I am not sure where this is going and I am hardly one to preach about community spirit.  My wife went on to remind me that I hardly even talk to the neighbours when mowing the lawn so I am not likely to be getting my ladder out to hang bunting from the lampposts.  Anyway on to those St George’s Cross wedding invitations…..

Only joking.  I am not ensure even the most fervent England supporter who is getting married on World Cup final day this year would sanction a red cross on the front of their wedding invites but they may be interested in restoring a little national pride with the Emblems range of wedding stationery from CCA.  It was by coincidence that I was adding the Emblems range to our site on St George’s day without realising what day it was.  The Emblems range does not exclude our fellow islanders and the designs feature a national symbol for England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland by way of rose, thistle, daffodil and shamrock respectively.  You can find the Emblems range of stationery on our site in the Name the Day collection.  Personalised wording is printed on a white insert and invitations come with white envelopes as standard.

PS.  If anyone is interested in arranging their own street party for the World Cup, Queen’s jubilee, their wedding, their cat’s birthday or any other excuse for a good knees up then these websites are a good place to start.  The Big Lunch website (a heroic attempt to revive street party atmosphere was organised by the Eden Project last year) and Street Party (a charitable organisation who promote small scale community street parties)

Pure Sunflower Invitation

We have recently launched the latest addition to our Pure Collection with Pure Sunflower.  As with other designs in our Pure range the attention to detail is key.  Each sunflower is formed by hand from the painted clay baked flower head through to the twisted silver wire stem and leaf and this is then mounted on to a beaded silk paper.  Any item that is posted (i.e invites, save the dates and Thank You cards) are provided with postal boxes to send to your guests. 

With 14 items in the range you can also coordinate the theme as much or as little as you like.  If you are just looking for a sunflower themed table setting then we have Favour Boxes, Menus, Place Cards, Napkin Rings and Table Plan to choose from.  To help spread the budget we also have a limited time offer that saves you up to 20% when you buy certain reception stationery at the same time. 

FB56 Sunflowers from Millbank and Kent

Millbank and Kent have every possible wedding flower covered that we can think of in their Fresh Blooms collection and their Sunflower design (FB56) is one of the most striking.  There is a good selection of items in the range, which even includes a personalised website to match your stationery.  I also like to see Table Plans of a decent size and Millbank and Kent with Table Plans available up to A1 size on request.  Millbank and Kent currently have a 25% discount off wedding invitations so it is a good time to take a look.

Wickedly Innocent Sunflower Designs

Wickedly innocent has some pretty nifty Sunflower Postcard style invitations.  These A6 invitations are printed both sides so with the invite wording and sunflower image on one side you are free to have a photo on the reverve.  A good opportunity to embarrass yourselves with baby snaps of the bride and groom.  Or you may stick to tradition and have a map of the venue or Guest information list.

Paper Passion Sunflower Scroll Invitation

For something a little different Paper Passion design have some stunning Scroll Invitations which has a tied clusted of three sunflowers.  The sunflower yellow postal box really sets this design off and for hand delivered invitations you can choose to have a sumptious large chocolate brown satin ribbon.

English Folly Sunflower Invite

I wrote about these art deco style Sunflower Invitations  on our sister site Weddingo over 2 years ago and their subtely makes them beautifully different.  I think they have been in the English Folly portfolio for ever longer.  This matters little however because a timeless design such as this has no shelf life.

Dragonfly Couture Stationery

Here at the Wedding Stationery Gallery we receive lots of samples of wedding stationery from companies who want us to write about their products and with no offence intended to these suppliers, I am often left uninspired and quite frankly bored!  So I was very pleased to receive a beautiful bundle of wedding invitations from Dragonfly Couture Stationery that encompassed not only unique designs, but quality and style as well. 

My favourite design is this Chequebook style wedding invitation which is absolutely perfect if you want to have extra information such as accomodation, directions and wedding list information all neatly in one invitation without making it look muddled and messy.  The invitation has six pages that are separated by tissue interleaves, the front title page, the invitation, a perforated RSVP and three information pages.  The front title page has a protective clear plastic cover and there is a  pearlescent back board to give it a lovely quality feel.  Prices for the Chequebook invitations start at £5.95 each which since it includes the RSVP with printed reply envelope and the additional information sheets is pretty good value for such unique invitations.   As well as these stunning invitations Dragonfly Couture Stationery also have a range of Letterpress designs, digitally printed designs that use environmentally friendly soya inks and pocket invitations.

