From Marilyn…

The story of our Save the Dates is quite simple. I love baking (especially cupcakes) and my fiance is a pastry chef at Nobu. We’re definitely foodie people and what better way of personalizing that than designing a fun std that represents us. After designing countless ideas, my fiance, Moony, casually mentioned a “nutritional facts” idea but with our wedding info instead and our idea was born. Cupcakes + Bride & Groom + Wedding Facts! Perfect. What a way to start off as a team, no?

Check out Marilyns ADORABLE site right here!

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Post tags: Save The Dates
Post categories: Wedding Invitations & Stationery

Here’s how she did it!

I’d previously seen handkerchiefs and other bits of fabric printed on and really liked the idea of texture. I also wanted to create a keepsake. I ended up scouring ebay for about a month, collecting vintage handkerchiefs. In the meantime, I created a vintage-y layout using our silhouetted profiles. Once I collected enough handkerchiefs (and washed and ironed them, too!), I used the Yudu (which is apparently trying to be the next gocco) to hand screen the 165 handkerchiefs.

Once they were dry and ironed, I tied them to some cardstock I had custom printed on one side with a pair of lovebirds and on the other side with a little heart pattern I created for our wedding suite. The single men received a white handkerchief on the patterned background, while couples and women received patterned handkerchiefs on the lovebird side facing up. I hand-lined some kraft envelopes using paper from a scrapbooking tablet. I created a custom label that tied into the whole design and finally sent them all out.

How great are they? Thanks so much, Rachel, for sharing these with us! LOVE. I am now dying to buy a Yudu and yudu myself silly. WAY too many ideas and projects swimming through my head!

Rachel is a designer by trade and we are keeping her fingers crossed that she will start selling these babies! Her fabulous website that is filled to the brim with goodies can be found right here and her equally awesome blog is right here!

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Post tags: Hankerchief, Save The Dates, Yudu
Post categories: DIY Projects

And the winner is…Melissa! Who said:

John and I are having a September wedding in Northern Virginia when the weather is still warm, but the eaves begin to pick up their autumn hues. Using this transitional time as inspiration, I am envisioning rich chocolate and raspberry colors, accented with citrusy orange and green throughout our wedding. Peculiar Pair Press expresses a modern romanticism in their designs that I could design my whole wedding around. Please pick me!

Congratulations Melissa! We’ll be in touch soon! And for the rest of you…check out the Peculiar Pair Press Blog for fun inspiration. And, stay tuned for the most beautiful Winter Inspired Real Wedding…you are going to swoon!

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Post tags: Letterpress, Peculiar Pair, Peculiar Pair Giveaway, Peculiar Pair Press, Save The Dates, Wedding Invitations & Stationery, Winner
Post categories: Contests, The Blog, Wedding Invitations & Stationery

image by Karen Wise…a peak into one of next week’s gorgeous real weddings!

*A sneak peak of Peculiar Pair Press’ gorgeous new Save the Date collection, along with a pretty great giveaway! Plus a first look at their new online wedding invitation line.

*We announced the Beau Coup giveaway winners and the hugely popular Sarah Drake giveaway. Congrats to the lucky ladies who stole the show!

*A Rocker Chic Affair that made us all swoon…you can check out the rest of their wedding here and here.

*A Zebra Inspired reception along with a fun Look for Less Feature…you can see the rest of the reception here, here and here.

*Fabulous Photography Tips by Karen Rusten, along with eight other pretty brilliant photographers.

*A Southern Inspired wedding that will make any girl fall in love. You can see each feature here, here, here, here and a look at the gorgeous, letterpress invitations right here.

*The winners of the Four Seasons Films giveaway and their gorgeous Rustic, Chic wedding.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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Post tags: Beau-Coup, Four Seasons Films, Karen Rusten, Karen Wise, Letterpress Invitations, Look for Less, Peculiar Pair Press, Sarah Drake, Save The Dates, Souther Inspired Wedding, Zebra
Post categories: Look for Less, Wedding Favors & Gifts, Wedding Invitations & Stationery, Wedding Resources

From Viola…This invitation suite is based on the concept of recipes. Beloved family recipes, passed on from generation to generation is a metaphor for sharing and enjoying. Recipes conjure images of sharing good food, good company, good conversation, good times … much like a wedding yes?

photos by Anna Kuperberg

From Viola…You probably recognize these from my own wedding based on To Kill a Mockingbird (also seen here, here and here!). We named each table after characters in the book. The runner was a gift I made for Phillip. It had bird illustrations and poems we read to each other during the ceremony.

