a graphic designer plans a wedding

THE FUSSY DESIGNER IS MOVING!!!

2009-02-28T14:19:00.001-05:00

Visit me at my new home

DIY VOTIVES IN ACTION!

2009-01-25T06:04:00.018-05:00

I'm back and I'll be in action too!

I swear I'm still around. I just haven't blogged since the summer. My wedding planning consumed me and I just neglected the blog, yet I still got so many comments and inquiries about wedding stuff. So yes I'm back and MARRIED! Everything was great, I promise to post more details later. I just wanted to share some pictures of my DIY votives and somewhat semi-DIY centerpieces.

The tall glasses you see in the picture with the candle suspended were from the Christmas tree shops $7.95 I also added water in the bottom of these vases and submerged a floralyte in them.

The other tall lantern-ins pieces were from IKEA for 2.99 Mine look different from the picture because I actually SAWED off the top lantern part. I think it created less a barnyard feeling and one more that was going with my theme.

and then you can see the votives lined up on the table... I did mine all in orange... they didn't emit a whole lot of color but they did give off a nice warm hue...

The rest of my centerpieces were a mix of glassware that was given to me, which I took to a local florist and had her add the roses to them. I was shocked to find out roses the cheapest of flowers out there to use. So orange roses it was.. since I am OBSESSED with orange

So there you have it... my votives in action!

Till next time...

*NOTE* Photos courtesy of Sonia Smith of Saffron Studio

A St. John Wedding menu

2008-08-29T08:18:00.004-04:00

In July, a good friend of mine was married in St John, although I did not attend the wedding I was there in spirit through my designs!

Here is a menu that I designed to coordinate with her tropical theme.

Pictures of my Invitations!

2008-08-29T07:59:00.006-04:00

Here they are!

DIY VOTIVE WRAP TEMPLATE

2008-08-04T08:36:00.006-04:00

votive wraps - Upload a Document to Scribd

Here are 3 templates you can download and print on vellum to adhere to your votives. Note: Votives should be purchased from Michaels, it's a pack of 12, grayish box with a picture of candles on the side of it.

Vellum was purchased from Staples, make sure you pull the vellum tight around the votive and secure with double stick tape.

Michelle's Menus

2008-07-12T00:18:00.005-04:00

Here are Michelle's very regal and rich looking menus. Michelle scoped out a local printer to print in metallic gold ink on her perfect purple paper.

Shaunelle & Will's Wedding details!

2008-07-12T00:01:00.007-04:00

So a few weeks ago I showed a sneak preview of Shaunelle's wedding menus... well here they are in ACTION along with some pictures of their program and their gobo.

On another note, I saw some teaser pictures of the lovely couple on the day of their wedding and they looked FABULOUS!

CONGRATULATION SHAUNELLE AND WILL!!!

Natasha marches along with her DIY Favor Tags!

2008-07-02T20:36:00.003-04:00

So for the past two weeks I have been working with Natasha for her upcoming August wedding. Last week I put together a template for favor tags for her. Tonight Natasha sent me pictures of the finished product! She did a great job putting them together!

my shower invites

2008-06-30T22:54:00.004-04:00

Yes I designed my own bridal shower invites! I'm not big on surprises so I really knew what was going on the whole time.. When my mother asked me to design them first I was hesitant but then I had her treat the situation like one of my knotties.. she showed me a design she liked and I went from there. I LOVE ORANGE so that was a given as far as color went!

For privacy reasons I blurred/deleted a lot of the content. SORRY! But you get the idea... I put together a two sided postcard and printed with vistaprint. The front was the invite part the back was the directions. We even included a cell phone number with the directions for the "day of" if someone got lost!

more designs...

2008-06-30T22:36:00.007-04:00

Lisa Beth's custom firework monogram!

Shaunelle & Will

2008-06-18T17:53:00.004-04:00

Today I received a very special something in the mail. It was a menu card that one of my knotties had printed through vista print. I wanted to share it.

This menu is a two sided, damask menu card. The bride wanted a nice funky pop of color on the plates yet she still wanted something traditional as well to show the mix of her and her fiance's taste.

So here it is :)

Oh and a shout out to Shaunelle and Will in Philadelphia who will be getting married very soon!

More of Shaunelle and Will's designs to come :)

Paper & Diamonds

2008-06-12T18:44:00.006-04:00

How many shades of ivory are there??? I swear I feel like this whole paper process was like choosing a diamond. You would think that given my profession I'd understand paper a bit better... but MY GOODNESS... in the 8 years that I have been designing I have not lingered over paper for so long.

So I arrive at my cheapy store today armed with my 3 different swatches of ivory and explain to the nice man what I am trying to do.. I have my 3 samples spread about.. I'm flipping between a swatch book and I have pulled of the shelf another ivory sample of my paper brand. So as I am explaining that everything has to match and the paper needs to be ivory and not too yellow.. I have a moment, I realize that I have officially become a bit of a bridezilla over paper. So I stop an I say OK just order me this ivory paper in this weight and I promise to not look at my swatch samples anymore once the paper comes in.

So that was it. As my fiance would say.. I finally MANNED UP and made a decision.

In all honesty when I picked out my diamond, it was NOT THIS TOUGH!

Paper Crazy! - My rant...

2008-06-12T09:13:00.003-04:00

Paper is making me crazy lately!

