headline design make the invitation look like a concert flyer. I can see our friends tacking it up on their walls. We're planning a low-budget wedding in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We wouldn't be able to afford Elum invitations, so please include us in the giveaway contest... thank you!
My fiance and I chose to have an intimate family celebration of our union together. It will be a day of going back to what is fundamentally important to us, family, and celebrating in a manner that is slightly more formal than how we already celebrate. I would like our invitations to be classic, elegant, and timeless and evoke a feeling of times past and forgotten. I want our wedding stationary to deliver the message that our day will be beautiful, special, and without gimmicks. When our guests open that envelope, I want them to feel the gravity of the happy occasion. The Rococo line fits in perfectly with the feeling I want to express!
Next fall my incredible man and I will be married in a heritage tudor thatch farm house, once the personal home of arts and craft movement legend, Katherine Maltwood. We will gather 125 people from our large circle of family of friends for a feasting dinner under the twenty five foot high beamed and stenciled peaked ceiling, after which our two young boys, serving as our entire wedding party, will walk me to our candlelit ceremony, in front of the homes original ten foot roaring fireplace (let's hope my vintage sheath gown doesn't become another candle!). And then?...then we shall all dance, frolic and celebrate the night away! Your beautiful Florencia pattern captures both the rustic elegance of our breathtaking location, as well as the spirited and joyous mood of family celebration we want to create for ourselves, our children, and all of our wonderful family and friends who are coming to be with us. Thank you Elum for your inspired work!
Invitations are the first glimpse that guests have of your wedding celebration. It’s really important to me that our invitations be reflective of the mood and style we’re hoping to set - something soft, creamy and romantic. I want an invitation that’s traditional yet a little bit sexy, something stunning that commands attention. I picture delicate script with round lines and romantic swirls. I feel rich buttery paper with intricate edging. I want an invitation that is reminiscent of the luxurious and elegant lifestyle of Marie Antoinette. I can’t envision something that embodies this grace and style more perfectly then the gilded frame collection from elum. The envelope alone makes me starry eyed.
I am obsessed with the "Salon" suite. My fiance and I are working on a tight budget, but because we know our wedding will be one of the most memorable nights of our lives, we splurged on the venue and now cannot afford any of the invitations we find & love. We have never been more impressed by the glamour or sophistication of an invitation than the Salon suite. It has the perfect amount of delicateness, sweetness and boldness for our Manhattan wedding! Many of our guests will be family and friends we have not seen in a long time, and as we approach our March wedding date, we would love to impress our loved ones and get them as excited for the event as we are, and a perfect invitation such as this one is just what we need! It would mean so much to us, and we would be forever grateful for this incredible prize!
Our message for our 12/26/2009 wedding will be one of love and joining families together. Elum's invitations are exquisite especially the gilded frame. We are being married in Hotel Bethlehem at Christmas; Matt being jewish, myself-catholic. Our families will be forever joined as will we. Thank you Elum for the beautiful & thoughtful contest.
For 28 years I’ve been waiting to shed my tri-syllabic last name Butterworth. Everytime I introduce myself, I can see the name evokes fond memories of buttermilk pancakes and eggo waffles. In September I am going to marry: Nolan Kelly. Forever more, I’ll be known as Kelly Kelly. Together we’ll be Kelly & Kelly; and the ampersand design couldn’t be more perfect for our seaside wedding on 09.19.09.
Our long story started when we were in high school. Now over 10 years later, we are ready to start a new story! My fiance is an architect, so it is fitting to get married at the LA Cathedral and have the reception at the Disney Concert Hall. The backdrop will be completely modern and chic and your lucidity suite would set the tone for our wedding! The waves design of lucidity would match the waves of the Disney Concert Hall! This would come to us as such a blessing.Thank you!
I want our wedding to be a kickass occasion-simply full of fun and celebration. I want it to be modern with a touch of romance. Nothing stuffy. Just a good time. Come as you are time. I want to dance till I can't walk, and my guests to do the same. I love the Poster invitation. It evokes all of those feelings! Good luck everyone!!!
YES, we've found it! Having a super traditional big-church, big-veil wedding ceremony followed by a fresh and fun hippy-esque fete has made finding invitations that have a cohesive quality a bit of a nightmare. But wait! The garland suite has everything going for it that my finace and I have been trying to share about ourselves and our big day. A bit traditional, a bit quirky, a whole lot of sweetness, these invites express just what we plan to celebrate about love!
We're getting married this December in Los Angeles. Our story is simple: we want to celebrate our union, our friends and family and the holiday season in an elegant and truly festive way. We love Christmas, we love each other, we love our people - and we're excited to throw this party in honor of it all. We want everyone to see our invites and think two things: 1) This is a party worth dressing-up for, and 2) I can't wait to go to this wedding! I think the formality of elum's Empress design is exactly what we're looking for - in fact - IT IS exactly what I want and would order in a heartbeat if not for the cost. We'd be overjoyed to be able to send these spectacular invites out to our guests!
"Rococo" completely embodies what I envision my wedding to be. Stylish, classic, but with a soft elegance. It is fun, but not tiring. Beautiful, but not forced. Structured, but not stiff. And both the Rococo suite and the wedding itself both mirror the relationship that we have been blessed with. From the day we met, we have had an easiness with each other. An exuberant calmness; as though this day were always going to have happened...as though it were waiting on us. And though we have faced obstacles and are bound to face more, we are fortunate to have come through them better for it.
