Invitations: A Labor of Love...

As you all know, I'm professionally a graphic designer who loves a great layout and lovely typography. I also do wedding invitations and reception print items as a side business, so it was only natural to go the DIY route for my own invitations.

Here are the results:

They're offset printed with 2 pantone inks.. one was a metallic burnt orange, and the other was a very deep dark chocolate. I used a gocco to add another color to the main invitation, a leafy branch in gold. It was printed on Textured ESSE Latte paper.

I chose a 6x9 inch gatefold pocket style invitation from my gatsby (Classic Metallic Ecru), with a main invitation card and the center, and the pocket filled with 3 enclosure cards of succeeding heights, and a bonus map on vellum paper of the area that I drew myself in illustrator. The invite cards were made using Esse Textured cardstock in Latte. I didnt go with the metallic version b/c i wanted there to be a contrast in the paper type since the colors were the same. The vellum was a white vellum that my printer found cheap for me.

The enclosure cards consisted of the RSVP, Directions, and an Info card that contains nearby attractions, Airports, hotels, and registry details.

Some added superfluous touches are the sash made of vellum, ribbon, and cardstock, and a lined envelope (liner printed on vellum). I went ahead and had the return address labels offset printed on the back flap of the invitation, as well as the front side of the response envelope. I also got mailing labels done for the addressing. I got them printed on natural white writing weight paper and then ran them through a xyron to make them into labels.

It was a lot of work because I'd chosen so many different components. I certainly kept people busy one sunday afternoon when we all gathered to put this together.

What do you think?