{Wedding Week} Paper Obessed

Hello and Happy Wedding Week.

Ok. So I'm going on week two, but I want to share everything with you!

{Let me let you in on a little secret}

I. Love. Paper. and anything and everything that deals with paper. I love type fonts. I love thick cardstock, metallics, and vellum. I love invitations. I love stationary. I love the perfect pen that you just have to have to write on paper. I love designing things. And most of all, I love pretending I'm a graphic designer.

I'm not, but I sure do wish I was.

One thing to note: I'm not the best at it because I'm a self-taught designer.

I still have a lot to learn.

But, with all of that said, let me share with you all of the designs I created for our wedding.

Let's start with the Engagement Party invitations. Although I didn't want to use it for my wedding colors, I LOVE gray and curry together. They are so popular and compliment each other perfectly. So for the Engagement Party, I decided to incorporate these colors into the invitations. And because I LOVE a good square envelope, I wanted to be sure to use them. It would have been fun to use square for the wedding invitations but it's not ideal because this fun shape requires extra postage.

If you don't know about Paper-Source, wake up! This place is amazing!

They have a store in Virginia-Highlands but they also have an amazing online store with everything that they offer in the retail store.

PS sells any envelope or solid paper for "DIY" invitations in any color under the rainbow, in any shape, in any size. Literally. They have square, oval, round, rectangle- you name it, they've got it!

Check them out the next time you want to make invitations. They also carry unique gifts too.

For this invitation I used white linen paper for the face of the invite and stacked a curry and gravel colored cardstock to the back. I then used a curry square envelope (with the extra postage).

Of course I had to incorporate New Orleans, our theme, with a big fleur de lis!

I hosted my Bridesmaid Brunch the morning of the wedding at Basil's in Buckhead.

The setting was Brunch on the Verandah and I knew that Basil's had so many beautiful Spring flowers planted so I wanted something fun and colorful.

Also at Paper-Source, they carry some amazing wrapping paper that can be used for anything.

Wanting to do something different, I purchased the paper {of which I would show you a sample, but they discontinued it and I didn't save an envelope} and used it to line the envelopes.

{PS sells an envelope liner template kit for DIY liners}.

To incorporate the print from the paper, I scanned the paper and duplicated it for the invitation background.

I used an envelope in papaya and chartreuse cardstock to back the invitation.

For our Save-the-Dates, I wanted something simple, but different.

I also wanted to make sure to incorporate one of Genya's {of VUE photography} fabulous photos we took for our Engagement shoot and also {because I'm obsessed} I really wanted to introduce our wedding color palette. What?! Yes, it's true. I wanted all of our printed wedding materials {save-the-date, rehearsal dinner invitation, wedding invitation, wedding program, and anything else printed for the wedding or reception} to all match! Do you think anyone noticed?! Probably not.

But for those who "pay close attention to detail" probably did. And to them, I say 'thank you'.

Our Rehearsal Dinner invitations were totally fun. At the time, silhouettes were the NEW BIG THING for weddings. I loved the idea so I used them for our RD invites. My creative husband came up with the ideas of using the "fork, spoon, knife" silhouettes on the RSVP card...and then that lead to using the silhouette of a salmon, cow {for filet mignon}, and chicken for the place cards that matched what each person ordered for their dinner selection. Then if you just couldn't get enough... I used the silhouette "medallion" on the vases for the centerpieces. It's ALL about the details, right?!

Yes, these are our real silhouettes. It was so simple. I took a photo of Adam's profile and he took one of mine against a plain wall in our house. Believe it or not, I actually just took it with my iPhone. From there, I opened the photo in Photoshop and after deleting the background and a little trimming, I was able to make our silhouettes. We also used these for the wedding koozies. What wedding doesn't have a koozie with the bride and grooms names... and in our case, faces?!

Love his idea of the flatware...

...and the chicken, cow, and salmon.

Although I love classy and traditional, I was soooo over the boring ecru colored paper, black script invitation so I went for the pocket fold! Pocket folds are not recommended for unless you have a lot of time and incredible patience. It took many hours in an assembly line with my mom and sister...really, hours.

The envelopes {both main and rsvp}were gold metallic. The paper was an off-white linen and the pocket fold was a pale salmon/peach.

The insert cards revealed details of the wedding for accommodations {because we had sooo many out of town guests}, dinner and dancing {for the reception}, and "répondez s'il vous plaît" {for the RSVP}. I used the French word to tie in the New Orleans detail. I'm sure no one picked up on that.

I searched far and wide for the perfect vintage stamps for the envelopes. 

The photo below was my inspiration.

No luck. They are super hard to find.

So, I used the fabulous King and Queen stamps. The colors and design make them a true work of art. They can be found online at http://www.usps.com/

The wedding programs were no exception to the "look"...I used the same fonts, colors and details of the invitation. The double-sided, single paged program was printed on metallic pearl cardstock.

Again, I love classy things and traditional things but stepping outside of that, I wanted to do something fun for our Thank You cards. I made a little "thank you" banner out of some ribbons and cardstock and we tied them to the back of some beach chairs. We had Genya snap this photo during our shoot.

Couldn't help becoming obsessed with this too. How perfect is the lighting and water?

What's the deal with the chairs...

well, they were the exact chairs where Adam and I sat when he asked those beautiful words,

"Will You Marry Me?".

Why am I sharing all of this information?

Not to overwhelm you with all of the crazy details of my wedding...

but to share ideas and show how easy it is to create something outside of what is offered at a typical stationary or wedding invitation store. If you are planning a wedding, you soon realize that everything looks the same. Take advantage of the resources out there {like Paper-Source} and get creative!

Make it your own!