Three Ingredients for one-of-a-kind wedding stationery 💌
So you want unique wedding stationery that tells your love story, and feels like it could only belong to you, your partner, and the beautiful journey you’ve gone on together. But sorting through the sea of inspiration on Pinterest can make it seem impossible to get there - so I am going to break down the three ingredients of truly one-of-a-kind stationery.
💌 Infusing elements from your love story
This is what takes a design from “pretty” to “personal, meaningful and deeply ours.” A portrait of your wedding venue could belong to any couple getting married there; a tower of Espresso martinis might not mean much to you - but illustrations of you and your partner interwoven with those things? Language you use when talking to each other, or from favorite love songs? A color palette that pulls from your favorite places and flowers? An overall design concept that carries threads from your story, things that inspire you, and memories you share? These are the things that take your invites beyond the trendy and towards the heart of the matter - you and your partner.
💌 Pulling original inspiration beyond the realm of weddings
Let’s come back to the sea of inspiration on Pinterest. First of all, I love Pinterest and use it for inspiration all the time - that is not the problem. The problem is pulling inspiration solely from other weddings on Pinterest. This leads to copying, or keeping the creativity of your talented vendors constricted into one specific vision. But you? You’re wildly unique, and you want your invitations to reflect that. So let’s gather inspiration beyond the world of weddings! Think album artwork, restaurant menus, interior design, architecture, fashion, artwork you love - the options are truly endless! The idea is to pull inspiration from things you already love - not reach for something that feels inauthentic - and use it to create something that feels like it already belongs to you.
💌 Working with an actual person - who you actually connect with!
The most important way to tie the first two pieces together? Working with a real, human designer who you have a real, human connection with. Because that person just getting you, is what leads to those intuitive insights and design ideas that go outside of the box and bring your love story together for you. And, it makes the design process that much more enjoyable. Having a compassionate creative on your team who genuinely cares about you and wants to celebrate your story, means they are going to go that much further in bringing it to life in the best way possible. Weddings are, at their core, about relationships, so investing in the relationship with a designer is going to be your best bet in a design that really reflects your relationship.
Ready to dive into the design process? Inquire today to start bringing your one-of-a-kind designs to life!
Stationery Sets the Tone 💌
How Designing Custom Wedding Stationery Can Help You Enjoy the Journey of Planning Your Wedding 💌
Thinking about designing your wedding stationery might just feel like another item on your never-ending wedding planning to-do list. It might seem easier to simply download a template off Minted, or even forgo them altogether. But, as with most things in life, you get out what you put in, and designing custom wedding stationery can become something that really supports and connects you and your partner throughout the planning process, if you let it!
I’ve seen it firsthand - on design calls with clients, the collaboration that comes through as you navigate different preferences, interests and aesthetics together; in questionnaires, each partner holding and savoring different parts of your story; and in the design process, as we weave together all these different parts in a way that feels super personal - how taking the time to really create something one-of-a-kind connects couples, and really becomes an opportunity to reflect on the journey you’ve gone on as a couple to get to this stage - as well as the experience you want your guests to have on and leading up to your wedding day.
A lot of people talk about how stationery sets the tone, and I think that’s true - but it sets the tone not only for your guests, but also for you. Getting to go on this creative journey together, with myself or another designer as your creative partner, is an opportunity to step away from the planning spreadsheets for a moment, and towards the colorful, magical and romantic world of your love, for a little bit. It’s a process that is meant to reconnect you and your partner to what this whole wedding this is all about, it’s a process that will help anchor you during inevitable moments of stress, and it’s a process that I hope you’ll enjoy as much as the stationery itself.
Your love story. It’s like no one else’s. So let’s create stationery that celebrates that, and reminds you to - as best you can - enjoy the journey of coming together along the way.
Wishing you all the best, wherever you’re at in your planning process.
