wedding invitations Archives - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: wedding invitations

Charlie

Rustic eco-chic nautical ‘tying the knot’ save the dates and invitations with hessian, lace and twine

Charlie

Nautical tying the knot save the dates

Some of my favourite emails are from brides/couples who have been inspired by the stationery I made for my own wedding – both our save the dates and our invitations. Rachel was one of those brides who got in touch to share photos of what they created and I particularly loved hers because her and her husband-to-be Lee are sailors – so the ‘tying the knot’ version of our save the dates couldn’t be more appropriate.

It is so exciting to hear that couples all over the world have been inspired by the design I created for our save the dates, and it’s pretty satisfying when emails pop into my inbox with photos attached of what everybody’s been busy creating.

>> View Rachel and Lee’s autumn lake house wedding here <<

Nautical graphics for tying the knot wedding invitations

Rachel asked her friend and designer Anne Trencher to design her a few graphics for her wedding stationery, and to choose fonts for them to use – and don’t they look beautiful!

In addition to her save the dates, Rachel also emailed me photos of her wedding stationery – an elegant design with rustic elements of hessian, lace and twine incorporated.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Vicky’s been creating her vintage railway poster inspired invitations for her Devon wedding

Charlie

Vicky’s back today to tell us all about the fab vintage railway poster inspired wedding stationery she’s had designed – I love this idea!

>> View Vicky and Steve’s DIY village fete wedding here <<

Over to Vicky…

Vintage railway post inspired invitations

It is now starting to dawn on me that our wedding is a lot closer than I want it to be and there seems to be an awful lot to do!

Much to Steve’s never ending dismay I am the sort of person who buys Christmas presents in October and arrives at the airport at least 6 hours before I should, just to be safe! Organising a wedding where lots of it can’t be done until much closer to the time is killing me! And driving him mad – so much so he’s gone off to Scotland on a motorbike holiday for 2 weeks!

However there was one major thing I was able to tick off of my ever-increasing list last month – getting the invitations sent out.

Who to invite to our wedding

The actual process of deciding whom to invite has probably been the hardest part of the planning process for us so far. It seems that trying not to upset anyone while keeping the numbers manageable is a tricky balance.

One of the major issues was whether we should invite children or not. If we invited everyone’s children our numbers rose by about 20 meaning we had less space to invite other close friends. In the end we decided that we couldn’t invite children and luckily all of our friends seem quite relieved by this. They all say they are looking forward to being able to relax and enjoy themselves without worrying if their children are getting bored or restless. One of my bridesmaids is so excited at the prospect of being childfree that she’s booked the grandparents for babysitting duties from the Thursday until the Sunday!

A friend to design our invitations

When we announced our engagement one of my old friends, James, immediately offered to design the invitations for us. As he’s an amazing artist there was no way we were going to say no. I’ve always loved his work and have had a particular hankering for his vintage railway style posters for a long time. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get him to do one for us.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Emma tells us about her botanical inspired wedding stationery and illustrated save the dates

Charlie

It is less than a month now to Emma and Shane’s wedding – I can’t believe the time has flown by so quickly! Fingers-crossed Emma will be able to squeeze in another blog post or two if we’re lucky with a few more details about their beautiful sounding natural city wedding. You can catch up on all her posts so far here.

Today she’s sharing details of her botanical inspired invitations (I love this design so much!), so over to Emma…

Love Local, or, A Tale of Two Cities

In all aspects of our wedding we’ve aimed to make the most of the incredible pool of local talent, and our wedding invitations are no exception! Although I must admit that if I had the time and skill I would have loved nothing more than to make all of the wedding stationery myself.

It was important to us that they reflected our day and felt personal and informal – I spent an inordinate amount of time searching for “the one”. As we had a small budget for stationery, we couldn’t go the bespoke route, so I looked instead for something off-the-peg that could be customised.

