Mrs. Lovebug, Tucson
Age and Occupation in 06: 31, Writer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Professional Game Show Contestant
Engagement Date: February 18, 2007
Wedding Date: April 19, 2008
Venue: Historic Inn
About Me: Likes: blogging, wikis, semi-colons, cuddling, fragrant flowers, syntax, and spooning. Dislikes: typos, dangling modifiers, flypaper, citronella candles, and run-ons. If I had my druthers, I'd exchange simple vows in a candlelit library. But I lost my druthers long ago...anyone seen them?
Our Yummy Invitations Are Here!
February 27th, 2008 @ 9:31 am by Mrs. Lovebug
Feel free to just scroll down to the good stuff. I won’t be offended. Or, take the extended, scenic tour…
Knock, knock! A box arrives early Saturday morning, waking me out of a nightmare about being stalked by a mountain lion wearing a mantilla veil.
Oh, look! My new BFF, Tara Bliven of Ephemera, has thoughtfully pre-assembled her lovely creations! As others have testified, Tara is an absolute delight to work with. Using our “Sweetest Type of Love” theme, she worked tirelessly on draft after draft until my neurotic demands were met (”more symmetry! more swirls!”)…
I haven’t blurred out most of our information, because I think it’s an absolute sacrilege to digitally desecrate the beautiful work Tara has done.
The ink colors are just perfect. The paler pink is the exact match of my dress, and the silvery grey type looks amazing up close.
Tara also lined the inner envelopes with that same subtle shade of blush pink dotted paper:
But what really blows me away is how well the delicate, letterpressed details came out. Tara played with a number of different from-scratch images until she’d designed the perfect vintage typewriter and collection of old-fashioned candies:
It was another “Tara, you’re brilliant!” moment when she suggested putting our website on the typewriter page. We had planned on including a small insert with the address, but figured this saved paper (and was cuter, too).
To play up the romantic, vintage angle, we printed our names and some of the script in the retro-riffic Feel Script (first blogged by the font-tastic Mrs. Lemon). And to bring in the typewriter element, we chose (from a cast of hundreds typewriter fonts) Urgent Telegram AOL. It has just the amount of “grunginess” we wanted. We also used both of these on our website, as well. Gotta love that aesthetic integration!
Working with Tara (read: firing four emails at her a day), she got a good sense of the Lovebug brand of humor. And she encouraged us to have some fun with the wording of our reply cards. As if much encouragement were needed - ha!
Since I so wholeheartedly jump at the chance to be a creative smartass, I wanted to give our guests the same opportunity. Plus, the extra space will allow them to tell us anything they might need to.
But one of the coolest features of the whole dealybob has got to be that Brigitte, Tara’s go-to calligraphy goddess, perfectly copied the Feel Script font for us!
Having Brigitte imitate the font was Tara’s brilliant brainchild, and I’m just thrilled with how they came out.
And finally, the coup de invitation grace - the slate grey ink of the calligraphy matches the (finally decided upon) set of vintage stamps we’re using for the outer envelopes:
We had them weighed, and our 98 cents worth of writers, actresses, and presidents gives us a one cent leeway. Yippee!
So, is Tara the Supreme Guru of Gorgeous Invitations or what, people?
42 Responses to “Our Yummy Invitations Are Here!”
These are so fun! Brilliant graphics and I love the play on words.
Yay for Tara! I still take out my invitations and drool over them months later. She is pretty amazing - your invites are gorgeous! The best part is you really get to take part in the designing process, so the end product is something that you can feel proud of.
gorgeous and fun!
Love ‘em. I especially like the spelling-out of “April Fools’ Day.” If I got an invite with an RSVP deadline of April 1, I’d think “*snrt* April Fools’ Day! How could they not notice that?” This shows that you did indeed notice, and you’re not only okay with it, you get a good chuckle out of it, and hope others do, too.
oooh…I love the pink dotted envelope liner….makes me want to change my invitations (must…stop…revising)
Lovebug, those are gorgeous! I adore Feel Script, and I think it’s awesome that your calligrapher was able to duplicate it for you! Just beautiful!
Amazing those are so gorgeous!!!
OMG. these are STUNNING.
if you have any left over, would you send me one? wink wink. just so that i can have it in my little hands to lust over in person? 
hehe. yeh, they’re that good.
