Hawaiian Wedding Reception Stationery

While working on these day-of stationery pieces to coordinate with the invitation suite we created, I couldn't help but imagine what a beautiful wedding this will be. I can't wait to see the professional pictures. Kauai is already so beautiful, and I'm sure the Princeville Resort is equally as exquisite, and it just happens to be taking place on my birthday. We were lucky enough to contribute a few little pieces to that beauty: menus, hanging programs, escort cards, favor donation tags, and table numbers. Perhaps the most important are the escort cards, which not only show guests where they're seated, but each guest's meal choice is identified with a different symbol. The palm leaf signified a vegetarian dish, a flower for chicken, and a fish for fish of course. This is a budget friendly idea when doing a seated plate because it eliminates the need for place cards, while still serving a purpose to the wait staff.

Thanks again Jessica, and congratulations to you and your growing family.

Tree Horoscope Accordion Programs

This sweet bride was the guest at one of my previous client's weddings and fell in love with the programs. So much in love, that we started working on them a good nine months before the wedding. I love brides who plan early.

The traditional accordion folded programs are enhanced with a stitched paper pocket that hold a foldout tree horoscope. Your guests look up their birthday and corresponding tree and it gives them their supposed personality traits. The original bride who used these found it on Martha Stewart weddings, but we were able to modify the design to fit with all the other program wording.

In case you were wondering, I'm a hornbeam tree, which has the qualities "good taste, not egotistical, looks for kindness and acknowledgement, makes life as comfortable as possible, and mistrusts most people."

Destination Wedding Accordion Programs

I have to admit that while I was making these beach-inspired wedding programs, I was wishing for my own vacation. This wedding is taking place on a white sandy beach in the Dominican Republic. How beautiful is that? And how jealous am I? The bride like the papaya color of the Kerry program, but wanted the band to be a little more "beachy" feeling. So, I used a pool backer and printed the couple's names on lemon-lime laid cardstock. The textured lines of the paper along with the free form stitching give it that laid-back beach feel.

Congratulations to Courtney and Jon! May your wedding day be all you envisioned and more.

Flash Back

As we enter into the new year, I can't help but reflect on where this business started and of course plan for its future. I thought I'd post these classic and elegant wedding stationery pieces that were my first paying non-family or friend client. There were 250 guests and it was a bit of a rush order, so I called in all reinforcements and quickly learned the kindness of my friends and family. My husband was even trained to thread the ribbon for these escort cards. I'm a lucky girl. Thanks to Katie and Frank for trusting a rookie with your paperie.

adopted home

Often times when I ship my programs or wedding day creations, it's a troubling experience. I spend hours making each one by hand and then in an instant they're gone, and to be honest, I kind of miss them. I'm thankful to those brides and photographers that send me pictures of their day. Not only do I get to see my online clients and see if my mental pictures actually match the real them, but I get to see my work in its intended home, which is always better than my little studio.

Here is a picture courtesy of Taek Photography from one of those real weddings. You might remember it as the Marmivon wedding post. For more pictures of this beautiful wedding, visit the planner's website here.

Shabby Chic meets Florida

This fun project was for a destination wedding in Florida. The bride specified tiffany blue and pink with a shabby chic vibe, and a hint of coral. Every time the hubs came in my studio, he held up this sample and commented how much he liked this one and how it made him think of Florida. (Maybe there are some secret font memories there, hmmm.)

late summer flowers

Shana's wedding inspiration came from the idea of late summer flowers. Living in Southern California and being slightly devoid of seasons, I had to do a little research. We ended up doing half the programs in poppy and the other half in strawberry (Paper Source colors). All of the programs feature a bronze band with a golden yellow diamond stitch. These programs had a deadline that coincided with a little family getaway up to the in-laws in Santa Cruz County, so these were my first travelling programs. They made the journey perfectly, and I even got to visit a different post office. There's just something about friendly post office workers that makes the shipment part of my job quite lovely.

Chandelier Inspiration

The planner behind My Bride Story came across my Etsy site and it turned out to be a perfect match to create the wedding programs for her latest wedding taking place at the Marmivon in Los Angeles. She emailed this picture, and I took the design from there. I love the way the chartreuse, curry, and orange & yellow thread colors work together. (Not to mention it was fun working with a fellow mom.)

farm fans

Maggie and Steven are lucky enough to get married on her family's farm, so they chose a rustic, but still chic pallette of kraft brown, chocolate, green, and ivory. The covers are stitched with chocolate thread in a freehand curve to accent the circle cutout.

August in Missouri...hopefully these fans help to cool the guests down so they can enjoy what I'm sure will be a beautiful wedding. Congrats and best of wishes to my "farm" couple. (I secretly nickname every bride by the way...always something nice though)

Hand Model

I've always told my sweet husband that he would be the perfect hand model, and look who finally got the chance.

A Little Blog Love

My Lotus flower invitations were featured on the Inventing Weddings blog as part of their Georgia Peach post. This is a beautiful blog for wedding color combination ideas and inspiration, all found on Etsy.

J Crew Wedding

http://laviephotography.blogspot.com/2009/07/kerry-michael.html

Hey look. Those are my programs. : ) This wedding was straight out of a J Crew ad, and I feel lucky to have been a little part of it.

Papaya and Navy

I had a lot of color choices for this wedding, but the bride left the design in my hands, and this was the final creation.

Papaya, navy and light blue work well for this latest Etsy client.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=26495255

what's black, white and red?

...Melissa's wedding programs. Not really "red" all over, but just a little bit of red stitching to compliment the black linen cardstock and white shimmer band. After a nice long weekend away, it was back to work, and here's the result.