Beach Wedding Invitations

As I mentioned yesterday, my sister-in-law is getting married in Florida. I was lucky enough to design her invitations for her!

During the design phase, I was incredibly busy with work and she was beginning graduate school, so we had no time to get together to discuss a plan. We did everything via e-mail and text.

Her only request was "brown, blue, and a palm tree." I suggested adding coral to lighten things up. I sent her a few beach designs from real designers to get some perspective on her asthetic. She loved this invitation from Ceci New York.

Image: Ceci New York

Unfortunately, that beautiful rattan paper was nowhere to be found. My printer could get it for me for the price of a full invitation suite ($800). I finally figured out the right keywords and found it online, but it would have been $200 + expedited shipping, so it was out of the question.

I actually really, really struggled with a design for this project. I'm not really a beach person and couldn't let myself just toss a palm tree on a card and call it a design -- and, believe me, I tried. Poor Andy must have voted on 30 different configurations of cards with palm trees moved one millimeter. I needed something sassier. Since her wedding's taking place at a resort near Palm Beach, Florida, I had the Kennedys on the brain and, as a result, couldn't get preppy rattan furniture out of my head. So, I combined my kitsch with her beach to come up with this logo:

Thankfully, she liked it! Here's the final product:

My printer had the EXACT number of envelopes needed in the most perfect blue-green color.

The color is not-quite-Paper Source Pool, so I got lucky finding these few envelopes at the printer.

The Latin Jazz stamps were perfect

for my jam band sister-in-law and drummer brother-in-law to be.

Andy's mom liked them almost as much as the envelopes.

Image: USPS

I used wrap-around labels. Even though they're twice the work,

I'd rather sit and cut and glue for two hours than sit still and write neatly for one hour.

 I lined the envelopes in papaya-colored paper from Paper Source.

The front page of the invite.

 The full invite. I did not intend to use the tri-fold design again,

it just sort of happened due to time and expense.

I was really behind schedule on this project, so I didn't have time to cut things myself.

Paying the printer to cut for me wouldn't have been cost-efficient for 25 invitations.

The back of the postcard.

Thankfully, she didn't want a map or any other details included on the back. Thank God. I hate maps. From what I hear, the invites are getting good reviews. I feel so much more pressure to do well because I know that Andy's family tells people that I'm into this stuff.

I'm about to ship some tote bags, schedules, and menu/place cards down to Florida tomorrow morning. I'll share those projects next week so that I don't ruin any surprises for the wedding guests.