Planning A Wedding (Without Losing Your Mind) Part III: The Paper

Our wedding had a vintage, 1920’s London sort of vibe, with an upscale, elegant, sophisticated twist. While I love the rugged look, when done without a touch of glamour, it just looks a little more rough than I prefer. So, since Jeff wore those beat up looking old shoes with an Armani suit, our rustic invitations and paperwork needed a little dressing up as well…

The save the dates (or STDs, as they’ll be known henceforth), came from the concept that I didn’t want to send out something that was just paper and ink. I really wanted each one to be different in some way, and I wanted it to be a piece that people wouldn’t want to throw away (although of course I know that people did!!)

The save the date is in four pieces, and each one is handmade out of letterpressed tags or stitched muslin.

stitched-lock-and-key-save-the-dates

Each one has an antique key attached to the ribbon–every key is different. As the wedding had locks and keys all throughout, we wanted to bring that in as early as the save the date.

Here’s another view, with the copper envelope the STDs were sent in below:

copper-vintage-stitched-save-the-dates

One more look so you can see the first tag with the ribbon put behind the back:

letterpressed-stitched-save-the-dates

Here is what each piece looks like. The tags were tea stained to give them an aged look. The bottom layer, pictured bottom left is actually muslin that was printed on and stitched to a piece of cardstock. On the back of each STD, there is a page torn from the book Portrait of a Marriage–each page is different and was meticulously cut to match the size of the front.

The overall effect was to create something that looked old but still colorful!

book-theme-save-the-date

We intentionally left the fraying edges of the thread and the muslin to make them feel even more handmade.

Now…on to the invitations!!

They came in a box:

book-theme-wedding-invitation

Huh? Just a box of old books, you say? Not quite :)

vintage-book-wedding-invitation

Okay, you probably guessed that they are not ordinary books by now. No, they are HOLLOWED OUT BOOKS! In keeping with our theme, our wedding invitation hides away, tucked safely inside a hollowed out book. Each one is completely different–each book was lovingly bought from an old bookstore and chosen for it’s particular color cover, title, thickness, or inside pattern.

When you open the book, this is what you see:

hollowed-book-wedding-invitation

The pocket on the left hand side is a very thick, copper paper from Kate’s Paperie. On the right, a steel grey grosgrain ribbon holds the invitation in and is sealed with a copper wax seal with a photo of a lock (scroll down lower for a close up). On the invitation itself which lays in the hollow, a single, antique button is affixed to each invitation. Every one is incredibly detailed and different and took many HOURS of scouring ebay:

altered-book-wedding-invitation

Here’s a close up of the wax seal with the lock:

wax-seal-wedding-invitation

A few of the different invitations themselves so you can see the buttons better. You can also see that each one was letterpressed and burned around the edges:

vintage-letterpress-wedding-invitation

Inside the front coppery library card pocket were four things: a map with all location details, a list of events for the day before the wedding, a response card, and an envelope:

letterpress-wedding-invitation-enclosures

The map was done by a mapmaker and looked amazing. I love how she even has these cute little icons to denote each location!

letterpress-wedding-map

The one on the right is my personal copy–my favorite one of all of them:

altered-book-wedding-invitation-wax-seal

So there you go! I will tell you that I loved them so much that it was almost painful to send them out into the world. The saddest thing of all is that each person only received one, so that they couldn’t have a whole pile of them together to look at and explore. There were some particularly special ones in the batch of them.

What unique project have you dreamed up for your wedding invitations?

Invitations created by Kari Dyas, all photos by me