Making Custom Wedding Invites

My amazing niece, Alexandra, got engaged last year to a fantastic guy, Alex, and immediately I knew I wanted to make her wedding invitations if she would let me! I made her brother's invitations some years ago but wasn't sure if the kids these days even used paper invites anymore. But when I offered she said YES!

Along with her wonderful fiancé, we worked together over the internet (they were attending school in the midwest) on a design that would reflect the elegant wedding they were planning. We chose cream and black for the color scheme. Then they looked at some samples on a commercial website to show me the style that appealed to them the most. Once I knew their preferred style I was able to create a completely original design for them.

Though a wedding starts an entire married life together, the actual day really ends up being a snapshot frozen in time and there's no way to prevent it from eventually appearing a bit dated, though that's not a bad thing. For that reason, I wasn't worried about using a current trend in the design: lace.

I scanned a piece of found lace, reversed the color and painstakingly modified it in Photoshop to create the design element I eventually used on the invite.

Here you see on the left the original lace, scanned and with the white and black reversed. On the right is the design I extracted from the fabric pattern to create a whole new image.


We determined I would make 100 invitations so once I had a finished sample I got the go ahead from the happy couple and printed the design and text two-up on cream cardstock and cut the pages apart...


...then adhered them to black cardstock with an 1/8 inch border all around.


Additionally, to add a little more elegance, I traced and hand-cut liners for all the envelopes from silver shimmer paper.



It's a simple design, but reflects the level of formality (black tie optional) and aesthetic of the wedding. I was delighted that everyone was pleased with the results!


And it must have worked because a lot of people showed up for a very beautiful wedding this past weekend.

Me with the Bride:

I don't know if they've opened gifts yet, but when they do they'll find I created an additional surprise gift of thank you notes in a coordinating design.


Congratulations Alexandra and Alex! You are a wonderful couple with many years of happiness ahead of you. Thanks for letting me be a part of your special day.