Pure Lily White Wedding Invitation

If you have a particular colour theme in mind then when we provide a custom service whereby they will try to colour match the lily to a bridal fabric or colour swatch that you send them. We will send you a sample wedding invitation with the customised lily. The best thing about this service is that there is no extra cost.

Dusk Pink Calla Lily Tray ready for baking

Each lily is carefully made by hand and has a hole directly through the middle to hold the silver wire stem of the flower. Rather than the brash yellow stamen of a real calla lily Chapter One have chosen a contemporary approach that works perfectly. The silver wire is twisted at the top to create a beautiful flourish and the sharp bends beneath are shaped to form the leaves. The silver wire works perfectly against the crisp 300gsm white Accent board of the card.

There are many items in the Pure Lily range and no attention to detail has been spared. This is especially the case with the invitations that have a silk paper mount on which the wire lily is attached. The silk paper has 4 white pearl beads hand sewed into the 4 corners to frame the lily in a simple border that is delicate but not too flouncy or ostentatious.

The invitations in this range are individually boxed which are perfect for two reasons. There is a protective cover in the lid  which protects the delicate lily in the post. The box is also a treat for your guests making it more like opening a gift than an invitation and providing them with a box to keep the invitation for years to come.

Calla Lily Place Cards from Olivia Samuel

As well as the beautiful wedding and evening invitations there are a further 11 items in the range so that you can create a truly coordinated look throughout the whole wedding.

The full range includes :-
Wedding Invitation, Evening Invitation, Order of Service, Order of the Day,
Menu, Table Plan, Table Name Cards, Place Cards, Napkin Rings, Favour Boxes, Guest Book, Thank You Cards, and Save the Date Cards.
You can pick and choose which items you require depending on the level of coordination you wish to achieve.

A favourite of mine is the Negative Strip design from CCA which was added this morning.  This design stands out from the others in that it allows 5 photos to feature on the front of the card.  Most of the other designs just feature a single image or two (one each of bride and groom).  With the 5 photo negative strip design many of our customers choose to feature photos of themselves as children and then an up to date photo of each of them.  The 5th photo then completes the set with a close up picture of the happy couple cheek to cheek.  It creates a simple, short romantic storyboard.  This is just one example of course and the choice of photos is entirely yours.  A photo of the church or venue is another popular choice, or photos of your children or pets. 

CCA Negative Strip in White or Cream

The great thing about all the own photo designs is that it allows the customer to be a little creative with their invitations whilst still keeping a professional overall design and finish.  Most of the invites in this section are printed on a high end digital press and surpass anything that can be achieved on a home color inkjet or laser printer.  When supplying digital images it is important to remember that they can only be reproduced at the quality provided and we recommend a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.  We can always help and advise with the choice of quality of image so don’t worry if you are unsure your pictures will make the grade, we will soon let you know.  If you do not have digital images then you can send us original photos for us to scan for you.  We always worry about precious photos being sent in the post so whenever possible send a reprint  and use Registered or Special Delivery post for peace of mind.  We do not charge any extra for reproducing your photo digitally and we usually target a 600 dpi output scan for best quality.  We will return any photos to you on request.

Vegas Invite - You are Invited

Retro Red Vegas

A guided tour has to start with the iconic Vegas sign in lights, which is a common choice of design from many wedding stationery designers.  I have chosen to showcase the design above  from You are Invited because it is available in a number of colours.  Once the invites are ordered, the company also offer Menu cards, Order of the Day/Service, table plan and place cards.  I think your guests may have a migraine by the end of the wedding celebrations if you choose the full compliment, but one or two items from the set will certainly set the scene.  You will find another couple of variants on this style on the You are Invited website, including a more subtle red retro version which I think looks much more stylish.  Mind you, that could just be an indicator that the a full on Vegas wedding isn’t really my cup of tea.

Las Vegas - I Do Personalise

Another Vegas sign but this time with the lights switched off.  The novelty with this one is in the custom personalisation.  I Do Personalise is brought to you by the same printers as the CCA Occasions design that we feature on our own Olivia Samuel site.  The designs are digitally printed and given a mirror gloss finish – pefect for some Vegas glamour.  This design really does put your name up in lights and the bridal couples names can be changed and proofed instantly on the I Do Personalise website.  Unfortunately, there is no variation in design between the other items of stationery in the set but then, as I mentioned above, maybe you only want to stick with the Vegas theme for the invitations anyway.

