We designed our invitations to look like a packet of items you might find in your grandmother's attic. Here's what we did…
1. A old letter to a mother from a son detailing he's met the love of his life and is getting married. My future hubby wrote the letter (mostly fiction, of course, since it's a period piece) and we printed it out in a handwriting font. We dyed the letters with tea and stamped letterhead with a rubber stamp and brown ink.
2. On the back of the letter are the actual details of our wedding and the traditional wording…which I loved because it just felt so stately, proper, and elegant. Almost like a queen summoning her people with a decree.
3. The envelopes were old air mail envelopes that the post office has since stopped using/allowing. We also dyed these in tea, got old vintage (nearly worthless; fret not stamp enthusiasts!) stamps from a local stamp collector, and postmarked them with a craft stamp we edited by tearing out bits of the rubber with tweezers.
Kate & Nate's dark blue wedding with shoe games
The bride may have worn an awesome dark blue dress that became the color inspiration for everything else, but the most fun to be had... Read more
4. An old 45 with various types of music (some were veteoed for having song titles like Better Luck Next Time or Run Away ) that we re-labeled with our wedding details.
5. Old-style photobooth photos, printed them on cardstock, and (see a trend here?) dyed them with tea.
6. A vintage pinochle card (there's more face cards in a deck) that indicates our preferred dress code {anyone else doing this and feeling a little wedding-couplezilla for demanding specific colors?}
7. All of this plus a feather (crafty leftovers from an eyelash contest I entered) and a card directing people to our website or to call us to r.s.v.p…
8. Finally, we wrapped it all up in brown paper packages tied up with string!
(attn: green grooms & biofuel brides, everything was recycled or post-consumer waste!)
Many thanks to Nina for letting me reprint her invites. Oh, and as a special bonus? Here's a shot of the bride & groom on their wedding day!
I’m really liking the how-to DIY your wedding posts. They’re really inspiring and I really hope to see more in the future.
Yummilicious!! I am a total nut for all things vintage. If I were having a wedding in more than six months, I would totally borrow some of these ideas! Hooray for Nina and her mate.
We had a bride that requested that her wedding guests wear all black…a little odd, but the wedding was very my in sync and everyone looked great!
is it too bad to copy all these ideas? i will do this with my own twist…
Wow, love it! Great invites, gorgeous dress, and amazing bouquet!
I have just been inspired into a random new direction for my SaveTheDates – but not vintage….this really has inspired me to follow MY theme a little more literally….YAY!
And these are great ‘step by steps’…
Yes, this post was really inspiring – it shows how the most unrelated stuff can become such a personal, eclectic invitation. A way to save money too – using things that are probably just sitting around. All hail DIY 🙂
Invitations are beautiful. love the idea. love the look. Absolutely in love with the bouquet. Was it DIY? it looks very “etsy.” Can we get more details on the bouquet???
Cyn, you should feel free to contact Nina directly via her website: eight8eight.org
I have to say this is the best I have seen yet.
I love this!!! how wonderfully creative!
the most creative invitations i’ve seen so far – and the most awesome! i would be so excited to receive that in the mail, instead of your basic wedding card invitation. plus! i’m sure it cost way less than those do. it’s a sweet deal all around.
Absolutely amazing! LOVE IT!
you should go into business making this stuff! I absolutely love it and I would totally pay you to make party invites for me 😀
So fabulous! I’ve been collecting vintage airmail covers over the past few months to use as RSVP cards, I’m aiming to use covers only from the 30’s and 40’s – praise the great Ebay for that! This is so great, right in line with what I’m doing for my 40’s USO wedding this September (funny to know there are so many others out there like me sometimes). Great great job, your whole package was lovely. I wonder how many people were invited/invites were made? That’s a lot o’ work for a 200 person wedding, but it’s worth it.
Oh yes, and more posts like this please! Love them.
So amazing. Totally over the top, and well done.
Love it! Also love the part with the queen of hearts. 🙂
Just Darling!
I LOVE this!!! Everything is sooo detailed, personalized and executed perfectly!
I love the barong too! 🙂
Absolutely beautiful. These are the coolest invites I have EVER seen.
How did you go about making the record labels? I had to do a double take to see that you had actually printed all of your wedding details on it– they look so real!
Soooooo radalicious! Well done! 🙂
Amazing detail, I love them! So creative.
these . are . Uhmazing!
A totally original idea! Love these…
I’m a nerd, because I wanted to see it all packaged up to get an idea of how the brown paper played a part. All of this vintage stuff is just making me push my glasses up further on my nose and pay attention! Love love love it!