the wedding invitation

One of the top things I am most excited to unveil about the wedding are the invitations. We really had no idea what we were in store for when we met with Jenny Tran of Beautiful & Creative Weddings back in January. A loss for words does not begin to describe our reactions when she showed us her samples of hardback invitations. Never had we seen anything like it–an actual hardback covering, exactly like a book, for an invitation. It was simply AMAZING!

Rob, as most of you know, is in the design and print business so paper is his thing. Naturally this type of print material greatly impressed him and was important to him to have if we can at all possibly have such a thing for our invitations (since they are outrageously expensive). With a bit of bartering on my behalf we were able to get these for $0 out of pocket…but hours of service out of my end to shoot Jenny’s sister’s wedding in November. To me that was a no-brainer deal to lock in. We get the most awesome invitations while Duy and I shoot a wedding to pay for it. (Thanks, Duy! You’re the best partner ever. Rob sends his love and appreciation too.)

The boxes the invitations came in. It was like even better than Christmas and birthday gifts.

An aerial view of the stack. Yup–the envelope is about a 1/4″ thick. I especially love how the design wraps over the top and continues onto the back flap.

The front cover. Embossed names, birds, and circles. Debossed swirls and date. The date is also stamped in gold foil.

The back cover has our website url debossed in chocolate.

The invite can freestand on it’s own. Many have suggested we turn it into a photo holder.

We actually had an English and Vietnamese version made. The birds, circles, and our names are also embossed here while the swirls are debossed (love how it mimics wind in that way). Our names are embossed in gold foil.

The inside flap holds the RSVP card, reception invite, and directions card all staggered so the titles can easily be seen/read. Titles are embossed.

We chose the purple flower LOVE stamps over the other designs since we will have some purple flowers in our wedding anyway. Cost $1.73 to send.

Our great friend, Stephanie, graciously volunteered to handwrite out all our invitations. Here’s a sample of one that we hand delivered.

Here’s a few samples of ones that were addressed out. Isn’t her writing just so beautiful?!?

The workshop of invitation handlers hard at work putting things together to be sent out.

We’ve gotten well over a ton of compliments on the invitations. So many people refused to open it upon receiving it. Saying such things as “this is like a chocolate bar” or “it’s too nice and perfect, I can’t mess with it and open it” or “you open yours and I’ll see what’s inside”.  The most flattering are pictured below–where 2 of our guests have RSVP’ed in very unique, odd ways. They love the invitation so much that they want to keep it as a keepsake in an entire package.

Mary actually photocopied the response card, marked on it, then took a photo of it and emailed it to me.

Laura took a photo of the response card, used Paint software to mark in the X’s, and uploaded the image to Flickr to RSVP.

Duc’s happy with his invite!

The photos I pictured above do not do it much justice. Seeing it with your own eyes and getting to touch it and feel it makes the experience more complete. I am still in awe of it myself and I’ve seen it, touched it quite a few times already. It still gives me the same effect every time.

Jenny did a fabulous job incorporating our wedding theme into the invitation. We went thru many rounds of changes to choose font, wording, directions, and design elements, but she was just so patient thru it all and quick to send revisions. A fantastic person to work with!

Screenshots of the PDF proofs so you can get a better feel/look for it all.

We also had thin versions made of the Vietnamese invitation–just in case our parents forgot some miscellaneous guests. They look just as nice but are not hardback and a lot cheaper to send! Good thing we did order them b/c they ended up using almost all the extras.

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