Go Elum "Fields"!!: Welcome to our Love Party w/ NorCal Style. We're so glad you're here. Now ... sit down, grab a bevy, and relax ... but don't forget to shake your silly when the music starts.
My fiance and I are getting married in Chicago June, 2010. Originally we wanted a country garden feel, but ended up picking a venue completely the opposite! We still want to convey a relaxed, romantic theme, but now it has a touch more elegance then originally planned. We would like our invitations to set the mood for our guests and tell them to expect a beautiful, elegant, but not too fussy wedding. The Garden Aviary design fits what we're looking for perfectly. It is romantic, garden-y, and yet completely elegant and classic. Being able to send out these beauties instead of the DIY alternatives would be an unexpected and wonderful treat.
I want my phone to ring with a close friend or family member joyfully shrieking about how beautiful my invitations are and how much they remind them of my Fiance and I. We have always had a very specific taste in everything which has had to do with our wedding. When we both saw the Neapolitan Collection we immediately fell in love and knew this really is a collection which just screams our names. Our wedding will be held on a very small island and this invitation just seems so calming and there is not too much going on in terms of design elements. It's very simple without being boring. Absolutely beautiful.
My fiance and I have been in a long distance relationship for quite awhile before he asked me to marry him. Because of wanting to keep with tradition, we decided to have our wedding in my hometown city of Winnipeg, in Canada, instead of having it where he lives, in Portland. However, we wanted our wedding to be what we both are -- two different yet unique individuals who are combining lives. We know that us together would cause 'Headlines', and when we saw the invitation set that had the same name, we knew it would be perfect for us. :)
My fiance and I like the Lucidiy. Our wedding will be outdoors and hopefully a reflection of the long path that we have been on as a couple. When we get married, we will be nearing our 12 year anniversary of dating (since the 8th grade!). I'm hoping everything will flow smoothly, just like the lucidity invitation pictures!
I would describe our vision for our wedding as classical elegance. Our love is one that began at first sight, and our entire journey together has been simply breathtaking. Our wedding ceremony and reception will take place in a rustic, romantic, whimsical setting, and we feel that the "Neapolitan" suite perfectly captures our story and vision for our magical day! Thank you, Elum, for such a wonderful opportunity!
This is a shameless plug for my beautiful bride. It is her birthday tomorrow and every night this week she has been stressing about our invitations. This has been a difficult year and the pressure of this decision seems to be weighing on her. She is such a creative person and can't seem to find anything that speaks to her the way letterpress does. I know she adores the Rococo design by Elum because she has emailed it to me over and over again. With the economy and salary freezes there is just no way I can give her this one gift. I would be so appreciative if you could give my fiance this prize. Our wedding is a nod to our life here in California and the history and heritage of the Mexican culture and the Spanish influences. This invitation captures everything about our wedding on paper and it speaks to her in a way nothing else has. Please consider her for this and I will be blessed with giving her the best birthday present she could ever ask for!
Having read through some of the entries here, I don't envy the choice you will have to make in selecting a winner for this fabulous giveaway. Thank you for the opportunity. Now, for our story (I promise I tried to keep this to just a few sentences!).
We want our invitations to reflect a feeling of timeless elegance, and reflect the lifetime we are about to start together. We are writing our own vows, taken from poems we each connected with, and are getting married in my hometown, with our ceremony set on the water and the reception inside at a small inn. I am wearing my grandmother’s wedding dress from the 40s, representing my grandparents 65+ year (and still going strong) marriage and carrying my other grandmother’s prayer book. Our tables will be named after philosophers and authors and movies and each table has a framed quote about love and marriage (everything from Plato, Abigail Adams, John Lennon, and When Harry Met Sally).
I have struggled with trying to find the perfect invitation that fits within our budget and tells our story…and let’s just say I have been doing that for more than nine months now and many, many, many websites and samples later, we still haven’t found it. I love the Salon invitation. It is what I think a wedding invite should be! I can just see it setting everyone up for our wedding. The simplicity of the invitation in a letterpress format speaks to the modern, yet classic, feeling we are looking for. In fact, the page featuring the design from the winter issue of In Style Weddings is the first page in the stationary section of my wedding binder!
It’s exactly what I’d love to have but just can’t afford and the timing on this is perfect because I have given myself a deadline of next week to figure it out! Good luck in making your choice!
I adore Elum invitations! What a great opportunity!! :) I absolutely love the chocolate truffle suite.
My soon-to-be husband and I will be married in northern California wine country - Sonoma, CA. We share a passion for wine in which we developed together. We believe our memories and experiences have made our love for wine something that defines us a little bit now. It is a commonality shared with no one else in our circle of friends and family. For this reason, when we got engaged, a winery wedding was definitely a given! Although winery weddings innately take on a vintage/rustic theme, we wanted to be different....a non-traditional and non-cookie-cutter wedding for a non-traditional, multi-cultural couple! Our theme and decor for the big day will be modern, clean/crisp, and stylish infusion. With an all white-inspired feel, our wedding day will communicate explicitly our tastes and personality to 75 of the closest people in our lives.
We feel Elum's style will fit seamlessly in the overall vision for the big day!