Miss Lovebug these are amazing! I love how they capture your witty and funny personality. The response card actually made me giggle …from the coop…too cute! Bravi to you and Tara! Job very well done!
Good lord, if there is not a 4-page spread in Martha Stewart Weddings on this affair, there is no justice in this world!!
Wow those are just about the most beautiful invitation sets I have ever seen! KUDOS!!!!
GORGEOUS! I drool over the letterpress!
SUBLIME!
Perfect. LOVE the images, colors, fonts, and especially the witty rsvp card. You’ve been so good at putting your own crazy awesome stamp on your wedding!
sooooooo amaziiiiinnnng, i am drooling!! And that calligraphy is to die for. seriously, I can’t get over it…
i’m using tara as well and can’t wait to see what she will cook up for us after seeing yours. beautiful invites!
OMG, these are so cute!! I am in love w/ these invites and I am so glad I have the bees as inspirations. I am going back now to re-vamp my entire invite “look”.
Can I just ask because of the lollipops what is your theme based on?
Wheeeeeeeeeee!
I seriously think these are the best I’ve ever seen. Money well spent.
And I’m DYING over the “which beast” will your guests be choosing to eat.
Hee!
O M G
O M G
O M G
those are the most FABULOUS invites i have EVER seen. drooling over here!
OMG
OMG
OMG
Lovebug-a-licious!
so freakin fabulous!!! Great job Tara and Miss Lovebug!!!
they….look…..AWESOMEEEEEE!!!! wow!!! your guests are going to LOVE LOVE LOVE them!
Where did you find those awesome vintage stamps? I love that.
these r gorgeous!!! may i ask what’s the cost breakdown of the invites?
Jumping in with everyone else on how gorgeous they are! One of the best invitations I’ve ever seen.
Those are crazy gorgeous. I want stationary or something now.
full of wonderment. I am currently (ahem) patiently awaiting my first drafts from Tara! Now I’m even MORE excited!
omg, drool lust covet. (squeal) i heart ur invitations seriously!
Those are just too cute.
I also love how your response date is “April Fool’s Day”.
I love invites that not only show the theme/colors of the wedding, but also shows the personality of the couple. Very well done!
Awesome, thanks you guys! I was kind of worried they’d come across…esoteric, what with the dueling motifs. Glad to know they’re getting good reviews in Bee-dom.
Annette: the lollipops are the “sweet” part of our Sweetest Type of Love theme. It’s complicated, kinda convoluded, but best explained in my old “Wedding Theme Breakthrough” post, if you’re really interested.
Jaclyn: the stamps are from Champion Stamp Company - they have a HUGE online PDF catalog
BS: I actually don’t have the cost breakdown quite yet, since we changed so much and Tara ended up doing a lot more custom work for us. She designed a package for us, and we’re still working on more stuff, but if you like, email me at grumpgirl@gmail.com, and I can let you know how it broke down afterward.
Yummy! They look amazing!
I wish someone I knew was getting married and sending me an invitation like that so I could drool on it in person instead of ruining my keyboard…
Definitely, supreme guru goddess, etc–hands-down! Those are absolutely lovely!
Are you going to actually include (or did I miss it?) the phrase “Sweetest Type of Love” anywhere?
brendalynn: the phrase’ll be on the programs, and it’s on the website, too. and maybe the favor tokens? hmm…
Amazing….simply amazing….
Wow. Your invitations are absolutely gorgeous- love the typewriter! And the colors are perfect together.
[…] I blogged about our invitations, I mentioned that our printer had the idea of having the calligraphy done in mimicry of the font we […]
they’re so beautiful.
btw, love how your initial is the abbreviation of your first name.
These are absolutely wonderful!!!
I am also using Veer’s Feel Script font for my invitations and would LOVE to get ahold of Bridgette… do you have her contact info? You can e-mail it to me at morans@purdue.edu
Oh I am just THRILLED to see that bees are seeing Tara’s work. We worked with Tara a year ago and I think Ephemera has taken off. She’s so talented and sweet and totally deserves the success!
Those are absolutely perfect…as a lover of paper I am loving the total look and especially the sweet little typewriter!
I need to get married to P all over again…just for fun…would that be weird?
[…] to learn before the honeymoon. I should also add that the super crisp detail shots I took of our invitations were taken with it. Plus, I’m a sucker for design (especially German), and I love the aesthetics […]