Lauren

Rustic floral stationery from Sarah Wants inspired by The Blue Carrot’s cutting garden in high summer

Lauren

I can’t think of a nicer outing than a visit to a working cutting garden, full of British blooms – choosing the flowers was definitely my favourite part of wedding planning! I remember visiting a local grower on several occasions and seeing little seedlings flourish into gorgeous wedding-worthy flowers was quite a privilege.

There are some wonderful florists who grow their own on the directory and if you’re lucky, you may even be invited to visit their cutting garden as part of your consultation.

When Charlie was planning the TNWC South West Roadtrip back last summer, scheduling a visit to meet Suzanne of The Blue Carrot in Cornwall was high on her priority list. You can read all about what she got up tohere.

On the day of her trip, Charlie was also joined by Sarah from Sarah Wants, an award winning wedding stationery designer and self-confessed country bumpkin who today shares with us the idyllic visit which inspired a new collection. Plus there’s an exclusive discount for TNWC readers!

Over to Sarah…

On a day of sunshine and blue skies, I met Charlie and Suzanne for a lovely lunch at the Hidden Hut just above the beach in Porthcurnick. Afterwards, I was very privileged to visit Suzanne’s beautiful walled cutting garden which was such a treat, it felt like a little hidden secret!

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Lisa has been getting her guests in the festival mood with quirky invitations

Charlie

Your ‘save the dates’ and wedding invitations are often the first thing that tells your guests what to expect from your wedding – I remember when we were making ours that I really wanted them to hint at what our wedding would be like to our family and friends.

TNWC Real Bride Lisa is sharing their quirky wedding invitations with hand drawn illustrations for their festival inspired wedding in Wales. I love how they look like a ticket – perfect!

Over to Lisa to tell you all about them…

Quirky invitations to get our guests into the festival mood

There is nothing nicer than receiving mail; it’s like a little journey back in time. I don’t mean all that junk mail that litters the mat but birthday cards, Christmas cards, good old fashioned letters and my absolute favourite, invitations. I remember getting my first birthday invitation when I was very young and have loved receiving them ever since.

So for me the invitations to our big day were important, they can really set the tone of your wedding. They can fit into the colour scheme; let the guest know if it’s an elegant, traditional affair or a more quirky, unusual celebration and can really get the excitement going.

Our save the dates were free printable designs from the company that we used for our invitations, we very simply printed them on some good quality card and made them into bookmarks. I then punched a hole at the top, threaded some pretty ribbon through and made a little tie – that was pretty much it. Very simple, very economical and I felt very effective. It was from here that I explored a bit more about the company Something Kinda Cute.

For the invitations, we did really wanted to push the boat out. In my original blog I wrote that I wanted to make my own invitations to give it a real personal touch, however when I saw these particular designs I fell in love with them and thought they fitted our theme perfectly.

Charlie

Elegant English country garden party inspired handmade wedding stationery from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

For all of you embarking on the hunt for you wedding stationery, today’s post is bound to inspire you. We are joined again by the lovely Lucy from Lucy Says I Do, who has been sharing a number of guest blog posts all about the handmade elements of her own wedding (read all about her bridesmaids dresses, homegrown flowers, and antique wedding dress).

Lucy runs her own business (and one of our recommended suppliers) Lucy Says I Do, creating all kinds of beautiful wedding invitations, paper goods and gifts, so it’s pretty cool to hear about how she designed her own wedding stationery.

Over to Lucy to tell us all about it…

As with all of the inputs to our wedding, the invitations were a real labour of love! We wanted all our guests to be given a taster of what our day was about, what was important to us, and hopefully generate a little bit of anticipation for the big day!

Charlie

A fabulous 20% discount on all wedding stationery collections from Paper Themes including chalkboard inspired invites

Charlie

For any of you brides- and grooms-to-be who are on the hunt for your wedding stationery then today I have an exclusive offer to share with you from one of our recommended suppliers, Paper Themes.

Paper Themes are offering our readers a fabulous 20% discount on all their wedding stationery, which includes wedding invitations, evening invitations, order of service, thank you cards, RSVPs, and place cards.