My goodness! My Fiance and I fancy ourselves hip and artsy and The Garland Suite really speaks to us. We are having a high-desert weekend escape wedding and the Garland Suite effortlessly says everything about us and our special day. The beautiful pattern and bright beautiful colors on beautiful paper really tells the story of our relationship and love. I hadn't imagined that announcements or menus could tell a story beyond who was getting married or what was being served. But with these cards it's more like a song being sung announcing our engagement and a poem about our dining. Truly beautiful.
Well, you probably don’t have many men posting on this site, but my fiancée was so excited about this giveaway, I wanted to do what I could to help her get her perfect invitation suite because this has been such a source of stress for her. I tell her we are a bit of an unconventional couple, being that I am 20 years older than she is, and, as soon as she showed me the invitation site, I was immediately drawn to the Salon invitation as representative of us. I love that we can look at that invitation set one hundred years from now and it will still look as perfect and classic as it does today. It would be the perfect way to invite people to be with us as we start our new life together.
The look of our wedding is "Happy Chic" in a garden. I have been searching for invitations to capture this feel and was thrilled when I saw your Jubilee-Round collection. The combination of bright dots and classic lines is fabulous! I would be thrilled and honored to win this giveaway and believe these invites would give our guests the perfect glimpse of our wedding.
The 'Lucidity' collection is absolutely stunning, and will be a perfect complement to our wedding. We want our wedding to be different- memorable, stylish, and most of all... fun! We want to incorporate a touch of modern to our beachside, mediterranean-style wedding. These invitations set the tone with the beautiful curves in the background, with the modern font in the foreground. Thank you for the opportunity to swoon over these fabulous invitations!
Looking at all of the beautiful invitations it was difficult to decide which I liked best, but for our wedding we are planning a simple event with lots of memorable details so the flower top cake suite would be the icing on the cake to top off our vision. My fiance and I just want to form lasting and moments with all of our friends and family and share our special day (it is about them too). These invitations are simple and sweet which I know our day will be. Thank you so much for considering us!
Yay for me, fate has brought this competition to my attention so close to the cut-off date, its crazy!
It makes me so incredibly happy to be marrying Nathan. Its about time I guess, we did have big crushes on each other when we were 9 in Primary School!
We are so conscious of remembering that this is a wedding between a man and a woman, not a window display of ribbons, bows, bundles of expensive blooms, and pink is certainly not his favourite colour. We haven't picked a theme but have naturally been drawn towards understated elegence and having fun. We want our guests to feel relaxed.
We love the Ampersand stationary. It is young and modern with a traditional letterpress twist- until now, I didn't even realise that this was possible! The invitation makes me think of going barefeet in fountains for wedding photos, bobbing along on a carosel with my veil trailing behind, stopping for hot chocolate on the way to the Church and dancing all night long. I think it will perfectly suit our city wedding, overlooking the water.
The Garden Aviary line could not be more perfect for our fall wedding at a Nature Center! We are going to be wed outside beneath glowing lanterns, surrounded by woods. To get to our reception site, our guests will get to walk next to a lake to arrive at an exhibit hall. Inside our exhibit hall will be a stuffed buffalo, a leaping deer and many types of birds "flying" overhead. While all of these unique animal guests were provided with the venue, I love the feel of this fall nature setting.
Jitesh and I were best friends in high school who suddenly found ourselves in love. Soon into our relationship, we realized that because of our different backgrounds (he is Indian, and I am Chinese), our parents would never approve and therefore a future together would be filled with many challenges. We decided to do what was "right" for us and our families, and parted ways. But no matter how hard we tried, how many years went by, how many other relationships we had, and how many countries I moved to to get away from him (no joke!), after 9 years we realized that there was something undeniable between us and that we owed ourselves an honest try. 3 years later we are engaged! The true icing on the cake is that our parents could not be happier for us, and they are excited to be joining families and cultures.
Our wedding is going to be a huge 2 day, 400+ guest cultural extravaganza! We are trying to incorporate as many of the Chinese and Indian cultural elements into the wedding as we can. The Rococo invitation suite is exactly the kind of look that we would like to have for our invitations, and overall for our wedding. The rich, lavish opulence that the invitations exude fits right in with the cultural elements of our wedding - the beautiful saree and Chinese dress that I will be wearing, the henna patterns I will have on my hands, not to mention all of the gorgeous textures, patterns and colours that our guests will be wearing!
We've decided on a formal but fun feel for the wedding, so the invites should be the same :) That said, our wedding's in December, so it'll need to lean more towards the formal side (maybe little more "arty" and "formal-ish"). Of the styles in this line, I would pick the "Rococo" (but in metalics), or the "Empress" (as shown). (Bear with my style choices, I'm the groom:))
My fiance Ryan and I started dating four years ago while we were in college; for the last two years, he has been 2,679 miles away for law school. The perfect invitation for our special day would be "Happy Couple".
We know that someday our problems will be bigger than choosing what flavor of cake to have at our reception, but whatever comes, we will face it together. The message that this invitation suite sends to our friends and family is that even when life isn't sugar coated, our love for eachother will make our life sweet.
my fiance and i are getting married in october with a limited budget. we want to really emphasize that the wedding will be a celebration of our union and a great party thanking all the friends and family that have molded us into the couple we are today. the simplicity line would be ideal as we are stripping down much of the extravagance that goes into weddings and back to the simple message of our lives coming together in the presence of our loved ones.