We Go Together Custom Design

This Stars and Stripes theme is a custom design from wedding stationery designers We Go Together.  Rather than have a stock portfolio of designs their approach is more personal and they will work with you to create a unique design just for you.  I love the two red stars representing I assume the married couple and the striking use of white on red text of the invitation wording to form the stripes of the US flag. 

Vegas Invitation from Dinkie Dynamo

After a little more research I discover a colleague here on the gallery actually blogged about a Vegas invitation a couple of years ago.  So this design from deserves another quick mention here.   You can read the full Gallery write up here

Vegas Zazzle Invitation Montage

We will round up this article with a montage of designs from Zazzle.  Zazzle is basically a printing company that showcase designs from thousands of designers.  They basically let the designers focus on their creative side by outsourcing the print and fulfilment.  Because Zazzle deal with all sorts of industries the one thing you may find is a lack of expertise in the wedding area and you may be limited somewhat by their online personalisation tool.  That said they have a large range of Vegas style invitation designs so it is worth a look.

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)

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.

I am not sure the reasoning behind the change of name as ido-print.co.uk becomes ido-personalise.co.uk recently. The name is owned by leading wedding stationery publishers CCA Occasions and I guess the brand name change was made to underpin the key selling point behind the trading name. The thing that sets ido-personalise.co.uk apart from the rest is the way that the customer can personalise their stationery online. CCA Occasions have invested a lot of time and money into developing Pageflex technology. There are many companies that let you personalise your stationery online but these almost always rely on some manual proofsetting after you have placed your order. These suppliers will usually have to send you a pdf to show you the exact layout and spacing and to show you what your chosen font and ink colour will look like. Some may even need to mock up an actual card for you with your chosen design and wording. This is not the case with ido-personalise.co.uk where they really do leave the work to you when it comes to preparing your cards for print.

Invitation self proofing at Ido-personalise.co.uk

This is of course not to everyones taste and some people may prefer the personal touch and some feedback as to their choice of wording and etiquette. For those however, who want a no fuss, order and forget about it approach, to ordering their stationery then sharing the proof burden up front may be the perfect option. Ido-personalise does give you a handful of suggested wording layouts and covers the popular choices of parents hosting or bride and groom hosting their own etc. You then have the tools to drag, drop and add text etc and convert your work into a printable pdf for proofing more carefully. There is no going back and once you have approved your proof and paid for your order there is a good chance it will be running through the digital presses in CCA Occasion’s Preston factory within a few hours. It is doubly important therefore to check for spelling and grammatical errors again and again. Let your partner or friend check for you as well because it is so easy to become proof blind to an obvious error even after checking through yourself several times. Another paid of eyes reading your wording for the first time can save you a costly reprint bill down the line.

All of the designs at Ido-personalise are printed on a digital press and have a glossy finish. Many of them let you incorporate the bride and groom’s name on to the front of the card in “Moonpig style” fashion. This an original approach to wedding card design but unfortunatly there is little originality between different items with a range and you will tend to find that the only thing that may differentiation an invitation, reply card and Order of service is that size of the board it is printed on. There is also no finishing touches or extra processes on offer so you will not find any foiling, embossing, die cutting, laser cutting, raised ink, ribbons embellishments etc etc that other companies often use to add a luxury finish. CCA Occasions will be quick to point out however that they do have a portfolio of other brands that cater for these tastes more than adequately and Ido-personalise cater for quick printed contemporary designs at a reasonable price. In fact, price is one thing they are generous with and this is no surprise since they are leaving a lot of the hardwork to you when it come to proofing your order. Ido-personalise.co.uk is a recent addition to our Wedding Voucher Codes site (click on the banner to the right) where we may have a promotional code running to save you even more on your stationery.

The nearlyweds - Not a 70's sitcom but a funky range of Invitations

I have to be honest, I have never been much in favour of vector art graphics for wedding stationery. I often see the bold lines and shapes of vector art on free image stock websites for which looks like as though they have been drawn up by a student in their first week of graphic design class. With wedding stationery I often find this style from print shops because they realise that you can easily scale a vector graphic from a Place Card to an Order of Service without losing quality.

Anyway, after that moany start, I will continue by saying that The Nearlyweds do not fall into the dodgy vector art category and are a shining example of what can be achieved with computer aided design. Their vector art is some of the most original I have seen and perfect for the bride looking for some chic, funky wedding stationery.