I particularly like these chalkboard style invitations…

Mike from Paper Themes told me a little bit more about what they do and offer: “We offer a collection of traditional, modern and contemporary wedding invitations, all of which can be fully personalised to include the details of your big day. All our invitations are made to order in the UK to the highest standards using only the highest quality materials, delivered to your door in a beautiful presentation box complete with complimentary envelopes.”

Charlie

TNWC South West Roadtrip Day 6: visiting the studio of Charlie Scribble

Charlie

I can’t believe that I only have two days left of visiting businesses on the TNWC South West Roadtrip (Sunday is my day off with family) – it has been an incredible week so far and I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading about my adventures.

Yesterday I had a pretty chilled day, which at nearly 29 weeks pregnant I was in need of after the busy week I’ve had. I headed from the south coast of Cornwall, across the county to just outside Wadebridge too meet up with Flo from Charlie Scribble. Flo creates beautiful wedding stationery with a very distinct style that incorporates her beautiful illustrations.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Myfawny has been busy designing their tea towel invitations and making confetti from old books

Charlie

For those of you keenly following the TNWC Real Brides feature you may have noticed we skipped a week last week. That’s my fault as I had become a bit disorganised following a rather nasty cold over Easter, and as such didn’t get ready in time – so apologies! I am delighted that we are back on schedule this week and have two lovely guest posts from Myfawny and Sarah.

I’ve also made it easier for you to track down all your favourite TNWC Real Brides stories, simply click on their names and you’ll be taken through to all their guest blog posts: Emma, Nik, Myfawny, Sarah, Caroline and Stephanie.

Today Myfawny is sharing details about the designs for their tea towel invitations (how great do they sound!) and making confetti – the picture of Arthur their dog helping them stamp out confetti from old books is not to be missed! Happy reading…

Easter has come and gone the season is upon us and our shop is now open six days a week until July and then seven days a week until we close five days before the wedding. The realisation that we may have bitten off more than we can chew is slowly sinking in but we are not to be defeated! So during the last month we have concentrated on invites and confetti.

Tea Towel Invitations

We wanted some unique invites – we had been lucky enough to win the TNWC competition for a personalised hand painted map of our day by the wonderful Pigeon & Quill. Alex really was a pleasure to work with and the map is truly fantastic and incorporates all the elements of our day.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Nik tells us about their DIY wedding invitations and building a wedding website

Charlie

Welcome to our second TNWC Real Brides guest post of the week! Today we’ve got the lovely Nik to tell us all about her beautiful DIY wedding invitations and how they created their wedding website. I’m a little bit jealous because I love the style of Nik and Chris’ invitations and think they fit so well with their coastal farm wedding.

If you’ve not read Nik’s first few guest posts, you should first read about her plans for their relaxed coastal farm wedding, and her experience of choosing an ethical wedding dress.

One of the first jobs we tackled upon choosing our chosen wedding venue was our invitations. Our announcement of plans for a summer wedding was immediately met with panic from several relatives and friends about potential holiday clashes. Getting the invites out six months in advance gave everyone plenty of time to plan their hols around the wedding, and has meant that we’ve only had one clash resulting in absent friends on the day.

Our wedding celebrations will be split into two very different parts: a very small ceremony with 25 close family and friends on the farm where we live in Pembrokeshire; and a big all day reception two days later in our home county of West Yorkshire. This gives us the best of both worlds: a relaxed, intimate ceremony where we can focus on the day and what it means, but also the opportunity to celebrate our marriage with our wider network of friends, which is very important to us.

Ceremony Invites

We planned to DIY our invites from the word go: we wanted them to be very personal, I wanted them printed on ‘green’ paper and Chris is a graphic/web designer so it seemed silly not to take advantage of that! However, in the end, we decided to buy our ceremony invites ‘off the rack’ as we realised that we just couldn’t print them at home without compromising on the quality and appearance. Lela of doodlelove was fantastic and worked with us to create a complementary design to match our theme, even incorporating the little chicken illustration that has sort of become our invitation mascot!

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