We had an asian dessert bar, featuring our favourite childhood sweets. The jar above was one of Phillip’s…walnut candy. This is a  good example of how you could pull together an event, using a cohesive visual vocabulary, without everything being “matchy-matchy.”

More to come!!!

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Post tags: Chewing The Cud, Save The Dates, Wedding Invitations & Stationery
Post categories: The Blog, Wedding Invitations & Stationery

From the bride…

My amazingly artistic fiance, Josh Lowe did three block prints for our upcoming wedding on November 1, 2008. A landscape of where we are getting married for the save-the-date, a nest for the invitation and a graphic carving of the word Love on notebooks for our favors. We wanted our paper goods to feel like little pieces of art that we hope will end up in frames. They are all different and unique and really set the tone for our rustically elegant diy wedding.

Instructions

1. First draw what you want to carve

2. Then transfer the drawing onto the wood (pear wood works well)

3. Use small woodcarving tools to carve out your design

4. Next roll out the paint on the woodblock with a brayer

5. Place the paper on the block print and use a spoon to press down all over the design, you want to use firm but even pressure.

6. Finally, peel the paper off carefully

7. Let the print dry 

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Post tags: Block Prints, DIY Instructions, Save The Dates, Wedding Favors & Gifts, Wedding Invitations & Stationery, Woodblock Carving
Post categories: Contests, DIY Projects, Wedding Resources

Christina, the owner and designer of PaperZest, is completely in tune with what real brides are looking for…simple, chic designs that celebrate their own unique occasion. And, she’s giving away 100 CUSTOM save the dates to one lucky SMP reader. Just leave a quick comment (1-2 sentences max) as to why you love SMP and we’ll choose a random winner!

* * *

And the winner is…Rebekah!

“SMP has literally been my best girlfriend through my wedding planning process! With all of my friends living so far away, the ideas, advice, and inspiration offered on your site has been a priceless resource and 24-hour wedding planning companion.”

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Post tags: Breast Cancer Awareness, Giveaway, Herndon, PaperZest, Pink Week, Save The Dates, Virginia, Washington DC
Post categories: Contests, Wedding Invitations & Stationery

To kick it all off, I wanted to tell you about this great new project that Viola of Chewing the Cud and Libby of Byrd + Bleeker are launching…A Survivor Soiree!

Here’s the deal, straight from the horse’s mouth…

Perhaps it’s your sister. Your mother. Your best friend. Celebrate their triumph with a Survivor Soiree!

*Surprise your guests with these NEW BEGINNINGS letterpress invitations (shown in the top left photo) by chewing the cud.

*Make your event even sweeter by having byrd + bleeker create a SWEETNESS OF LIFE candy bar and more pink party goodness.

As for that amazing candy bar…there are actually “Breast Cancer Awareness” candies included in there; Hershey Kisses, York Peppermint Patties, Dove Dark Chocolate Pieces and Mars M&Ms Promise Blend.  A portion of those candies’ purchase price also goes towards the Susan G. Komen foundation – so really, it’s a charity two-fer!  What could be better?! The floral arrangements include antique green hydrangeas, pale pink stock and a combination of pink and champagne lisianthus in mint julep cups, bottles, glass vases and rustic ivory pails. The jar tags all have inspirational quotes by breast cancer survivors. 10% of all proceeds from a Survivor Soiree will be donated to the Nellie B. Connally Breast Cancer Foundation at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

I am in love with this concept. The letterpress invitations are beautiful, the candy bar concept is over-the-top great and the celebration of life that motivates the project…well, it’s just lovely.

And guess what, the girls are offering a 20% discount to all SMP readers through the month of October! Just mention that you heard about the project right here! And, that isn’t all…Viola of chewing the cud is offering 50 NEW BEGINNINGS cards which can be converted into save the dates to one lucky reader. Just leave a comment as to which invitation from her collection is your favorite, and we’ll choose a winner randomly!

* * *

And the winner Is…Mandy!

“I absolutely LOVE the “Good Old Days” invitation set from Chewing the Cud. My wedding is in an old theatre and this would be the perfect way to reflect the vintage vibe.”