My fiance and I are having 3 or 4 receptions to celebrate our wedding. I grew up in Arkansas, his family lives in South Dakota, we live in Los Angeles and will be married in Palm Springs. We're putting together a series of "On Tour" posters as invitations to the various cocktail parties in Little Rock, L.A. and Wakanda. The "Poster" style formal invitation would be perfect for our stylish but intimate rock 'n' roll Palm Springs wedding. LOVE IT!!
Carl and I are having our wedding at a beautiful site "the mansion". It's actually not the place I dreamed about having my ceremony but due to budget constraints we had to make it work. The setting will be beautiful because it will consist of our closest friends and our one year old daughter Rowen. The focus will be on one another and our loved ones, I think the "Gilded Frame" invites demonstrate that feeling with the interwoven pattern symbolizing unity among two families. It's a beautiful invite to accompany a beautiful day!! Yeah for budget constraints!!!
We have this weird obsession with county fairs, festivals and parades. There is something about the lights, the sounds and of course, the food that make these perfect for dates and a great place to gather with friends. I was raised in a family very involved in community events and so I grew up around the county fair. Dave and I plan our weekends and vacations around fairs around the country. I think the "Poster" line really exemplifies our LOVE of festivals and fairs and we hope to have that same magical theme set the mood for our wedding.
Andrew and I fell in love in Paris on Spring Break. It was the first time we could put school aside and just enjoy each other's company. Our wedding will try to bring out the relaxation, romance, and elegance of the city of love. Our library reception ought be ushered in by these Empress invites in Chocolate and Red, as it compliments our historic love.
Fingers crossed!
My fiance and I are getting married in December the weekend before Christmas and are having a simple winter wedding, complete with shades of brown, ivory, and deep red. We are getting married in my fiance's little country church where his father is the minister and his father is marrying us. The Chocolate Truffle invite suite is perfect for our simple and more casual wedding- it would be perfect in varying shades of brown and a deep red accent color. I love the scalloped carrier- it's elegant but still fun!
Ryan and I buck tradition. Our 'party' is a summer outdoor affair with a BBQ inspired menu. We really want it to be a fun and casual celebration where the guests really get a feel for our personality and love for each other. I think the Poster suite suits us perfectly- fun, bold, and unique!
I like to think of our story as both classic and contemporary. My fiancé, Dave, and I were both raised with rich ethnic and cultural histories. Dave is Jewish. I am half Arabic with both Muslim and Antioch Orthodox grandparents, but was raised Catholic. Despite these traditions, we do not consider ourselves traditional and would NEVER want a wedding or a wedding invitation to suggest that. Instead we have designed a ceremony and a reception that we consider both classic and contemporary- classic in that we will pay respect to rituals from each of our backgrounds, we’ll be married under a chuppah and by a Humanistic Rabbi, but plan to have Arabic poetry read during the ceremony along with the Ava Maria sung. Yet, our celebration will be contemporary in that it blends our traditions. We also want small details that incorporate our own modern style, like cupcakes rather than a cake and a first dance to a Led Zeppelin song. We think the Lucidity invitation suite would be the perfect detail to showcase our contemporary style and invite our guests to a warm, nontraditional celebration. The invitation has a modern look, but isn’t overly trendy. It really is the perfect contemporary twist to add to our day! Thanks for considering us!
The Garden Aviary line just looks like our wedding! We are having a small reception in my parents back yard. The house is over two hundred years old, and is perfect for our homey, intimate party. My sisters and I are cooking all of the food ourselves, and it will be served family style on each table. We are going for a casual garden party look. The ceremony is going to be even smaller, with only our officiant, our two witness our son and ourselves. The ceremony is taking place in the observatory deck of a historic water tower that over looks the city we live in. The over all feeling is classy, but relaxed.
Christian and I are going to be getting married this fall. I want our invitations to express our deep love and respect for each other. Through the serious personal challenges we have journeyed through that have lead us to each other, these invitations will symbolize our commitment. I would choose the Chocolate Truffle Suite, because not only are we both addicted to chocolate, but anything chocolate means a great time. Our wedding will be a party!
We would choose Empress. It matches our story perfectly. Our goal of our wedding is to be vintage glam and not feel like a wedding but more of a big celebration. We want to convey energy, glamor and fun in our invitations, which is really the underlying themes in our wedding.
My fiancé, Bryan, and I want to host a wedding where our guests, above all, can relax, celebrate with us and leave feeling like they can't wait to tell everyone about the fun wedding they went to that weekend. We want our invitations to reflect this and to show our guests that they are in for more than the usual stiff functions that we’ve all been to so many times. We picture having large jars of homemade lemonade and iced tea, bottled sodas from the “soda shack” in my hometown, favors of homemade jam, vintage tablecloths in patterns of blues, reds and maybe deep oranges adorning long tables, beautiful flowers in simple arrangements and a clamboil or hearty picnic/barbecue fare ending with a campfire and roasted marshmallows, all on a beautiful farm in late summer.
I think the Fields suite, perhaps in Midnight Blue and Water to reflect the farm's coastal setting, would be perfect to communicate the tone and style of our wedding. It feels both modern and classic with a nature-inspired elegance. I especially love how the reception card and the response card vary from the invitation in such a complementary manner and offer a bit of whimsy. What a gorgeous set of invitations Elum has to offer. Thank you for this opportunity!
