Wedding Invitations: Rustic Flowers for My Best Friend

Designing rustic wedding invitations for my best friend.

I designed my best friend's Save the Dates in April 2012, and had the honor of creating her wedding invitations as well!

Jill's great. We attacked these invites together, creating a joint Pinterest board to share styles we liked, highlighting different fonts, colors, layouts, etc. I can't stress enough how wonderful Pinterest is for collaborative projects such as these.

It was clear what Jill liked: script fonts but with rustic imagery. Her wedding was outside, so she didn't want to over-formalize the occasion with stuffy invitations. I found the Angel Tears font and EUREKA!  I knew it would strike the perfect balance.

At first, I was afraid that the color combination we landed on was too summery, but it turned out to be the perfect transition, as her wedding day had fall colors as its backdrop, with the 80 degrees of a summer day.

Jill and I went back and forth on the "Heck Yeah!" RSVP option, but in the end, it felt more appropriate for the couple to include it. This wedding was just going to be too much fun.

The small website tag was tied around each invitation with twine, adding to the outdoorsy nature of the invitations.

Nice touch, no? I got a ton of compliments on these babies, and I couldn't be happier that some of my best work was for my best friend.

Photo by Amber Engfer Photography.

Wedding Invitations: Blue and Orange Tulip

Designing blue and orange invitations for my sister.

Dealing with the wedding planning for my sister's nuptials was, at times, trying. (We won't mention how my normally calm, cool & collected mother turned into a crazy momzilla in the 11th hour... different story for a different time.) But my sister hates planning things that she doesn't care about. That would include anything related to weddings except the booze and food.

This is how a typical conversation with my sister would go:

Me: "Hey Amanda! Did you want me to help with your invites?"
Amanda: "Uhhh.... sure."
Me: "Okay! What do you want them to look like?"
Amanda: "Blue."
Me: "Blue... anything else?"
Amanda: "Nope, just blue. Nothing too fancy."
Me: "Do you want them to be modern or rustic or..."
Amanda: "Blue."

It was like pulling teeth. While it's great to have creative freedom, it's terrifying to design something for someone's big day with absolutely no direction.

My attempt was to keep things simple and clean, like my no-fuss sister. Her favorite flowers are tulips, her wedding colors were blue (did you catch that earlier?) and orange, and she didn't want them to be "too fancy," which led to the inspiration for the design. Here's where I landed:

My sister claimed that she liked them, which is probably the most glowing review that I could ever expect from her.

Pro tip: Square invitations are actually more expensive to send. Something about not being easy for the postal machines to sort them. This sounds crazy to me, but I don't make the rules. You have been warned.