Katie + Adam {wedding planning} The Invitations

Before Adam and I were engaged, I knew I wanted her to do our invitations.  Mikaela Fuchs of The Hungry Fox is a very creative and talented lady.  I had seen her work in an invitation that was sent to Keesha for a wedding we shot last October.  It was screenprinting in all it’s glory….the bold colors and handmade look were exactly what I love about this type of printing.  After seeing so many creative and beautiful designs out there, I was set on having ours originally made.

Before I go on, I’ll quickly share about our Save the Date’s.  I bought some cheap, brown cardstock at Michaels, along with a stamp of a mason jar and one that said “Save This Date.”  To save on postage, I created postcards that gave minimal information about our wedding on the back, with the Save The Date text inside of the mason jar on the front.  Cheap and easy.  This created a way for people to check out our wedding website with more information, and since we’re doing the 2-day thing we wanted people to know far in advance what we’re planning.

Back to invitations.  Mikaela and I did a lot of corresponding through email about my vision for the invitations.  She came up with a few preliminary sketches of different ideas—we wanted something with an outdoor/woodsy scene, perhaps with the mountains, a cabin, some instruments….there was a lot thrown around.  I went on a trip to the Grand Canyon with Adam’s family during this process, and we really grew fond of the travel posters we saw around Arizona.

Bringing things back to square one, I asked if we could go with a vintage travel theme, using the Blue Ridge Mountains as the main image.  Mikaela suggested we actually make the invitation poster size (11×17) so people could actually enjoy it as art, which I thought was brilliant.  She even surprised me with a gorgeous outline of trees and replication of the Hobson House on the back of the poster where the information is.

Here was her process in her own words:  “They were screen-printed, so each color is a different layer made with a different screen.  The front was three screens, the back was one.  I made the screens have halftone dots, which means the image on the front is made up of a bunch of tiny dots rather than a flat color.  The dots are sort of like the way newspapers print their comics.  It provided a way to have a gradient.”

They fold down to fit in a standard-size envelope, with the information brilliantly displayed when you open it up.  I couldn’t be happier with the result!

Front (L) and Back (R)

This is the invite folded down to fit into the envelope.