Closer Look At The Invites

We've been getting the RSVP cards back, so we're safely assuming nearly everyone has gotten their invite in the mail by now. So that means I can finally post photos of the invitations. We had two sets of invites, each done by a different artist. The whole invitation process was really hard actually. Jesse, my good friend from highschool, designed the invites originally.

Jesse has made me many paintings over the years, two of which hang proudly in my home. He came up with the most original and interesting looking invite for our wedding. Unfortunately for us, his design was so detailed and ornate, it couldn't be printed letterpress when shrunk down to 5x7.

My heart was set on letterpress, so we had to quickly find another illustrator who was familiar with designing for letterpress. I found two really great artists, Simone Ralph and Ailbhe from Pretty As a Picture and they each came up with a really creative version of Jesse's original print. It was so hard to pick between the two, so we went with both in the end.

The inspiration for the invites came from this Zeigfeld girls print that I love and the movie poster for Corpse Bride. I wanted to incorporate mine and Mat's insignia, so we included the Aires' ram's head and the scales for Libra. The masks are a hint at what to expect at the wedding. The reception is loosely based on the ballroom scene from the Labyrinth. And of course, we had to include our black kitty Magellan.

Print Icon did the letterpress printing and the calligraphy was done by the very talented Joanne Day. Semi came over to take photos of the invites and my work station. The finished product came out even better than we had imagined. We have so many extras though! I need to think of a creative way to make them useful.