We are going to have a elegant wedding and a lavish reception for our friends and our inspiration is the Old World since we are both of European (French and Spanish) background. We want our invitations to convey our commitment to each other and the love we have for our friends and family. The invitations should also reflect our excitement about getting married at last (I'm pushing 40!). The invitations will be a keepsake to pass on to the next generation. Although all of the styles are gorgeous, we would choose Salon. My soon-to-be husband likes Salon's clean and simple lines and I like its timeless appeal and its elegance.
A well matched pair, modern yet traditional - that is Ampersand by Elum, and also Kyle and Karen. We are looking forward to a wonderful end of summer weekend wedding in our adopted hometown of Washington DC (as traditional as it gets!) - but at the new W hotel- both modern and fun. Kyle loves letterpress stationary, and I love the splash of color and the modern look of our names together. A special day is made of many details- and we want our personality and our love for each other to come through clearly to our family and friends.
Fall is both my fiance and my favorite season and also was the season when we first began dating, making a fall wedding an easy choice. However the thought of creating our union in late afternoon when the world was preparing for winter hibernation left me with hesitation on the symbolism we are imparting to our guests. The Butterfly Drift suite done in vibrant fall colors will help to convey the actual message we want to impart to our guests. A message that is a celebration of those attending our wedding as much as our union. In attendance will be close family and friends, those who have watched us grow and change throughout the years and helped us to prepare for our lives as individuals and now as partners. We believe this message of change and thanks and joy will be vividly symbolized with the butterflies, as change happens dramatically in their complicated lifecycle. The number of butterflies drifting on the cards represents not us but our guests preparing us for our lives together.
My fiancé and I LOVE the 'Headline' invitations! We are both bold, outgoing, and modern individuals and thus the Headline design matches our personality AND taste! We are both stationary fanatics, and have gone so far as to take an introductory letterpress class together! I have been a huge fan of elum's designs, attention to detail and exceptional quality for quite some time. We will be getting married in a gorgeous loft space in Los Angeles that is totally us - modern, but a little bit quirky. We were struggling for so long trying to find a venue that was "us" in the San Francisco area (where we live), but could not find anything. When we stumbled upon the indoor/outdoor loft space in LA everything came together. The space fit us perfectly and the Headline invitation suite fits us perfectly too! We would love to complete our design vision with these gorgeous invitations.
The Salon invitation suite simply takes my breath away! To me, the suite resembles our courtship and personality, as well as the theme of our wedding. Both on work assignment and thirty-ish , for 6 months we got to know each other overseas in the middle of the desert . The Salon paper reminded me our environment…at the time, I felt like a diamond sitting in the middle of nothingness. Since then, I've learned he's partial to detail and elegance. I'm inspired by a pure, classic but chic look. It is our hope that we capture both of our personalities this September in our wedding. Like the Salon suite, we were very careful in choosing a ceremony and reception cite with soft ambiance, which requires very little accentuation because the environment speaks for itself as is. When our family and friends attend our wedding, I hope they say what we say about this invitation… Simply exquisite!
Steve and I are getting married in the Atrium of the Curtis Building, home of the Curtis Publishing Company, which published the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, among other things. The atrium has a modern feel, with marble floors and columns, but the building has such history. Our wedding is going to be modern with a vintage twist, just like the reception site. The Salon invitations have the feel of being something classic, perhaps like a vintage magazine? THe clean lines of the invitations would fit perfectly with our wedding.
If the theme of my wedding could be expressed in a picture, the "Empress" suite would be it - enchanting! After much (I mean, much!) deliberation, my husband-to-be and I decided on New Orleans for our wedding destination this coming November. With the invitations, I want to show the historical presence of the French Quarter and the antique remodeled bank building we are getting married in, along with a feeling of the resilient spirit that is New Orleans!
We want our invitation suite to say, "Please come to our wedding. It will be intimate and lovely and will not be the same without you there." Our ceremony will be held in a garden and our reception in my parent's backyard, both overlooking the lake on which I grew up. We think the Neapolitan Suite perfectly compliments the simply and naturally beautiful elements which will provide the backdop for our special day.
I want our wedding invitations to set the stage for what I know will be a great day for my fiance and I, but also a terrific party. I want our guests to anticipate December 19th as much as we are and I really hope our guests feel the love in every detail -from tip to tail. I want to be there when each guest gets their invite in the mail -just to see their reaction.
I think Salon invitations would be a lovely way to set this stage for the jaw drops I'm hoping for. Please pick me!
We’re getting married on my finance’s family ranch. On top of a hill – so that when we look out we’ll see the beautiful sweeping hills of Santa Maria, and our dearest friends and family. This place is so special to his family and it’s the first thing they shared with mine, it’s magic is evident even in a single visit and I know our guests will enjoy their weekend. Those two things – the natural beauty of the land and our family are our inspirations. From the invitations forward, we want everyone to feel embraced and taken care of. The Lucidity suite is so perfect. It’s simple and contemporary, but natural and stunning. I would be elated to send out those invitations. Thank you for the opportunity!