Sage
Enjoying the process of planning (as much as you enjoy the product)
So much of wedding planning is focused on this One. Big. Day. So naturally, you stress and worry about making it perfect and the best day of your whole life. And then you wonder why you were barely able to actually enjoy your big day?
Because you didn’t focus on enjoying yourself THE WHOLE WAY.
Instead, I invite my clients (and you!) to think of your wedding not just as the one day, but all the days leading up to it and all the work that you put in. Yes, the engagement parties and bachelorette trips, but also the recurring fight with your fiancé about the guest list, and the tension you work through with your families about where to have the rehearsal dinner. This is not something to be jumped over to get to the destination - this is all part of the process of planning a big event with your person, and beginning to build a big life together.
This is also why I love getting to work with couples on their wedding stationery - because it’s one of the few wedding vendors whose work really takes place BEFORE the wedding day. I love making this process as enjoyable and intentional and FUN as possible.
If you want to sound like Robin - “Working with Sage has been one of my favorite parts of wedding planning so far!” - inquire here to get the creative process started 💌
Why You Should Approach Your Wedding Planning Process Like You’re Hunting for Vintage Finds
Okay. Hear me out. As a wedding stationery designer who wore a vintage wedding dress to her wedding, I think certain parts of this process can be applied to your planning journey - to make it feel more unique, more timeless, more you. There can be so much pressure to follow trends and check things off your bridal to-do-list. But you’re not like every other bride, so let’s make your planning process one-of-a-kind! Here’s why you should consider this approach:
Rather than following trends and finding a dress online that anyone else could have, bringing this approach means you are focusing on things being one-of-a-kind. My dress had these beautiful lace eyelet flower details on the shoulder, and a sage green layer underneath that literally made it look like the ocean. It wasn’t a “traditional” wedding dress but it was so me, and I loved that. It’s less about the knee-jerk, cookie-cutter approach to weddings - where you are just doing what everyone else is doing and getting things to get them -and more about what feels like it is meant for you. While this can apply to how you find your dress, this can also apply to how you make decisions, how you source your goodie bag items, etc. Be unique not just for the sake of being unique - but because your love story is unique too, and it deserves to be celebrated in its own unique way.
The process. While you can certainly approach looking for your dress and planning your wedding in the traditional way - scouring Pinterest and bridal sites for the perfect fit - there is nothing like the thrill of the hunt in a Vintage, thrift or consignment shop. It gets you into your body, it’s tactile, you get to touch and feel and relate to things. It’s delightful! What if you brought this tactile, slow, natural approach to your planning? What if you sourced photos for your moodboard from the real world, like your favorite restaurants and art museums and decor stores, rather than scrolling on Pinterest for hours? What if you got vendor recommendations from that friend of a friend who also got married in Newport a few years ago, rather than reaching out to random people on Wedding Wire? What if you took your time, trusted the process, and let inspiration arrive into your life, rather than searching so hard for it?
A focus on storytelling. I loved my vintage wedding dress because it came with a story - not just in how I found it, but also in the life it lived before me, and even the life it lived on my wedding day. Yes, it ripped! But that’s now woven into the story of the dress, that I will always remember, and my guests will, too. Similarly, you have imperfect and ancient parts of your story that you can weave into your wedding that make it feel like yours. You could put family heirlooms on every table, or tell the story of how you met at your ceremony, or play your father’s favorite song as you walk down the aisle, instead of stressing over following bridal trends and aesthetics. You could be your one-of-a-kind self, instead of the bride you think you are supposed to be. You could be yourself, not only on your wedding day, but all along the way.
How I Come Up With My Designs
PC: Kelsie Frasca
I recently had the pleasure of attending Happily Ever Expo in Quincy this month. It was an opportunity to not only connect with other vendors in the industry, but to also connect with engaged couples (like you!) in the midst of the planning process. And there was one question that I kept hearing from them as they peered over my stationery samples - how do you come up with your designs? Perhaps you’ve been having the same question, so I thought I would answer it here!
