Wedding invites are important as they were the 1st thing our guests received about our wedding (since we decided to skip sending SAVE THE DATE). I really wanted the invite to bring consistency and contain elements (e.g. colour palette, floral, etc) from the style of our wedding so it sets the right look, feel and tone for our wedding when our guests receive them.

Step 1 was deciding the format, and oh boy, the amount of options! I’ve looked at and seriously considered many trendy options, including tri-folds, acrylic, letterpress, round card stock, handmade paper, but in the end decided to go with a more traditional format with a twist. Well...I have to admit, I still went overboard with foiling, maroon full-colour print, line map, cursive font and everything else, but the elements that really made my invites unique were the venue graphic, floral pattern, tri-fold translucent sleeve and wax seal.

The challenge I had was finding/creating a floral pattern that represents the modern romantic Victorian style and yet doesn't give the vibe of a garden tea party. And between myself and my design team, we tried and vetoed so many designs (15 be exact!). In the end, it was this Pinterest post that saved me. I loved the floral pattern and especially the vintage feel working with the deep reds...after some digging, I found that the pattern was from a 15th century oil painting done by Melanie de Comolera. And from there, I started looking at more vintage oil paintings and finally set my eyes on one done by Jan Frans van Dael in the 17th century.

The painting had everything I was looking for - the arrangement, types of florals, style, tones and colours - it was perfect! With some 'magic'...I mean Photoshop, this quickly became the floral backing on my wedding invite.

Wax Seal

Wax seals are always the right decision! We went with a custom seal design, which was our initials combined, and 2 colours of wax - red for the invitation and gold for the placecard. I have to be honest, it wasn't an easy task doing the wax seals ourselves on the translucent wrap (it's a very slippery material), and I had tried both the glue-gun and traditional dripping methods. After practising a few times, we finally got the hang of it and nailed the timing, position, wax amount and bubble control (yup it's a thing!), but it was definitely a two-man job plus I highly recommend using baking paper as the base.
Anyways, this is how it all turned out in the end and I couldn't be happier! :)

Inspirations

Design Notes