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Post tags: Byrd + Bleeker, Chewing The Cud, Pink Week, Save The Dates
Post categories: Contests

When the invitations came, I knew instantly that the wedding would be filled with cute personality and fun little touches. They were designed by ephemera press with pale yellow and slate ink letterpressed on pretty white card stock. Check out the wording, it’s the best part…

IF you can’t see the text, it reads:

Debra Ellyn Brodsky and Erich Beeton Shigley / Together with their families / Invite you to share in the celebration of their marriage / As Debra becomes a Red Sox fan and Erich learns to use the dishwasher…(it goes on with the date and time from here)

How cute is that? I always encourage brides to think creatively when it comes to their invitations, but this is the first that I have actually received where they did just that!

If the save the date and the invitations weren’t cute enough, Debra had the fabulous Stephanie of Couture Maps design these adorable maps of the sculpture garden where the ceremony took place.

(Quick Note, there was a typo on the original post. Betsy Dunlap was the calligrapher but Stephanie crafted these maps)

Don’t you just love??? In the words of Rachel Zoe…Bananas!!

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Post tags: Betsy Dunlap, Ephemera Press, Letterpress, Save The Dates, Vintage, Wedding Maps
Post categories: Wedding Invitations & Stationery

I definitely found some pretty great little shops that are doing really beautiful, innovative things with wedding invitations. And, the best part is that they are completely affordable! This set by Cheer Up runs for $1.75 / piece for seating cards and save the dates, to about $3.00 per set for wedding invitations…

I also loved the work by Pink Lily Press…

These designs run about $5 per complete set, which is great seeing that you get the invitation with outer envelope, inner envelope, a belly band of sorts and choice of response postcard or standard response card. Coordinating save the dates, reception cards or additional inserts are also insanely affordable, starting at about $.75 per piece.

So, after spending quite a bit of time on the Etsy site today, I am thinking that we should start an Etsy Picks section on Style Me Pretty. Let’s start with Etsy Wedding Invitation Picks…if you already have a favorite shop OR you don’t mind going through the invitation section to find your favorite designers, I’d love to hear from you! Just leave a comment with a link to your favorite Etsy invitation shop and I will get started on the Etsy Wedding Invitation gallery!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2008. | Permalink | 48 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Cheer Up, Dear Emma, Etsy, Reception Cards, Save The Dates, Seating Cards
Post categories: Look for Less, Wedding Invitations & Stationery

As an effort to show their gratitude, Hello! Lucky would like to offer 25% off their save the dates to all of those who entered! Simply refer to the SMP contest with your email address and your comment, and your discount will be honored!

And now for the winners, from Hello! Lucky...

First Place Winner: Joanna – Rustic garden casual theme inspired by the nature of the
Chesapeake Bay:

My ideal wedding style is rustic garden casual. We are getting
married a year from June at an Inn outside of St. Michaels, MD, which
overlooks the water. The Inn dates back to the 17th century and has
been renovated, but still reflects the colonial style of this historic
fishing town. The barn on the site has yet to be renovated and the
fading red paint on grey, old barn wood is a perfect place for
pictures!

The Inn itself is pale yellow, so it’s guiding our color choices.
Our other color inspirations are blue as in the Chesapeake Bay and our
treasured blue crabs and green for nature. Right now we’re leaning
towards mostly ivory with pale green, yellow and blue accent colors.

I’m a “green-collar” worker, so I’m excited to incorporate as many
environmentally friendly options into the wedding as possible. Natural
elements also work well with the wedding colors. I want to highlight
the Chesapeake Bay through its stunning nature – birds, flowers and
other wildlife. Also, since most of our guests will be coming from out
of town, we want to make them feel at home and let them know about all
of the fun things to do in the area, like shopping for antiques,
crabbing, bike rides, and the Maritime Museum. My fiancé and I are
still in the inspiration stages now, but I’m excited to pull together
our dream wedding.

We
love the image the 17th century yellow inn and old red barn, and the idea of
incorporating design elements inspired by the flora and fauna of the Chesapeake
Bay. We also love Lynn’s vision of having a green wedding and would love to
incorporate natural and recycled materials into the design!

Runners up: We’d
like to offer runners-up free custom design services in addition to the 25% off
we are offering to all entrants!

1) Mimi – Airline
theme

We
loved all the thoughtful details of this wedding, including using “Fly Me to the
Moon” as the first dance! We can envision so many great save the date ideas for
this, including vintage travel posters, luggage labels, or tags. We would love
to design for this wedding!

2) Jenn – Sailor Jerry Tattoo
inspired design.

We
love the image of the swallow and heart and the banner “i carry your heart.” So
sweet!