My grandfather loved my fiancé, Stephen, and I truly do mean absolute adoration. Unfortunately, he passed away a few months before we were engaged. My grandparents’ house has always been filled with eclectic and beautiful patterns of lace that always have evoked strong memories of family and love. My fiancé and I decided that our wedding is to be anchored in the love we share with our family and friends, filled with black and white patterns that are representative and significant to our lives. When I saw the Rococo invitations I was blown away by how much it reminded me of my grandparents and the love my grandfather showered upon my relationship with Stephen. I hope that these invitations not only remind our guests of beauty found in everyday places such as my grandparents' home, but remind them of loved ones both present and past that will be surrounding us on the day of our wedding. I hope that these invitations remind them that our wedding is more than flowers, frills and candles, but rather about something much deeper, unconditional love.
My fiance and I met--and now make our life--in Washington DC. Washington DC is known for its beautiful cherry blossom trees and my first thoughts in planning our wedding were to have the reception in one of the many DC art museums with cherry blossom centerpieces. Unfortunately, our bank account had other ideas and instead we are holding the wedding at a beautiful location in Charlotte where my fiance's parents live. The cherry blossom suite would be perfect for us. It would allow us to bring a little bit of Washington DC--our life and our story--to Charlotte.
Rob & I will be married this fall in a beautiful garden near Minneapolis. We want our invitations to set the tone for the warm, organic, friendly feel that we're striving for throughout our wedding day. We both fell for the Fields line immediately. The save the date card is *the best*. Good luck to all!
How do you prepare guests for the most fun wedding ever—with a magician and sword swallower performing while the band takes a break, improvisational comics joking with our guests during cocktail hour, and a rehearsal dinner at a bowling alley? First impressions are key, and we think Elum’s Poster invitation will set the tone for fun with its boisterous and hip style. When our friends and family open the Poster invitation, they may not realize all the surprises we have in store, but they will immediately pick up that we’re not having an ordinary wedding. Poster is an invitation that not only reflects our personalities and styles, but it will also set the stage for an awesome wedding and passionate marriage! We’ll frame it for display on our mantel for years to come!
I was never that girl. The one who dreamt about their wedding day and had the perfect ceremony meticulously planned out long before the day of the nuptials. I was the other girl, the untraditional one who found something romantic about getting married, on a secret day, with nothing but a dress and a soul mate.
Then I got engaged. And suddenly, the thought of excluding our family and closest friends seemed…wrong.
After six years of dating, we not only united as a couple but we managed to merge our friends and families as well. Through good times and bad, they were always there for us, always rooting for us to make it.
So we decided, together, to plan a day that we’d be completely happy with.
We’ve reserved a beautiful outdoor venue; planned a traditional outdoor ceremony, on a Sunday morning; arranged for a picnic-style reception with games like croquet, bean toss and bocce; and eliminated things like disc jockeys, first dances, bouquet tosses and formal attire.
That’s the story I want our invitations to tell. I want our guest to know they are attending our low-key, fun, celebration with only me, my soul mate and a hundred of our cherished loved ones.
The invitation: Fields.
Shh, my fiance doesn't know I'm entering! I give her Elum letterpress cards etc as gifts because she loves them so much - it would be the best surprise to win this! Our wedding is taking place in the middle of Winter and I don't know about our wedding 'story' but we are concentrating on simple details - nice location by the water, bench seats, hot chocolate at the ceremony, paper flowers with a modern jazz cocktail reception at my parent's house. The Lucidity suite really suits our style and our wedding; it is organic enough for our natural location, but modern and classic all at the same time. The different patterns suits the different parts of our wedding too - the natural lines for the ceremony and the more modern pattern for the reception etc. It's too good not to enter!
Extra! Extra! Read all about it…
Caryn and Frank Win Elum Contest!
Head•line (hed lin) n- line or lines in large type at the top of a news story; adj-worthy of a headline; important.
Why should we win ELUM “Headline” invitations? They’re the perfect format for breaking news, wedding news, that is! Headline invitations are simple, elegant, modern, and fun – all the adjectives that describe our wedding day plans. Elum invitations deliver the wedding scoop with style and pizzaz, two things that brides and grooms the world over desire on their special, newsworthy day. So stop the presses, and pick us as your winners!
Caryn & Frank
"Woah. It's different, but it fits and I like it!" That's the reaction we want our guests to have when they first open the invitation. We've chosen red and aqua as our colors - not your traditional choice for a Chinese wedding and probably a shock to some of the older generation. The invitation will introduce our color scheme to our guests and incorporates the lucky red color along with a more modern blue. Since the invitation is the first thing guests see, we'd like it to be classy, clean and a bold statement. The Beach Blanket suite by Elum invitations is exactly what we're looking for - clean lines, bold strips of color, a modern touch and not too formal. It would be absolutely fantastic if we were chosen as the winners, so *fingers crossed*!
Thanks!
My relationship with my fiance has been one full of planes, trains, and automobiles. He is an officer in the Army in Hawaii and I am a teacher in the peachy state of Georgia. We've withstood a deployment and several moves here, there, and everywhere. Although we love to travel, we are thrilled to start a life of jetsetting together. Derick and I will have a bright, super modern, FUN wedding in Puerto Rico. Our two-year long distance relationship will culminate in a sleek ceremony with a touch of whimsy. While we love the subtle elegance of the Lucidity Suite, the Jubilee Round expresses a joy that could help set the tone for a celebratory wedding weekend. All of the ELUM designs are so beautiful it's impossible to make a bad choice. I am so grateful for the opportunity to enter this contest. These invitations would be a great beginning to a beautiful forever.
