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I recently had the great opportunity to collaborate with Jen of Swallowfield on wedding invitations for her cousin. I am a huge fan of Jen’s work and own a few of her prints {this is one of my favorites}, so I was quite honored to work with her. The wedding is taking place this Fall in Newburyport, Massachusetts, a little town on the Merrimack River near the Atlantic. Mary, the bride, wanted a design inspired by Fall, community, and the sea. Jen’s drawing is full of amazing details including little houses, flowers, and a sailboat. I want to live in one of those houses!
As another warm and balmy summer begins to fade into a crisp and temperate fall, I thought I’d take all you readers back to the peak of spring here in Southern California. This turn-of-the-season wedding was so special for a number of reasons: 1) the bride met me when she was a bridesmaid in another wedding I coordinated last year. I love direct contact referrals like that!; 2) the photographer, John of John & Joseph Photography, was an out-of-town star I had always wanted to meet; 3) it all took place at Castle Green, the stunning and historic site I wed my own sweetie back in 2005! We were already off to a fabulous start for this event. 
Nisa and Aaron live in Chicago, where they are both physicians. The physical distance coupled with their busy schedules meant we did a lot of coordinating via phone and email. I plan many Southern California soirees for out-of-towners and am always happy to be the “in state” liaison for these couples. It was especially easy in this instance due to my familiarity with her venue. Right from the start, Nisa was drawn to rich, deep colors like eggplant, fuchsia and burgundy.
Say the phrase hand-painted wedding invitation and most do a double take…then ask “for small orders right?” or inquire “well you reproduce each one on the computer?”. All of these are valid responses I admit as the thought of individually hand-painting hundreds of pieces is initially mind boggling. Let me be the first to tell you, it is mind boggling, requires tremendous patience and skill, but YES, here at Momental Designs we have been hand-painting each and every invitation since our beginnings in 2003.
I thought I would take a moment to further explain the painting process and give a peek into the world of a Momental Invite.
Shortly after my wedding in 2000, I began Momental, very humbly. I worked another full time job, where my lunch hours were spent crafting the perfect business name, reading business books and sketching invitation ideas. My goal was to offer artistic invitations, featuring my original artwork, but to take the concept one step further. While many invitation designers at the time offered original illustrations none were individually hand-painting each invitation, exclusively, so the Momental Invitation was born! I sat for hours perfecting simple little illustrations that could be repeated entirely by hand over hundreds of pieces. Last month, I blogged about Kelley’s hydrangea invitations, where I shared a sample hydrangea from the very beginning. We still create invitations that are entirely hand-painted much like Carrianne’s, where over 30 strokes per invite were used!
Over time brides seemed to be requesting an increasing level of complexity in their artwork.
On my blog, I love doing “behind the scenes” posts. It shows sneak peeks about what the IG team is working on.
You may remember the post I did about the Family Tree Envelope Liners and the Etched Mirror, well, these photos are from our staff at that same wedding. Since everything happened surrounding a master time-line, here’s a step-by-step of how the day progressed:
10:00 AM: Leave Brooklyn to pickup van @ UHAUL
John driving us to the rental depot
Featured on Weddingbee
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
This is definitely a recipe must for everyone! I am not a drinker by any means…the only kind of drinks I like are girly, fruity ones and I still find those hard to drink since they have calories (and loads of them) and I figure that I could have a dessert instead, but this drink/dessert is the perfect combo for me! This recipe is from David Lebovitz’s book, The Perfect Scoop, a book solely devoted to ice creams, sorbets, granitas, and sweet accompaniments. He describes granita as “a shaved ice, made from a lightly sweetened fruit puree or another liquid.” Even though I have drooled over many recipes so far this was the first one I’ve tried. The simplicity of the recipe is amazing, which lends itself to the pure and simple fact that you have no reason not to try it. Well, if I haven’t convinced you already hopefully the photos will!
We’re excited to bring you this interview with Jung Lee, founder of the NYC based, luxury event planning firm Fete. You may have seen her featured on Whose Wedding is It Anyway? or on her new TLC show, Wedded to Perfection coming this fall! Join us as she shares a glimpse into her hectic life as a top New York City event designer, author, and reality TV star!
