About a year ago, my partner and I were married (the day of our 10 year anniversary!). We wanted to keep costs down, so we got my dress second hand, found local independent photographers, and did whatever else we could ourselves. One thing I knew I could do (and also really wanted to do!) was design and print my own invitations.
October is Spring here in Australia, so I wanted to use daffodil motifs in all of the stationery. They are my favourite flower, and I had them in my bouquet and on my cake as well. I wanted something simple, so it didn’t take too long to come up with a design. I was pretty happy with how the invitations and other stationery turned out.
A few months later, my dad would be preparing to get married too. As a wedding gift I offered to take care of the design stuff – because it was a small wedding, all that was required were digital invitations, a Facebook banner, and gift tags for the favours. It was the least I could do, since his wife-to-be, Mary-Anne, was the florist for my own wedding!
Mary-Anne had a pretty good idea of the look and feel she wanted for the designs. We were going with a rustic botanical theme. I used the same process as I had begun to develop for use with my clients, and so we started with noting down keywords and elements she wanted, and then looking for inspiration and making a Pintrest mood board.
A short while later, I came back to her with a selection of 3 invitations, incorporating different fonts, shapes, and colours. After several tweaks based on the feedback I got, I came up with a final draft.
After the exact design has been locked in, I got to work on making the images ready for print and digital use. I purchased the succulent illustrations here so that I could use the high-quality motifs for the final product. I also made a matching Facebook banner and favour card design, featuring some of the elements that didn’t make it into the invitations.
I was so happy to have helped the newest member of my family, and to also have another great finished project to add to my portfolio (after tweaking some personal info). Mary-Anne loved the results, and told me that they had come out exactly as she’d imagined!