We want our invitation suite to say, "Please come to our wedding. It will be intimate and lovely and will not be the same without you there." We will hold our ceremony in a garden and our reception on my parent's lawn - both overlooking the lake on which I grew up. We think the Neapolitan invitations will compliment the naturally and simply beautiful elements which will provide the backdrop for our special day.
Our wedding day will be filled with family and friends from both the east and west coasts, joining together for an lovely celebration filled with warmth and laughter. We will be celebrating on Treasure Island, with stunning views of the San Francisco skyline. The Neapolitian suite would be perfect, as it is both classic and whimsical. And I heart the ring and tie closure - the love is in the details!
Mark and I want to share our love of nature and connect our guests to the source. Our location is isolated and beautiful, high atop the Santa Monica Mountains, looking out over the ocean. The silhouetted botanicals of the Fields Suite captures that serenity, the feeling of the sun's warmth creating shadow and transparency. Evocative of our childhood and our future. The natural textures, the design aesthetic -- could not make my heart happier or better capture our vision.
I never wanted to get married until I met my fiance. Now I can't imagine not be married to him. We changed each other's lives in such positive ways and we want our wedding to reflect that - the transformative power of relationships. We think the "ampersand" suite is clean, classic and beautiful. We're getting hitched in Miami and it would be lovely to win because the suite has a light and airy feel that fits perfectly with our location.
I consider myself to be the luckiest girl in the world to have found my PJ. He's so perfect for me it baffles me still. Our wedding will be the happiest day of our lives, high in hill country of Austin, TX surrounded by the people who mean so much to us and who brought us together. The Poster Suite is so perfect for me and my musician fiance, what an awesome way to invite everyone we know to the live music capital of the world! Thank you for this giveaway!
My fiance and I will have our wedding in October. We’re excited to have a wedding in the fall. Even though Texas is still relatively warm in October, there’s a feeling of change in the air. Pumpkins are set out at roadside stands, leaves slowly begin to change, and there’s excitement about cooler weather. We plan to take full advantage of the beauty that will surround us. The church is simple, two wreaths made of berries will hang on each door. No other decoration is needed. At our reception, instead of flowers, we’ll use pumpkins and acorns, leaves and lanterns to create a warm and cozy feeling. Our day will be simple and beautiful, hopefully focusing attention on the ceremony that will join two in marriage. The invitation that would best suit our goal at our wedding is “Simplicity.”
My fiance and I are both from Indiana, but college and grad school took us to opposite coasts (him to Seattle, me to Boston). We have been long distance for the past four years, with me spending my summers in Seattle and heading back east each September. I just graduated, and will be moving to (finally!) join John in Seattle in two weeks. We will be getting married next May in Indiana, meeting in the middle of the two places where our relationship has grown. Our venue is an old warehouse building in downtown Indianapolis, complete with the original wood floors and loads of beautiful exposed brick. Our goal is to bring natural, organic elements into the industrial space, creating a beautiful synthesis of the city life John and I love so much with our more country roots. The "fields" suite is perfect for our day, as it combines sleek, clean modern design with more organic flower/stem motifs. Elum, you do beautiful work, and Abby, thanks for continuing to provide beautiful inspiration for all of us!
Our wedding will be on Sunday, October 10, 2010 (yes, 10/10/10) in Washington DC. Both my fiance and I are from the south, but lead very hectic and demanding lives with work and graduate school here in DC, so a wedding in Louisiana (my home) or Florida (his home) was out of the question. However, we still want our wedding to exemplify southern elegance and charm. However, DC weddings are much more expensive than weddings down south, so we were forced to cut as many corners as possible to ensure we could still have a nice event that is reflective of our classic, traditional style. To cut costs, we decided on a Sunday morning ceremony followed by a wedding brunch reception. However, as I told my wedding planner, we definitely cannot compromise on our stationery because "I can't STAND the look or feel of cheap paper!" Also, we want the invitation to set the tone for an elegant affair, even though it will not be the typical formal, evening event. The Elum "Rococo" invitation design in buttercream with sunshine ink would be the perfect way to introduce our guests to what we hope will be a beautiful wedding morning, and a beautiful start to our new life together. Elum certainly sets the gold standard for invitation design, and I would be honored to use them.
After only 4 months of dating, my fiance and I pretty much knew we would get married someday. In our classic laid back style though, we waited a while to announce it to everyone else! Now, a year and a half later we've made it official, and we're getting married May 8th, 2010! We chose to get married in early May because we love the outdoors, and wanted to be close to the water without being too chilly. I love the idea of a garden wedding ceremony, and want our guests to receive their invitations and get a sense of the casually elegant garden event we have envisioned that so matches our personalities. Because the reception will be indoors we don't want the invitations to have an overwhelming garden theme but enough of a hint, with the classic lines that a sunset reception also inspires. We think the "Fields" suite perfectly embodies this mood (in our colors of bright blue and pale yellow, for spring!) and we would be incredibly excited to announce this happy day to our friends and family with these beautiful invitations!
Our wedding will take place at one of San Francisco's historic grand hotels; The CLIFT is now a fusion of old-world hotel elegance with distinctly contemporary energy and glamour. The Rococo Suite, which is inspired by the Hollywood Regency design, perfectly represents the old 1940s Hollywood glam of our black tie preferred wedding style.
