If you followed my wedding plans, you know there’s nothing I love more than custom illustrations. They add a level of personal flair and uniqueness that truly befits a wedding. We had custom drawings done for our save the dates, our invitations, and even for our maps and thank you cards (more to come on those later) - but if I could go back and do it again (or run into a future project that could use our cartoon likenesses), I’d have Sara from Stinkerpants Celebrations do something for us, too!

I love her sunny style and rich, colorful backgrounds! All her characters have tons of personality infused with the classic Stinkerpants touch. She makes a point of including little things that help define a couple’s style, and I love how quirky and sweet all of the designs are! Ultrafly!

Check out this cutesypie Venice themed Save the Date

Or this feast for the eyes tri-fold invitation - aren’t the settings the sweetest?

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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 and figure out a design. Jenny sent me back so many possibilities and this is what we finally decided on!

We got a 5×7 invitation with a postcard size reply card (saved on postage for the envelope and the reply! One regular 44 cent stamp was enough for the invitation (we liked the king & queen so that worked out) and we used polar bear postcard stamps for the postcards (not my favorite but we didn’t really have an option and the colors didn’t clash).

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Got our save the dates in already! Not sending them out until January, but I won a contest and had to get them printed by the end of September. One less thing to worry about!

On the left is the original, and then on the right is the final version after I used the corner punch (Fiskars “something old, something new”, purchased with my michael’s coupon of course!)

My mom did the drawing! The orange tree was meant to play off the whole Spain thing. I love what she did and I love the fact that my mom designed it!!

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I am so excited today to partner with the wonderful letterpress shop Don’t Press Me to give away 75 sets of letterpress invitations!

The lucky winner will receive 75 one-color letterpress invitations and reply cards, printed on 100% cotton paper by Don’t Press Me.

So how can you win? First, click on over to the Don’t Press Me site to see some of their fabulous custom design work and drool over what you have the chance to win. Then come back here and tell us in the comments why you love letterpress but aren’t able to fit it into your wedding budget. Don’t Press Me will choose one lucky and deserving winner to receive 75 sets of custom letterpress invitations.  Contest closes Friday Nov 6th at 12pm central.

And for extra credit, follow @dontpressme on twitter and link to this post. Don’t forget to @dontpressme and @amiatead in your tweet!

Good luck!
E.

Last you heard, I was making the tough decision of deciding how many bridesmaids I should have, 2 or 11.  Well, we (my fiance and I) decided on all 11, and we’re sticking to it and very happy with our decision.

I wanted to ask my bridesmaids in a special way, and found so much inspiration on wedding blogs  it was hard to choose.   But when I stumbled upon a fantastic post about Elise’s Envelope Pockets, I knew I wanted to do the same, but different :).  Again, I am so thankful that I don’t have to re-invent the wheel but rather just refurbish it to suit my own taste.  Thank goodness for wedding blogs!

The front of the Envelope Pockets.  It looks like I have a pretty equal showing of blondes and brunettes!

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The Save the Date dilemma is over! Hooray!!

Of course you remember my incessant indecision, here and here regarding our save the dates. I promise this is the last you will hear about it.

After pulling my hair out over which “look” to go for, I finally came to and realized that most people who will receive these won’t think twice about them.  Our guests won’t care if they match the style of wedding we were going for or if they were the coolest piece of mail that they have ever received.  Why spend another few weeks mulling over them?

With that, I went online and ordered our save the dates!   We decided to go with the Wedding Paper Divas “Park Bench” style.  It was fun, non-DIY and completely us.

{Wedding Paper Divas}

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I’m a huge admirer of the gorgeous stationery that Heather, the creative genius behind Maida Vale, creates.  Maida Vale has recently relaunched their website and Heather shared some photos of her collection!

{Punctual}

{Bloom}

{Wren}

All of the designs are available in both offset and letterpress printing.  So what are you waiting for? Run and go visit Maida Vale’s new site - full of eye candy galore!

E.

As promised here are some photos of the new Papeterie studio. We are so excited to finally have a place where customers can come and sort through samples, give us their feedback, and interact with us one-on-one to create the perfect stationery item! Our studio is located in Monterey Park, California, about 15 minutes from Downtown Los Angeles. We welcome anyone who is interested in learning more out Papeterie to stop by. You can browse our various products and designs and even see how our antique letterpress works.

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{via Heart of Light}

Rachel of Heart of Light created these corsage pins for her Etsy Shop (aren’t they beautiful!?)

Don’t you think that these would make great escort cards?  This could be the start of a new project for me!

So it must be Save the Date week at EAD, I believe I am the third blogger this week to present hers!

I toyed with the idea of magnets, CDs and finally settled on postcards b/c honestly, it was easy.  I’ve been working like crazy lately and traveling nearly every weekend to visit my fiance in Texas (I am in DC), so I’ve had very little time to brainstorm.  But last weekend, I went to my faithful google reader and searched “save the date” ideas in the months worth of entries I had starred.  I came across a STD that I adored - totally urban, artistic, minimalistic and chic - precisely the vibe I was going for (and I am now hitting myself in the head as I can’t find my inspiration and I totally owe credit to it, so when I find it again, I will post it).   So I took my original inspiration but altered it and added personal elements and our fabulous photo from our engagement session with Missy in photoshop to suit our needs, and voila, this is what I came up with.   There was just no time to re-invent the wheel this late in the game.

Front:

Back:

I then ordered 100 postcards for ONLY $28 at www.printsmadeasy.com.  Unbelievable value.  I should get them by Friday so hopefully they turn out great!

The weeks leading up to your wedding are impossibly busy.  I was pretty organized throughout the process but between designing our programs, creating menu cards and printing escort cards, free time was hard to come by the last few weeks.  Oh and don’t forget about making sure all gifts were purchased and cards written.  And that there was a detailed timeline of the day.  Or, if you’re us, a detailed timeline of the 5-day event starting Wednesday.   Regardless, doing these projects myself made our wedding a labor of love and I enjoyed pouring myself into every last detail.

I always knew I wanted a Blurb guestbook.  My main goal was to create something that Matt and I would want to keep, not just a pretty book with the signatures of our loved ones.  So I pulled out that box that most of us gals have - you know, the box filled with ticket stubs, receipts and cards that you aren’t sure what you’ll do with but one day -  yep, that’s the one.  I uploaded all of our personal memories into Blurb and voila - our guestbook!

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After the church and reception venue were booked and the date was set, it was time to think about our Save the Dates.  Matt and I were talking one night and decided that we wanted to create a map chronicling the paths we each took to find each other and where we are now.  We both went off to college, moved across the country after graduation, and met as two midwestern kids in NYC before getting engaged and moving to Memphis. And now we were planning a wedding in Louisville. Whew.  It wears me out to just write it.  I mentioned our idea on Pretty Bride and soon Laura Hooper came to the rescue.

Our save the dates were a hit!  Now, it was on to invitations. Early on in the process I decided that I wanted us to create the invitations ourselves. Please note that I am not a graphic designer or a craft-maker extraordinaire. However, this seemed like something we could do and a great way to save some money that I could use on something else.

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