So I am about to order the paper so I can FINALLY start gocco-ing my invites and I have 3 samples here - all SAY they are the SAME color but they are not... Is it a dye lot issue? Honestly I have no clue.. It seems too drastic of a difference to be a dye lot issue but possibly? Needless to say I am losing my mind over this. I have already purchased 100 sheets of my cardstock from a store but after doing more research I have found that a store local to my office has it REALLY CHEAP.. but the colors are different! So...I think I am going to take a ride to this "cheapy" store at lunch.. eat the cost on the other paper I have already bought and order everything from the "cheapy store"

So my tip of the day today is to make sure you ORDER SAMPLES FIRST!!! I always suggest to everyone but here is an example how you can get tripped up if you start buying paper at different places. Research first, purchase later.

What can I do?

2008-06-11T08:39:00.013-04:00

I get this question almost everyday from planning brides..
What can I do to jazz up my invitation kits?

I tell everyone... EMBELLISHMENTS EMBELLISHMENTS EMBELLISHMENTS!

Look at the kit you have... does it have any distinct designs to it?? Flowers, hearts, stripes? I recently helped a bride on my local knot board jazz up her double heart invitation kit. This knottie knew she wanted to add a belly band of some sort.. it ended up being a ribbon in her wedding color (RED)... once she added the ribbon it still didn't seem to be pulled together. The ribbon seemed to be disconnected from the invite, my suggestion to her was to add BLING! Yes RHINESTONES! I told her to take a visit to ejoyce.com which is a great site for purchasing rhinestones and such. So with my suggestion this knottie added two teeny red rhinestones in the same color as her wedding ribbon to her DIY invitation kit. The result? Instant pulled together polished DIY invitation!

Another suggestion I recently gave a bride using the Martha Stewart DIY Kit show below was to add a colored paper punch to the invitation. There seems to be a flower/lace motif going on and this site has fantastic paper punch tools.

So no matter how you do your invitations, kits...diy.. with help from a designer EMBELLISHMENTS HELP!

Finally made decisions!

2008-06-10T23:54:00.003-04:00

Well I haven't posted since last week. I have been slaving over my wedding invitations. I finally made some more decisions regarding fonts and colors... The fonts that everyone voted for won! I just made some tweaks and I think it should be good.

It's getting late now, so I will have to post more this weekend. OR SOONER! Thank you for all of your help.

A designer loses sleep.

2008-06-03T08:33:00.005-04:00

So it's been happening.. I have been officially losing sleep over my wedding designs. Last night I started to look long and hard at my gocco sample of my invite. I love it... but my Fi pointed out that the line withe the date is a little tough to read. So instead of running more tests on the gocco I started investigating other fonts.

My original design incorporated "dearest swash" as the script font but then I started fiddling with "feel script" and I got myself all into a tissy.

I have been RACKING my brain trying to figure out if I stick with the dearest swash and add a little size to the type, in hope it will fix the blurring issue or change the font all together.

Let me know what you think!!!

Presenting.... a DIY Damask place card template!

2008-06-01T11:47:00.006-04:00

damask - Upload a doc

Go ahead, take it and make it your own...
Just open this document in PowerPoint, enter your necessary information and print!

The final size of these cards should be 4.5" x 2" once folded down.

I recommend picking up one of these to help you cut and score (fold) your cards down

Provo Cricut Trimmer 12"

DIY design tip: Let's talk typography

2008-05-29T08:32:00.001-04:00

Websters describes typography as:
1 : letterpress printing 2 : the style, arrangement, or appearance of typeset matter

I describe typography as my favorite thing about design and also the one thing I get frustrated with when I see "bad typography". What makes typography bad? Well to each is their own.. but I tend to live by the words "less is more" when designing that is.

So lets start with FONTS.
Before we start, remember... Less is more..
With that being said when choosing fonts for your DIY pieces try and pick two different fonts. For invitations I like to use a script an non script. Two commonly used "invitation typefaces" are bickham script and copperplate gothic. One thing to keep in mind when laying out your type is that sometimes script fonts can be difficult to read if used too much.

Next...spacing/leading
How your designs are laid out will effect how it's perceived. The spacing between the lines (called leading) is very important it can make or break a design. If the LEADING is too open (spaced out) your design could feel disconnected, if it's too tight it will look clunky... and if everything is EVENLY spaced exactly the same throughout the whole document it could just look like a big block of print.

Here is a little test... print your design, prop it up on something and walk across the room and squint while you look at it. Does it look like a big hunky block of print?? a rectangle?? if it's a perfect rectangle everything even, then maybe you should re-visit the spacing... I like to break things up... Here is an example of an invitation I recently gocco-ed. (Click on it to make it larger) You can see how I broke up the invitation by adding spacing between the top part and then the names, then the date and reception information.

Ok now ready to see my mistake? See the top three lines... the leading is off between the second and third line. There is a bit too much space between those lines.

So the two tips of the day are.. don't go overboard with fonts and be conscious of the spacing in your designs.

Now if I could only get the type in this blog to look perfect! :)

Hope this helps! Enjoy your day!

A slow beginning

2008-05-28T11:55:00.000-04:00

So here it is.. My first blog, my first post... and my first attempt to show the world how a graphic designer plans a wedding. I am going to use this blog to showcase my thoughts, ideas, designs, tips and tutorials on wedding planning and how difficult it can be when you are surrounded by millions of design choices that apply to yourself.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!