Nik and I will be getting married in January 2010 in New Zealand. We want our wedding to reflect a sense of old-world charm and elegance and the 'Guilded Frame' suite captures this fully. These gorgeous invitations provide an illustrative dimension to our imaginations!
We love letterpress printing and the chance to win an Elum suite could not have occurred at a better time for us.
My fiance and I quite literally just decided on a date! Even though we have been dating for 7 years, and have been engaged for 2- we are very laid back! Despite taking our time with it, we both agree that we want our wedding to reflect our relationship. This is why "simplicity" would be the perfect suite! On our wedding day, we want it to be about us, and nothing else!
Romance! We want our invitations to convey the romance of our wedding date, location, and style. Our wedding is in February (near Valentine's Day and our 6-year dating anniversary). The reception will be held at a historic garden in Florida. Guests will be able to enjoy the gardens and the lake from the rocking chairs on the enormous porch where the bar will be set up.
Garden Aviary is so PERFECT for us! The flowers, birds, and wicker-like weave pattern just fits our venue and style perfectly!
Cody and I will be having our wedding at the Farm at South Mountain in Phoenix, Arizona. It's an institution in Arizona and is still a working pecan farm. The enormous trees create so much atmosphere and the garden areas make what is usually an arid desert seem lush and full of life! We both grew up here, went to the same high school (some how we never knew each other), and lived just a block away from one another as kids (in fact our parents' backyards touch). It took me moving to Tucson for us to finally meet.
This year I will be moving to North Carolina to go to school and he will be staying here with the house we just bought. It will be hard being away, so with our wedding we want to celebrate our home of Arizona. We'll serve traditional southwestern food, encourage our out of town guests to soak up the sun (and 70 degree weather in March) while they visit and introduce them to one of Arizona's hidden gems in The Farm.
As for the invitations, Salon would be the perfect compliment to our simple garden wedding in the sun.
Congratulations to each couple!
My fiancé and I have been friends since childhood. Despite the urging of most of our friends—and even our families—we refused to date each other, but remained good friends through most of college (even though we went to school in separate states). We began dating after college, and he joined the military. In the past two-and-a-half years, our relationship has taken us from the distance of living in separate states, to life in the same community, and now once again to a very long distance due to a deployment to Afghanistan.
We plan to marry when he returns, a date that has been in the making for many years. As so many of our friends and family have been influential in our lives and our relationship, and are still seeing us through this challenge of 8,000 miles apart, we hope to give our guests—a relatively small group of friends and family—a wedding that conveys our thankfulness for all they’ve meant along the way. However, sometimes I think our guests are more excited than we are about our own wedding, mostly because it gives them the chance to point and say “I told you so”. The “Ampersand” design would fit wonderfully with our wedding vision. Not only is it elegantly modern yet classic and stunning in its design, which sets the stage for a great event. But its simplicity and emphasis on our names and the date of our special day says everything the guests who know us best (and made sure they knew we’d make a great match so long ago!) have been waiting to see for a very long time! Please pick me!
Jake and I are high school sweethearts that have been together for almost 7 years. We have decided to have our wedding ceremony and reception in my parent's backyard in Rockwall, TX. It is a natural setting with lots of trees and a pond. Jake and I grew up together, spending most of our time during the beginning of our relationship in our backyard. The bridge going across the pond is the very spot he first told me he loved me.
The invitations we are looking for would capture the natural, fairy-tale of our story and the setting of the backyard ceremony and wedding. The Garden Aviary is perfect as its whimsical design will perfectly reflect both the natural theme of the wedding and the playful symbolism of childhood sweethearts.
Our wedding is planned for September 18, 2010 at a historic house in Leesburg, VA. Our ceremony is outdoors in a brick courtyard behind the house with the reception in a permanent tent right next to it. I wanted to do something very earthy and natural because I love being outdoors. My fiancee and I met on match.com and even though we dated for a few months and he wasn't ready to commit, he realized a month later that he couldn't be without me! That was two years ago. We already have a lot in common, but together we grew to love and appreciate wine. We have a bunch of fantastic wineries in VA and we have taken many trips to do wine tastings. Our wedding will be a winery type theme because of this. I have already collected a bunch of corks from each winery that we have visited to put into a centerpiece for each table. Our favors will also reflect my love for cooking and for providing a favor that people can take home and do something with--mulling spices for wine. I think the 'fields' or 'jubilee' invitations would capture the classy and modern aspects of our wedding, while also keeping in the natural, outdoor setting. My invitations will definitely say 'join us for celebration and merriment' rather than 'reception to follow'. We are all about dancing and celebrating!
James and I are high school sweethearts, and got engaged just after our 7 year anniversary. We'll be getting married August 2010, and we haven't chosen a venue yet because we're looking for the perfect place. We want our wedding to reflect our personalities and style - something that is very clean and well put together, yet still gives off a fun party atmosphere. We want everyone to a) have the time of their lives, and b) leave the wedding thinking how beautiful everything looked.
The Clean Lines invitation would give guests the perfect first impression of what our wedding will be, while still leaving enough room for lots of (fun) surprises!
We are going to get married on the beach in Florida. It will be a large wedding as we have many family members and friends, but we want it to feel laid back and relaxed-- just fun, low stress. The watermark suite would be perfect! Clean, elegant and beautiful.
Thanks so much!!