Best wedding invite you've seen?

October 17, 2007 1:04 PM

My friends have asked me to design their wedding invitations, and have said I could do whatever I want. Before I present them with my own ideas, I want to show them some cool invitations that have already been done. Have you seen any that struck you as really fabulous, creative or unique?

Anything that I could show them online would be best, but written descriptions would be great as well. Mostly I'm looking to get them thinking creatively and expand their concept of what can be done. When I hit them with my "Lets engrave the invites into 25 pound wooden blocks" idea* their response should be "That's stupid" as opposed to "That's impossible".

*Actually, I'm saving this one for my own wedding.

posted by billyfleetwood to media & arts (15 comments total)

Etsy has a pretty good selection of awesome indie designers.
posted by MsMolly at 1:09 PM on October 17, 2007

Well, I had a destination wedding (beach themed) so i sent out (made them myself) message in a bottle invitations that also doubled as favors/keepsakes. If you're interested i could take a picture of one and send it to you.
posted by ramix at 1:29 PM on October 17, 2007

These were mine: handmade blue paper with embedded sparkle, letterpressed with silver ink (looks gold in the photo), die-cut in the shape of the city with stars peeking through. The card unfolded into three sections, one of which was a detachable map/entry ticket.
posted by xo at 1:33 PM on October 17, 2007

I've always loved the designs available through paper source.

For wood invitations, olso press is amazing.

The paper goods section of style me pretty is worth a look, for really beautiful invitations and inspiration.
posted by logic vs love at 1:36 PM on October 17, 2007

My friend got married in a small historic church, very picturesque. Her Dad drew a line drawing of the church which they used on the front of their invitations. It was understated, pretty, wedding-ey and very personal. Everyone liked it. Tieing in something from the actual wedding like that can be kind of gimacky if done wrong, but adding a heaping of good taste and you can end up with something really special.
posted by shelleycat at 1:49 PM on October 17, 2007

www.fineanddandydesign.com

www.speakspress.net

www.parklifepress.com

www.papermonkeypress.com

mrboddington.com

www.kenziekate.com

www.hellolucky.com

For Paper Supplies:

paper-source.com
envelopemall.com

For affordable letterpress (if you decide to go that route):

mercuriobrothers.com
posted by elvissa at 1:54 PM on October 17, 2007

The coolest invitaion I ever got was this (I'll try to explain it):

It came in a smallish box about the same size one would get with a small lego kit. There were three pieces inside. Two were rubbery foam and one was a sheet of plastic rolled up and in an elastic. Each foam piece looked like an outstreched hand. It also came with a tiny instruction sheet.

On the 'palm' of one piece of foam was an artistically drawn picture of the groom with his parents names and his name on the extended fingers. The brides piece was similar but the opposite hand. The instructions said to stick the two pieces together so the fingers interlock, therefore putting all the names in the middle. The sheet of plastic had the rest of the words one would normally find on a wedding invite(where, when, etc.) This was then placed over top of the hands, completing the invitation.

I would show a picture but it got lost during a move. Also, this might be a little pricey to pull off but definitely cool.
posted by Totally Zanzibarin' Ya at 1:55 PM on October 17, 2007

Though I never really envisioned my wedding, to go beyond "dancing and lots of alcohol," and now it is illegal in most states for me to marry who I'd want to marry, my ideal wedding invitation was always cream-colored, with an orange or green border, featuring a picture of a cantaloupe.
posted by atayah at 2:11 PM on October 17, 2007

CHeck this site for lots of gorgeous invites

http://www.stylemepretty.com/
posted by chickaboo at 2:21 PM on October 17, 2007

Just don't use a script font, and I think you'll be fine.
posted by kpmcguire at 3:20 PM on October 17, 2007

I've seen a couple of cool photographic ones from my ma's students, which I'm still not totally sure how they did (but they were pretty sweet):

The first was a cyanotype that you dipped in water and it developed a picture of the couple with all the invite info on it (I'm not sure how they kept it from exposing further in transit), and another was an exposed Polaroid/instamatic thing that they had people slide then pull apart. I think that one was done by not bursting the dye pack, and shipping it out in a little roller apparatus.

I also saw a neat one with that plastic grating so that moving the photo shifted the image into the couple kissing.
posted by klangklangston at 3:59 PM on October 17, 2007

My fiancée (as of last week!) and I are thinking of making a mini-photocomic: pictorial directions, photos of the ceremony/reception sites, random images of us pretending to be monkeys, that sort of thing. You can print an 8-page comic on a single piece of letter paper, and a few hours of repetitive/annoying folding will leave you with a LOT of ready-to-go minicomics.

For your computer-savvy friends: write a short Zork-style text adventure where the game is a walkthrough of the ceremony. That sort of thing should be the work of a day, modifying the sample adventures included with a text adventure programming language (e.g. TADS).

Alternatively: set up a blog providing an RSS feed of updates, requests, daily kvetches/wonderings/etc., last-minute requests for someone BY GOD to bring a video camera, etc.

Well yes I've been drinking and speaking strictly these aren't 'good ideas' but all this seems quite reasonable from my vantage point at the bottom of this ocean of inexpensive red wine. :)
posted by waxbanks at 7:22 PM on October 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

A former coworker and his bride did what looked like a formal, engraved wedding invitation. Once you looked at the wording a bit more closely you saw:

Blah blah blah
[groom's name] and [bride's name]
Blah blah blah
[date of wedding]
Blah blah blah
[Location of wedding]

It really *did* say blahblahblah everywhere. Of course, they did do a few traditional wedding invitations for grandparents and the like but I thought the blah ones were hysterical.
posted by Serena at 8:37 PM on October 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

I saw a great set for a commitment ceremony between a friend's sister and her partner. The response card had four choices:
_Yes, I'd love to see two women get married.
_No, I'm liberal, but not that liberal.
_Sorry, I know it will be the party of the year, but I can't make it.
_Number attending.

I liked that it had a good sense of humor. The rest of the invitation was fairly traditional.

A friend of ours in marketing did a comic book, telling the story of how they met, depicting major moments in their life together, and then happily ever after. No words, just images, and then the last page had the specifics of where/when.

Another friend did little cardboard bird houses that they had decoupaged old family wedding pictures on three sides, and then their engagement portrait on the front, and then had the relevant information on the roof. Fun to get a little box in the mail like that.
posted by librarianamy at 8:35 AM on October 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Not a huge selection, but Palindrome Press has some nice looking invites.
posted by backwards guitar at 8:48 AM on October 18, 2007