ordering samples!

Today's post is all about our wedding invites!! We finally sat down and started talking about them today and it seems that while the future hubby is happy to make decisions like "the sideways pocketfold or the length way pocketfold?" or "dark grey or silver?", I'm pretty much being given a lot of space to make our invites with whatever vision I have in mind. Which is cool! Because I've totally fallen in love with invites that look like pretty little bundles of love letters...

Exhibit A:


[source 1, 2, 3, 4]

I also really love the colour scheme of this invite suite and have had this saved for inspiration for some time. I like that the grey gives it a masculine base, while the peachy colour gives it a girliness. We would work in either blush and/or lavender as our invite colours, with a grey or silver base.

[source]
(apparently I really like the work of ruby and willow!)

So with this kind of look in mind today, we (well actually I) started thinking about how to put this look together. The future hubby has always liked the idea of an invite that had to be opened, and this was one of the original ideas he liked:

[source]

Today we decided against the sleeve (since we didn't think all the additional info would really fit well in there!) and try some pocketfolds. We ordered some samples from Cards and Pockets so that we can decide whether we prefer the dark grey colour or the silver, the longer pocketfold or the shorter. I think right now we are leaning towards the shorter in the dark grey, but it will all depend on when we see them!

[source]

[source]

I also found these lovelies on Etsyto use when the invite is all folded up:

[source]

And to keep in with the rustic look that the future hubby liked for our centrepiece style, I love the idea of tying everything in place with some brown twine and some of these beauties:

[source]

So that's the ideas we have so far, for the outer look and feel of our invites. The inside we plan to design and print ourselves, I might even be adventurous enough to try out the Letter Press machine I found a while back! But we'll come to that bridge soon enough! Today it was exciting enough to order some samples and get an idea of what we want our invites to look like. I feel like the 'theme' of our wedding is becoming clearer and clearer with every decision we make! I hope it all works out beautifully!

What do you guys think so far? I would love some feedback! And how did you guys go about/are you going about your invitation decisions? Was your future hubby as hands on as you or a little more laid back but happy to help with decisions?

ooooh shiny!

Yep, a new layout...well, it's temporary for the moment, until I design a pretty new banner and what not...but for now it will do. A little more customised, a little less cookie-cutter. Feeling better already!

So! Wedding related stuff...where to start...

First of all, I should probably note that I made the CD I was talking about in the previous post. I made the mistake of putting our father/daughter dance on there. It came on, on my way to work yesterday. I got all teary. *pathetic*...*grin*

Second of all, I've been looking at photographers for a while now - checking out websites, trying to find photographers who suit the style I'm after (photojournalism, natural light photography...aka "pretty, washed out, vintage looking photos". Technical term that one!). It's proved surprisingly difficult as most of the people I have found are interstate, or out of our price range. The first photographer whose work I completely fell in love with is sadly not taking on any weddings after April 2012. *cries* Her work is amazing though, if anyone wants to take a look - Christine @ Pobke Photography.

She was kind enough to recommend a friend of hers, Kelly Tunney. Again, beautiful work. Sadly, not available on our date.

I've stumbled across a number of photographers since then, in fact I found one today that I have just emailed for further information. But tomorrow I am meeting with a lovely photographer based up the Central Coast. Her name is Sandra Henri and her blog can be found here. Unfortunately, given that she works as a freelance photographer she hasn't been able to include any weddings on her blog as yet (as the blog is for her personal photography company), but this is one of the reasons I'm going to see her tomorrow - to see some of her wedding work and see if our visions fit. We've had some lovely email chats and she mentioned how very excited she was during our first exchange, to hear that what I was looking for was the style she likes to do so...*fingers crossed!*

Other then that, I have mostly spent time playing around with some monograms! It's been great fun and there are a number of great free ones out there. I'm still going to muck around with my Photoshop and see what I come up with on my own, but I thought I would share a few of the free ones I have made so far. All of these images were created from The Wedding Chicks website, however I'll hotlink each monogram, in case you want to go straight to it! (Yes, this post is about to get rather picture heavy)

I'd love to hear what you guys think about these! I'm going to put together a page and then show the future hubby, so that he's got a range to look at. Already there are some that just won't make the cut, because they aren't even remotely close to our wedding theme...but they were still fun to play with. Of course, the difficult thing in creating a post-marriage monogram for the future hubby and I, is that his last name is french. And therefore has 2 initials, rather then just the 1. Some monograms only offered the option of one letter...and while the 2 letters with our first name initials look odd, sometimes just the L on its own looks odd too...so I'll keep playing. But which one do you guys like the best so far?! And have any of you also had trouble making monograms with your initials?

Sources:1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
So far I think the last one is my favourite...although I do like the "L" version of the 'vintage', and also the 'fancy' one!