If you’re looking for wedding stationery that’s a little bit different that you can incorporate your wedding colours into, then take a look at Dottie Creations.  They have designs to cover all tastes from floral, butterfly, vintage and hearts, to polka dots, cowboy and zebra designs.  This Romany range caught my eye with its intricate floral design in black with butterflies highlighted in deep red and sage green.  It’s a wallett style invitation which includes the invitation, RSVP postcard, information card and coordinating envelope for £6.60.

This design from Little Angel Weddings immediately reminded me of the Pure Collection from Chapter One.  Not because the designs are similar but the style and mood they convey …  one of timeless romance.

A true romantic myself (although my wife will probably disagree) I do fall in love easily with this style of wedding invitation.  No garish embellishment and no overpowering colours just an English wedding elegance that is pure, pretty and innocent.  This design is from the Ribbons and Bows range and is dissapointedly called Design R4 (I was looking for something a little more Jane Austen).  The name is all I have to quibble about because I do love the way the designer has used texture and the right balance of frill and simplicity to create the white wedding look.  The component materials are pearlescent card, chiffon ribbon, and satin ribbon so I am sure when the light catches this card it looks even better than this image does justice.  It is just as well therefore that Little Angels Weddings offers samples of this card which are priced at the cost of the card £2.85 + 75p Post and Packing.  There is a full compliment of matching items in this range but unfortunately these are not shown on the website and I would suggest getting samples of all the items you require from this set at the same time.

If you are having roses on your wedding day then you can’t help but fall in love with this stunning range of rose wedding stationery from the Chapter One Pure Collection.  Each clay rose is individually made by hand and gently baked before the twisted silver wire stem is added to complete the flower.  The rest of the invite is equally jaw dropping and features a beaded silk paper (again by hand) which is mounted on a heavyweight textured board.This range on the Chapter One website shows a white rose on all the items in the set, but if you request their free brochure (or download it ) you will see that the rose can be produced in different colours or even colour matched to a particular shade of your choosing.  I personally like the white rose featured which will coordinate with pretty much any other colour scheme and looks crisp and clean.  I almost added ‘simple’ among my list of adjectives in the previous sentence but if you receive a sample you will see that this intricate design is anything but simple and the work that has gone into each piece is quite remarkable.  Invitations, Thank You Cards, and Save the Date cards are also individually boxed to protect the flower when you send it to your guests.Chapter One have a fantastic offer on at the moment that gets you a free rose napkin holders with every place card ordered.  You do need to order 4 items from the range to qualify but with 13 items in the collection that is very easily achieved and you end up with a wonderfully beautiful coordinated display.  The hard part is choosing what items not to include from the range.

This jigsaw wedding invitation from ISIS has been around for as long as I have been interested in wedding stationery (around 10 years) so it has obviously stood the test of time.  Unsurprising really when you consider that the commercial jigsaw puzzle has been around for the last 250 years and still has the same appeal today in this digital age.

I guess this style of invitation must fall into the novelty category and is best suited for the bridal couple looking for something a little different.  The jigsaw invitation is made up of 25 pieces so it should’nt be too taxing for your guests to complete when they receive it, after all you dont want them to be still trying to complete it whilst you are on your honeymoon.

Its not a great design if you are looking to coordinate your wedding stationery throughout your day because this set only comprises a day and evening invite.  I would love to see a jigsaw table plan that your guests must complete before they can sit down for the wedding breakfast or a jigsaw order of service for the guests who have trouble enough singing their hymns.  Joking aside I suppose you could use this invitation for the wedding menu because the personalised wording on the cover is your choice.  It would be a great ice breaker for your guests to complete together on each table to reveal the menu.

The invites start at £3.60 ea for 20 and drop to around £2.50 ea if you are buying 50 with further pricing above and between. 

It is a shame that the new postal prices came into effect because this type of invitation will cost significantly more to send now compared to this time last year and will almost certainly fall into the small parcel category rather than the “Letter” or “Large Letter” banding.  Having said, you are only going to send them once so spending a little extra on postage just adds to the exclusivity because most wedding invitation manufacturers are now only designing Letter Size invites only.

The Polka Scroll invitation (including scroll box and an outer mailing box) cost £7.30 each and in my opinion are worth every penny.  You can request a sample for £4.00