Hi everyone! Christen here with part 2 of my NSS wrap-up (check here for part 1 where I discuss trends in stationery design). For the second half I want to take a look at a few trends in the actual construction of invitations, going beyond the pocketfold and plain white 80# cardstock to create something that truly stands out and …

I was fortunate enough to attend Tuesday of the National Stationery Show at the Javits Center in NYC. If you didn’t happen to see recaps or posts about it anywhere else in the blog-o-sphere, it’s where hundreds of vendors from around the country come and display their products/work for people in the industry–buyers, reps, etc.

There were pretty envelope liners, bright …

As I previously posted, our invitations went out last month and we have been receiving a steady stream of RSVP cards. As I was going through the pictures of the assembly process, it makes it look easy. Trust me, it was very intense and not the easiest invitations I have put together! (This is my fifth set of invites designing …

That’s the question we’ve found ourselves faced with this weekend. After a whirlwind week, leaving town unexpectedly after the loss of a family member, and dealing with a very new emotion: grief… the dust settled and we realized… we still have to make this wedding happen. My countdown widget on my Mac Dashboard reads…*GULP*… 47 days. I suppose it’s time …

We may have a bit of a curse that surrounds us.

The restaurant where we met 2 years ago – gone out of business
The restaurant where we had our first official date – gone out of business
The bar we had our engagement party at – burned down (that one really hurt me and my social life)

I have told Jeremy that …

For budgeting purposes and for the sake of my sanity we decided to do a website “invitation” for everyone and have them RSVP via email. Well, that idea was vetoed.

In a last minute scramble I scoured the internet for invitations that were us, matched our wedding style and didn’t cost loads of money.

I was so happy to find these invitations …

I realized that I never even got to show you our Chinese invitations! They were definitely a challenge, but I am pretty pleased with how they came out!

The boy’s parents are not fluent in English, and many of our guests speak Cantonese, so we had the invitation translated (you can see it above.) I do not know Chinese, …

Our invitations are officially out and RSVPs have already started coming in! My mom, bridesmaid Julie, and I created the whole thing by ourselves so it was definitely a labor of love. Here’s a look at the final package!

Note to other brides: if designing and printing invitations yourself, do NOT print the RSVP cards first. When it was taking longer …

For the longest time I told myself that we would not have letterpress invitations, even though I love letterpress printing. I once had a fleeting dream to go back to school for book arts, but then decided I couldn’t stomach the tuition for art school. I chose library school instead. Books are still involved, but unfortunately no presses or ink or double-sided tape for me. [Random geeky fact un-related to weddings, did you know there is such a profession as a book arts librarian?]

When searching for the perfect invites…I We knew we wanted something fun and unique that would also portray the country-rustic feel of our wedding.  I searched high and low…aka Etsy and wedding blogs :)

What did we ultimately pick?

The Heartland Invite from Hello Lucky!

The invite is on the left, and the front of the RSVP postcard on the top right, and …

Designing my own invitations was undoubtedly the most daunting and time-consuming DIY activity thus far.  Prior to assuming the responsibility myself, I perused hundreds of invitation templates, online and in-person, searching for the following criteria: simple, concise, personal, one-page (green), my colors (kraft-paper-brown and silver), travel-themed, rich, and affordable.  During that time, I found a lot of what I was looking …

I realized I haven’t posted pictures of our invitations yet! And I wasn’t even paranoid about wedding crashers. Anywho, I really wanted letterpress invitations more than anything else and it was my big splurge. But really, not that bad. I used someone local, Jenny Barry from Press Charming, and I brought in some art nouveau books I’d bought to try …