In this article I want to highlight the reasons and advantages of choosing custom wedding stationery and in what ways it differs completely from ready-made wedding invitations.
As planner of bespoke weddings I want your wedding in Italy to be an experience, full of meaning and special details and and that’s why I think wedding stationery can’t be minor detail. So please, grab yourself a cup of tea and let’s get right into it!
1 – Make it personal!
It almost seems obvious to say, but the point is personalisation!! Custom invitations will always look more elegant and significant than ready-made. Ready-made invitations require little more effort than filling in the blanks to add your information. That’s fine for a birthday party, but don’t you think a wedding is an occasion that deserves a little more?
All of the invitation suites you see in this post were created specifically for events we planned and I love how each one styled the event to perfection!
2 - Set the Tone
Ready-made invitations set a very casual tone that is usually out of place for most weddings. Even if you are planning a laid-back celebration or an informal micro-wedding, it still deserves particular attention in small but significant details such as the invitation announcing this very special occasion.
While custom invitations require a bit of forward-planning to place the order, it’s surely well worth it. And you’ll have wedding invitations that you’ll be proud to send.
So you have decided on the style of your dress, you have a clear idea of your colour theme for your flowers and wedding decor, how can you know weave the same ideas effortlessly through your wedding invitations? For sure, hiring a wedding stationery designer can guide you through while making the best suggestions along the way.
A professional wedding stationery designer can suggest the right modifications and offer all the colour options, getting the colour palette right really is the key to a coherently and stylishly designed paper suite!
There are a wide range of papers including luxury handmade textured papers, soft transparent vellums, heavy weight cards…the possibilities really are endless.
Choosing custom stationery has its cost, but relying on a professional always has its pros; Dealing with a professional wedding stationery designer lets you fine-tune your design and achieve the best possible results, offering cost-saving tips or expert advise for luxury elements, creating completely original artwork and design your wedding invitations from scratch.
Perhaps you would like to have a drawing or a watercolour piece of your wedding venue? if yours is going to be a destination wedding and want something very unique to mark your big day a drawing of the location or a map would be a really special touch, don’t you think?
n. 3 - Map, info & details…all that makes it unique!
Your custom designed wedding stationery can say more about your style and your event than 1000 words.
Tailor-made invitations should encapsulate your personality and style as a couple. A custom wedding stationery can talk about your love story, your personalities, your interests and should repic your wedding vibe and décor to create iconic designs that are truly meaningful to you.
Using hand made details, quality paper, the best possible lettering and utilising complimentary colours all contribute towards the creation of an appealing invitation. These items should scream “Come to my wedding, it’s going to be an exclusive and classy event designed as you’ve never experienced before!”
And in a destination wedding in Italy this is even more important! Your custom wedding stationery can give a glimpe on your wedding location through eye-catching designs and maps, details and info that will immediately catch the curiosity of your guests. All this is actually unachievable with a ready-made stationery, don’t you think?
A professional wedding stationery designer have the ability to come up with original ideas and put your vision and style literally on paper. You’ll always have a say in how the design is coming along and you can keep an eye on the project in its various steps. Your special day will look amazing right from the invitation, just as you envisioned it!
4 – Heirlooms to cherish
This ties into the above points! custom wedding stationery is by its very nature beautiful, unique and timeless heirlooms you and your guests will treasure forever – they’ll be kept and even framed as a tangible reminder of your special day and not immediately forgotten in a corner. It will be nice for you to keep it in the photo album as well as for your guests to preserve it as a cherished memory. This is why I always suggest to our couples to bring a complete set to be photographed on the wedding day, it is an important detail not to be overlooked!
5- Leave it to the pros
Officially lost when it comes to wedding etiquette and mailing times? Relax, take a deep breath because a professional wedding stationery designer can definetly help with this! A custom invitation designer is a resourceful person to use and can give you timely tips and advice when needed.
And if you’re one of those people who thinks you can save a buck or two by DIY or who all things considered thinks you can manage on your own, the reality is that most people only have some basic knowledge of what creating a wedding invitation takes.
Collecting all necessary materials and choosing the right words is merely the first step in a much larger process. Your invitations will have to be designed, tested out with text, printed, mounted on card stock, wax sealed and packaged. Don’t forget about the huge amount of materials that you need to buy to create them, especially if you want it to be original and unique. Clearly, this is going to require both a lot of time and plenty of attention.
If you are planning to jet set off to a destination wedding you need to have your Save the Dates ready and send them out at least 6 months before the actual event takes place, so that your guests can book their tickets early!
Working with a professional guarantees that you won’t have to scramble for a fix at a moment’s notice. This makes the whole planning process much lighter on your end, saving you time that you can spend planning other details!
“Meet the expert”
And just because I think it is essential to rely on a pro graphic designer, I wanted to ask Aurora of AucaDesign, with whom we have a wonderful collaboration for years, a couple of questions:
– What is your approach and how does each new project come to life?
Aurora: “A 100% bespoke wedding stationery is based on first step on comparison between clients and graphic designer: the client could be the couple or the wedding planner but in both cases I usually collect their inspirations, the mood and style of the event, the color palette, venue informations and above all the feel the couple would like to spread throughout their stationery. In my vision the bride and groom’s unique personality should be included in the invitation they will send to their guest, and this invitation should be totally customized on them and on their wedding day.
After the first inspirations-collecting step, I elaborate the moodboard in my personal vision to draw the first project layout; from the client’s feedbacks I will understand if I already succeed in achieving the perfect stationery for them or if I’ll have to manage some revisions on my drafts.
It’s a path of mutual comparison, and probably that’s exactly the winning point!”
– What are the current trends?
Aurora: “I don’t love to follow current trends at all, because in my vision trends are fleeting and can’t always represent the couple’s personality.
Anyway it’s important to have an eye on current trends in order to develop them in a unique and personal way; I actually see that couples are increasingly looking for a totally bespoke wedding stationery, rich of venue illustrations or their love story timeline illustrations, customized maps, or wedding crests. On the other side there’s a return to minimalism, a modern one, with a creative use of colors: finally we can skip the white paper as the key element, in favor of more vivid, informal, fun and bright palettes, often using whole set of coloured cards.
In my path I would like to join custom illustrations with the colourful modern trend, in order to create truly unique projects.
I think that after covid pandemic there will be such desire to celebrate and consequently an explosion of colors… and I can’t wait!”
So in conclusion why should you decide for a custom wedding stationery? Because your wedding is a celebration of your love and every aspect of the event should reflect this with beauty and originality.