Wedding Blog
You may have noticed that my posts have been a little sparse over the last few weeks, but I assure you it is with good reason: my mom, who is getting married next month, asked me to design her wedding invitations, and I happily obliged! Since the wedding isn’t too far off, time was of the essence, so I had to put blogging on the back-burner for a little while.Momma Cupcake and her fiance, George, are having a small ceremony and brunch reception with about 40 guests at Simon Pearce, a fantastic restaurant in the heart of Chester County, Pa., on the banks of the Brandywine River. The restaurant is named for the Irish glassblower of the same name, whose amazing glass designs (and that of his artisans) are found throughout the restaurant and its attached shop. You can also hang out on the first floor of the beautiful building and watch artisans creating their masterpieces — sometimes Mr. Cupcake and I will go if we’re in the area just to sit and watch the glassblowers.
Momma Cupcake and George met at Simon Pearce on their first date six years ago (set up by mutual friends), and it is where they go to celebrate anniversaries and other special occasions, so it is the perfect place for their wedding. The ceremony will be held in a private dining room and the brunch reception will be held in the main restaurant area. This is a perfect, intimate place for a wedding with less than 50 guests!
Photos via simonpearce.com
Momma Cupcake and George wanted an invitation that wasn’t too formal-looking but not overly casual, and they wanted it to convey the beautiful area surrounding Simon Pearce as well as the season. I decided to use some warm metallic-toned card stocks combined with a matte ivory stock for the invitation that create a nice (but not cold) wintry feeling. I used a tree motif in the bottom left and top right corners of the invitation to represent the rural Brandywine River area surrounding Simon Pearce. It took me a few days to pull together the design, and luckily Momma Cupcake is an ideal client who simply said “I love it! Print it!” and left me to it 
A day after I finished putting them all together, they were in the mail and the responses are already coming in! Sometimes, having less time to obsess makes brides get things done faster, I guess…. but I wouldn’t know anything about that 
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Share this post: Momma Cupcake’s Wedding Invitations
Pretty pretty! How lovely that you can contribute such a special piece to your mamma’s special day!
Great job! They look so professional. And congratulations to Momma Cupcake and George!
beautiful….please feel free posting directions.
*hint, hint*
I really like the tree image. Did you just make it a light grey to match the paper, or did you make it a watermark somehow?
Thanks for the compliments, ladies!!
I designed everything in Adobe Illustrator…. I was pressed for time, so I didn’t have the chance to create my own illustration, which I normally like to do. For this particular situation, I bought the tree image from istock.com, and adjusted it to work with my layout (I think I just did random searches for “winter tree” and similar words, narrowing my search term to “illustrations” so it would only show results with vector images).
The image was originally black, with birds perched on the branches. The birds were saved as a separate layer in Illustrator, and I removed the bird layer so it was just the branches. Then, I copied the branch illustration into my invitation layout with all of the copy in place, and made the image a very light brown color. When I printed it on the gold metallic stock, it gave it that watermark effect.
I have the luxury of working at a graphic design studio, where I can purchase the paper at wholesale prices and make use of our high-quality Phaser printers, but I am sure a lot of other printers would have the same effect. The paper is all your basic Stardream metallic stock and Paper Source matte stock, available to anyone!
Gorgeous! I love what you did with the colors…the invites look great!
They match the feel of the location and season perfectly! My future husband and I currently live in West Chester and are getting married in my home town but were thinking about having our “rehearsal” dinner at Simon Pearce since we aren’t having a true rehearsal.
Congrats to your mom!
I can already tell I’ll be bugging you with questions once we start to design our own invites…those look awesome!
Love it! Perfect simple wintery invites. Which are surprisingly hard to find in my experience.
mm, i heart simon pearce beautiful job on the invites! i really like the metallic paper.
Dear Miss Cupcake:
Thank you so much for mentioning us in your blog post. We are honored to have the pleasure of hosting such a special ceremony at our restaurant in West Chester, PA. The invitations you created are absolutely
beautiful!
I appreciate your site and the wealth of information you and the other bloggers provide to future brides. Would you be so kind so as to provide us your mailing address? I would like to send you a special “thank you” for your support.
We look forward to making Momma Cupcake’s special day unforgettable.
Mayta Pinard
Simon Pearce, Public Relations
[...] of you may recall that my fabulous, amazing, beautiful mother has been planning a wedding of her own recently. After having an icky cold that had me out of commission for a few days last week, I was [...]
Mrs. Cupcake,
My brother-in-law took us to Simon Pearce in Vermont and it was very nice.
I have a question… are you using Xerox Phaser solid ink printers with the metallic paper? We are trying to use our Phaser 8560 with metallic card stock and, even though it looks great, the ink is easily scratched off. Did you have this problem?
Thanks a lot. Your invitations look great!
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Mrs. Cupcake, Philadelphia
Age and Occupation: 27, Graphic Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project Manager
Engagement Date: February 10, 2007
Wedding Date: September, 2008
Blogging Since: December 7, 2007
Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PA
About Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
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