1. How did you first become an event designer?
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
The sexy and sassy stylist (I just love alliteration) and fellow PRO blogger, Amy Salinger asked me to be a guest for her Fab in Five video. Amy has a slew of great videos on YouTube and her website/blog is amazing. Click here to subscribe to Amy’s videos. Check it out for stylish yet practical tips. I had a blast doing this video and am planning on doing more how-to videos this month.
We are loving Hollin and Eric’s beautiful wedding, full of sweet details and DIY elements. Hollin, along with some helpful friends and family, created most of the decorations, and it all turned out so vintage chic!
Thanks to the very talented Ben Blood for sharing his gorgeous photos of their wedding at Treehouse Point in Issaquah, Washington. Tree-filled and moss-covered, Treehouse Point offers two incredible treehouses for lodging by master treehouse builder Pete Nelson who, along with his wife Judy, host private events and overnight retreats. So natural and ethereal!
Last week I was on the phone with a mother of the bride talking about why brides no longer do photos of entire tables. The funny thing is that I’ve never been to a wedding in my life where this was done, but back in our moms’ day, this was certainly the norm.
With couples opting for more photo-documentary style photography, how do we remember exactly who was at our wedding say 5, 10 or even 30 years down the line? Originally, these photos existed for that purpose, even long after the last thank you note was written, you could look through your wedding album and see every table grouped en mass in a single photo.
The conversation kind of got me thinking about modern ways to capture everyone at your big day. Here’s a few ideas that will solve this trick!
Yesterday I shared some photos of Leah’s bridal bouquet that I created using big felt posies, grey and white mother of pearl buttons, and some special painted buttons in bright shades of teal and turquoise.
Teal, light pink, and certain shades of blue and green are highly sought-after colors by my clients, and the high demand comes with a high price. To avoid passing the cost on to my customers, sometimes I carefully paint plain buttons to match the customer’s color palette, and when done right, no one can tell the difference. In this video I show you how to save money by painting your own plain, boring buttons to achieve the same effect!
Now that Shira and Loren have finally said “I do”, I have a ton of projects I spent the past few months on that I can finally share!!
With the popularity of the DIY Envelope Liners and all the amazing feedback we received about the custom Family Tree designed for their invitations, I wanted to show our gift to this happy couple - a custom etched mirror.
Doing glass or mirror etching is actually very simple. Once you find someone who can output your art into vinyl, it’s a very short process and the results are pretty amazing. I was even impressed upon seeing the final result!
Materials Needed:
Dear Nancy,
I love peonies, anemones, ranunculus, and dahlias and would love to use them at my wedding in San Francisco in late fall [October to be exact]. Will they be available when I get married?
Laid back Bride
Dear Laid Back Bride,
I also love those flowers. Nothing is as pretty as white anemones with their black centers, paper thin petaled ranunculus in delicious hues of grapefruit, coral, orange, ruffly edged peonies with their over the top blooms, or deliciously plum and orange dahlias with their unique shapes and sizes.
However,
Walking along Broadway in NYC Thursday afternoon, I was immediately drawn to a window display. At first, I thought “gorgeous glass sculpture”, but then looked closer. I was actually staring at water bottles filled with colored water - genius!
After creating our tutorial on making bouquets, we thought it might be helpful to show how to make a centerpiece. We are going to show two different types of centerpieces. The first is a very casual centerpiece, appropriate for a rehearsal dinner or relaxed reception. The second is a more compact and constructed centerpiece, for a more elegant or modern reception. Enjoy the tutorial!
First, start with all of your containers. Add any ribbons all at once to get the most consistency in design. Fill each container with water at this point as well.
In the last few months, we’ve printed letterpress wedding invitations for several couples with a somewhat unusual request - letterpress printing RSVP information on the outer envelope flap in lieu of a return address. It’s always interesting (and fun!) to see trends in wedding invitations develop and this is one I have to admit that I love! Not only is it more eco-friendly, but it’s also a great idea for any couple looking to shave a few bucks off their invitation costs. Eco-friendly and wallet-friendly? Sign me up! It’s such an easy and simple way to make an impact on the amount of paper you’re using, but it also saves money on the cost of the reply card/postcard and postage. Not convinced? Check out these that we’ve recently printed, they are just as chic as a traditional reply card -
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