To put it simply, my design process is an incredibly collaborative one. I take information in from my clients in the form of a questionnaire that I send out upon starting our work together. From this, I learn not only about my clients’ wedding vision, but also how they met, what they like to do together, and cute stories from their relationship that almost always make me tear up. I learn about their style (think things in their home, favorite artwork and flowers) and their favorite love songs. I take all of this information in, talk it through with them on a design call, and let it inform the creative direction.
While I certainly take cues from my clients, and some designs are directed by them (i.e. they really want a portrait of their pets on their cocktail menu), I try to source ideas for my designs just as much from my own inspiration. For every project, I create a visual moodboard that pulls images from Pinterest - featuring artwork from the wedding region, iconography, and images that speak to the vibe of this project and this couple. I try to take inspiration less from other wedding stationery or wedding related imagery, and more from the couple, the place, and whatever else strikes my fancy. Sometimes ideas come to me on a walk in nature, or at the end of a nap (this happened recently!) and I roll with them, incorporating something one-of-a-kind into every design.
Together, we talk through all of these ideas on our design call, where I share some sketches along with the moodboard to conceptualize my vision. Once we’ve agreed on the direction, I dive into my studio, where I go through a three-part design process from start to finish. I get feedback from my clients throughout the process making sure we are getting everything just right, and hopefully end up with something that feels like it could only be made for these two people at this meaningful moment in time.
Interested in getting the conversation started? Book a free call with me here to see if I might be the right stationery designer for you!
5 Reasons You Should Invest in Wedding Invitations (in the Age of Digital E-vites and Minted.com)
My therapist recently asked me, with nothing but good intentions, why I would be starting a business designing wedding invitations when so many people are opting to send digital invites. While it caught me off guard at first, upon further consideration, it is a valid question in this digital world, and I’m sure you’re considering this yourself. Why spend a decent chunk of your precious wedding budget on personalized paper invitations when you could just send them online, or design one yourself from a template? Well, here’s my two cents, as a wedding stationery designer, snail mail enthusiast and thank you note writer extraordinaire.
Wedding invitations, aside from being a timeless tradition in the history of people getting married, serve as a physical reminder to your guests. To RSVP. To get that flight booked. To check the wedding website. To book the hotel. And with so many emails these days filling up our inbox, a digitally sent invitation could simply get lost in the mix, or filed into the folder in our brains that says “I’ll deal with this later.” But a paper invitation sent straight to your door? That you can hold in your hands? And put on your fridge? That reminder simply has a whole different weight to it, that a digital invite simply can’t compete with.
Designing your invites with an artist/stationer helps you think about the design and vibe you want to create for your wedding day. Since invitations often get mailed out way before you start thinking about your floral design, what rental items you are going to order, or what color palette you want your bridesmaids to wear, a lot of the design work you do with your wedding stationer can feed into the rest of these elements. The moodboard, inspiration photos and color palette you create together can be sent to your other vendors, getting incorporated into the day’s design so that everything aligns.
Wedding invites give your guests a feel for the vibe of your wedding - and your love. They get your guests excited, help them envision what to wear and what to bring, and basically make them feel like an exclusive member of your “love club.” Hint - they are!
It’s an opportunity to add a personal, heartfelt touch - weaving in elements from your unique love story and personal history so that people can really feel who you are as a couple. This, in my opinion, is what weddings are all about!
Wedding invitations are an emblem of a time-honored tradition - the love letter. While traditional wedding stationery in your mind might evoke an image of boring calligraphy and black borders, I like to think of it as a love letter sent out to all of your favorite people, echoing of a time when we could only communicate via the mail, sending our love across oceans sealed in envelopes. There is something ancient about it, something analogue and tactile, that speaks to the romantic in us all. It’s a way, upon opening the envelope, to literally open the hearts of your guests, inviting them in to the look and feel of your unique love.