3) Stacy Hamilton – Kentucky wedding with a vintage horseshoe
motif

We
love the idea of getting married at the Winner’s Circle of a race track, adore
the color palette, and love the idea of the vintage candy buffet!

* * *

Thank you so much to our readers for making this contest happen! I am thrilled to say that Hello! Lucky is going to design save the dates based on our winner’s concepts, regardless of whether or not they place an order, and they are going to make sure that you guys get to see the finished product. Can’t wait!

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Post tags: Hello! Lucky, Save The Dates
Post categories: Contests, Wedding Invitations & Stationery

The OH-SO-TALENTED girls over at Hello! Lucky are giving away 100 letterpress Save the Date cards to one lucky Style Me Pretty reader! Pretty good contest, isn’t it?

Here’s the deal…simply answer the following three questions in our comments section from now until this Friday, May 2, and you will be entered to win a set of 100, single color, letterpress save the dates. To give you an idea of just how great this giveaway is, these would normally run you close to $400!

Okay, here are your questions…

How would you describe your ideal wedding style (modern, vintage, etc.)?

What color palettes are you loving right now?

What motifs or themes do you
envision being part of your wedding?

Can’t wait to hear what your feedback is…there is nothing better for a small business than hearing direct market feedback so that they can create products that you will love. The girls at Hello! Lucky will choose their favorite answer as the winner!

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Post tags: Hello! Lucky, Letterpress, Save The Dates
Post categories: Contests, Wedding Invitations & Stationery

Before I share with you the photos from the wedding though, I wanted to post a picture of her engagement shots that we used to create her Save the Dates. They are so stinking cute, you are going to looooove them….

All photos by Carissa Byers

Ummm, yeah. How great are those? For some of her engagement shots, Katie convinced the manager at this vintage theater to change the billboard for her to reflect her save the date info. For the actual save the dates, we bought some super heavy letterpress style paper (with just a touch of texture) and cut it down to 4 x 6″ pieces. We printed the top photo on one side (using our home printer, an Epson R180), then set up the back as a postcard with basic information on the left side and the address on the right. It was SO easy and SO unbelievably cute.

We probably spent a total of $100 on supplies, the engagement photo was done for free because Katie bought a complete wedding package from the photographer, and the postage was less because we sent them as postcards. Pretty great, huh?

Stay tuned though…this super chic, but affordable theme stayed true through the entirety of Katie’s wedding and I have lots of pretty pictures to show you!

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Post tags: Carissa Byers, Save The Dates
Post categories: Budget Beautiful, Real Weddings, Wedding Invitations & Stationery

To Make DIY Luggage Tags:

These luggage tags were backed with white linen and tied with gold and pink taffeta ribbon. I used sheets of watercolor paper which had a lovely textured surface and I printed A4 sheets with 9 cards on each, designing the layout in photoshop. I cut each card to a luggage tag shape before spreading a very fine layer of PVA glue on the back, making sure that every inch of the card was covered to avoid getting any air bubbles, then laying them onto sheets of white linen. Once the glue had dried I cut around them, punched a hole in the shaped end using a hole punch then added an eyelet through which I could tie the ribbon. Adding the eyelets was the most difficult part as they require some serious banging with a hammer and I kept hitting my fingers!

Then I popped them in envelopes and sent them off!

All of the materials I used were very basic and available from any arts and crafts shop – watercolour paper, linen (or any fabric you want), ribbon, metal eyelets, PVA glue + glue spreader, scissors and envelopes to fit. The cards were a bit fiddly and time consuming but looked gorgeous when they were finished and have received loads of compliments which made them worth the hours of work!

***

How clever are these dress form place cards, inspired by a vintage clothing display…just goes to show, creativity and inspiration can come from so many different places!

To Make the Fashion Inspired Place Cards…

All I did was find some vintage fashion illustrations and ads, mostly on Flickr. I used Photoshop to crop out any background noise, but mostly I chose ladies with clean white backgrounds so this wasn’t necessary.

I printed them on heavy paper and cut each lady out with an x-acto knife, cutting a tab at the bottom. I then cut strips of red card stock, glued them into a circle, and cut a slit across them to mount the ladies.

I used stencils to draw and cut out the numbers (again with an x-acto knife), and glued these to some bamboo skewers, cut to size with wire cutters. I glued these to the ladies and voila!

Paper was from Paper Source: http://www.paper-source.com Tacky glue, x-acto knife, and stencils from any art/craft supply Images from Flickr: http://www.flickr.com

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Post tags: Place Cards, Save The Dates
Post categories: DIY Projects