Passion Project: Building a Wedding Invitation
What kind of rabbit hole is this?
People DIY their weddings all the time. Many get wedding planners to help them with some of the intricacies. But, there are countless stories all over the web of fiancées choosing to get their own hands dirty, especially when it comes to the invitations. In fact, many a professional calligrapher was born from DIYing the calligraphy for their weddings.
I wish one of them had mentioned that this stuff is not as easy as they make it look.
Whenever I start a project, I aim to learn something from it. But, some projects have more to offer than others.
This wedding invitation project would be ‘some’.
Fortunately, I found material online to help get an idea of what all is involved in putting together a wedding invitation.
I stumbled across The Design a Wedding Invitation Suite at Kalli Camp Academy just clicking around on Instagram. This series caught my eye because it promised to stop me from turning down inquiries. I’ve done it a couple times. But, in a perfect world, I run through a process myself before I do it for someone else. This class was a really good start to getting my feet wet!
The class had a few components…
Wedding Invitation Design
One was design-related. I was happy to find an online class that went through the steps of designing an invitation suite. It included tutorials on a watercolor crest, layouts, and sending items to a printer. I had the skills for that. Although I followed along digitally for this one, the nuts and bolts of designing an invite went as you might expect. In mine, I included a border made of a cartouche (now those things are spicy!) to see what that could look like.
Another bit of information I needed was the etiquette.
Wedding Invitation Etiquette
Things get really hairy here.
Etiquette involves things like what goes into an invitation suite, how you word everything, etc.
To me, it seems a calligrapher getting the etiquette incorrect for an invitation is like going to a party, smiling wide at everyone, not knowing you have broccoli stuck between your teeth.
I wouldn’t want to do it.
The video briefly discussed some principles of wording for formal versus casual invites. It was a good start. I’ve since found some other resources too.
Check these out:
In an invitation, everything gets spelled out. I’m even wondering about the “EST.” in my crest. 😳
I used “request the pleasure of your company” since it’s likely to be a celebration rather than a wedding. I felt we could be a little less formal since it won’t be in a church.
I was also surprised by the dress code in the bottom right hand corner. I’ve been to quite a few weddings in my lifetime and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that on any invitation.
In my invite, I used Loblolly Acres as the location because it’s beautiful.
There are other places in Delaware that would make a beautiful backdrop for a wedding celebration as well. But, it was the first one that really got me dreaming after we got married. ❤️
Printing
The last segment of the series had to do with printing. I haven’t watched that yet because this is just a mock trial of a suite. I can print this at home and see how that goes. But, it was still worth the price of admission to get the details on how to do it.
All things considered, I thought this was a good start to a design. But, it only makes me want to go further down that rabbit hole.
I find it all just way too…inviting. 😂