At first I thought the printers at The Nearlyweds were trying to conserve their materials costs by limiting the ink pallette to pink, white and black. Pink is all you see see when you visit their funky web site. What you might not realise until you delve a little deeper is that all the designs are available in different colourways which is a welcome sight. Some of their designs are a little too cutesy for my liking and remind me of the Bubblegum brand of stationery that Collisons have recently (and thankfully) discontinued, but the bold shapes and style of their butterfly and floral designs work very well. Best of all is that all designs have the added bonus of allowing the bride and grooms names to be printed on the front to make your design set truly unique.

Free samples are available from The Nearlyweds however it does not look as though you can specify exactly which sample you get. I think that their reasoning behind this is that because card stock and print quality is probably the same across all designs then individual samples are not necessary.

Origami Wedding Invitations from Paperbird

We like to uncover wedding stationery that is a little out of the ordinary and these Origami wedding invitations from Paperbird Design are our latest find.  We don’t usually start with the price but I think it is only fair in this instance because it may put some readers off.  Each invitation and envelope costs between £7.00 to £11.00 each depending on the complexity of the design.  This sounds expensive but I guess if you break it down into cost per fold you soon realise that is the labour that you are paying for here and not the materials (not to forget the rather exclusive design).

These origami designs are part of the Paperbird Signature range which includes paper fold creations featuring either a Heart, Lily, Lotus Flower or Butterfly.  I imagine, the butterfly design will be very popular because the delicate folds lend themselves well to this popular wedding theme.  My favourite is the Lotus Flower which I believe is the most expensive but it certainly looks the most complex and I have blogged about the symbolism of the Lotus flower before as a symbol of sexual purity in marriage.   The design comes with a clever protective folding envelope but I would question how vibrant those petals would look after they have been through the postal machines at Royal Mail.  Unlike most wedding stationery companies Paperbird do not appear to have a minimum order quantity so perhaps this design may be best suited to give to close family and friends where the invitations can be hand delivered.

Lotus Flower Origami Wedding Invite

Finally, if price is the only put off here, you could order the DIY option.  You get a ream of paper, a ream of card, and a reel of ribbon, a set of false finger nails, and a waste paper bin…… only joking.

Since last writing about laser cut wedding invitations on this site I was disappointed to learn that Cartalia have moved their gorgeous range of laser cut wedding invitations away from the UK market as the company chooses to focus more on their home markets in Poland.  I also feel that the 10 year old designs from one of the early pioneers in the laser cut card field, ISIS, are starting to look a little dated.

So where is this article headed.  Well, this site received a tip off today about a stunning range of laser cut wedding stationery from the Hummingbird Card Company that has rekindled my love of the style.  The company started in 2007 so I am surprised that I have not come across them before.  Well, hopefully this site will help share the love around.

Humming Bird Card Company

The Hummingbird Company is run by two friends, Sally-Ann & Suzi, who both have a background in fashion design.  All their designs show off the gorgeous intricate effects that can be achieved with laser cutting.  As with any laser cut card the detail is not readily defineable unless there is some contrasting colour behind the laser cut edge.  The Hummingbird style in this respect is primarily to use white or cream card and create the contrast using soft pastel shade inserts.  This subtle contrast works perfectly to create classic designs of timeless appeal that do not draw any attention to the fact that they have been made using 21st century production techniques.  Cards can be finished off with coordinating ribbons and diamontes to add a handfinised touch.   I will pick out a few particular designs that grab my attention and write about them in more detail over the coming months when I have them in my possession.  In the meantime you will probably wish to take advantage of the Hummingbird Card Company’s sample service to get your hands on some of their cards yourself.  Please share your own thoughts on their designs in the comments below.

Letters design from Hummingbird Cards

This is definately the most unusual wedding album I have come across.  It has a wooden hinged cover which means that you won’t ruin the corners and the inside will be very well protected.  It is hand painted and has a lovely rustic appeal with two raised, entwined hearts.  What suprised me most about this sweet ablum though was the cost, it’s £17.50 from Coco Male.  Admittedly it’s not huge at 16cm x 13cm, but would make a lovely keepsake to keep on display with your favourite photos and mementos for you and any guests to look at whenever you fancy, rather than having to pull the entire album out.