Weddingbee Blog

Here is how our invitation journey started:

Invites Step 0.5 - Wording
Invites Step 1 - Chicken Scratch
Invites Step 2 - The Designer’s First Round

Now we’re on to the most exciting part: seeing my drawings translated literally into an Illustrator file! Here’s a quick look at the ‘good’ version of the 5×7 invite I drew:

And here is the first file Miss Giraffe sent us that used this drawing almost exactly:

Yup, that’s what I drew! Only this version is way cleaner, nicer, and in colour. Our esteemed designer said “It definitely needs some cleaning up though, because I think it’s a little “busy” which might make it a little hard to read.” We Cinnamon Buns agreed with that statement. I’d been wondering how the traditional “Blah blah blah request the pleasure of your company…” would translate to book spines. I wouldn’t call it unreadable as it is, but I’m sure some of our older relatives would disagree with me.

I think the most important part of this whole custom/working-with-a-designer thing is communication, so Cinnamon Buns and I made some time to sit down together and talk about the whole invitation. We printed one out (sadly, our printer is black and white, so we didn’t get to see the colours!) and scribbled all over it to remind us of our points. Then, we wrote an email back. One of my main things was that I wanted the heart at the top to be a little darker so it could stand out more. We also wanted the picture frames (which will eventually have our silhouettes in them!) a bit closer together, there was the busy-ness Miss G noted on the top shelf, and I wanted to see what it would look like with a lighter background.

I had also emailed that proof to Cinnamum to see what she thought, and I was so, so happy to hear that she loved it! She thought it was very us, which was exactly what we were going for.

Fast-forward a little, and we had this in our inbox:

Obviously, our silhouettes are not George and Martha Washington, nor are we the Playmobil toys in the silhouettes in the first version either. We’ve since sent off a few profile photos of ourselves, to be turned into our very own silhouettes. We both absolutely loved it on this lighter background. From this point there were just a few more tweaks to send off!

But, this wasn’t the only invite I’d designed in my head. There was also the fun 4×9 one that I loved just because of the interesting size.

The above turned into:

Mmmmmm, also yummy! Love that swirly font! (I believe it is called ‘Affair’). At this point, Cinnamon Buns was leaning towards the 5×7 and I couldn’t decide. We asked our parents, and talked about it ourselves as well.

Which would you choose? 5×7 or 4×9?