Destination Wedding After Party

Suzanne and Jim had a small wedding ceremony in Key West, then returned home to New Jersey to throw a celebratory party for their friends and extended families. The wedding locale provided a festive color scheme for their post-nuptial invitations. We accented both Key West and New Jersey in the photographs on their response postcard and hand-lettered a "logo" for both use on both pieces.

Sunny and "Cheerful" Invitations

Brigette and Matt's  (see their Save the Date postcard here)  summer wedding invitation suite is an example of how a good design can be quite simple and still be interesting. We based the plaid belly band on the ribbon used for the flower girl's dress sash, and the sunny colors tied everything together.

Alison & Ridge's Nautical Wedding

It is always wonderful to see pictures of our clients' events. These beautiful photographs of Alison & Ridge's August, 2011 wedding were taken by John Arcara. Clark's Landing Yacht Club in Point Pleasant served as a gorgeous backdrop for the reception shots. We carried the nautical theme through from save the date cards and invitations to menus, table cards, and seating cards. Tables were named for different sailing knots, and we coordinated illustrations of each knot on the backs of the seating cards.

Happy New Year

January brings with it new couples, new challenges, and new collaborations. Much of the beginning of the year is devoted to initial meetings with clients and the first steps towards fresh creations.

We met with Kelly and Chris around this time last year to design their June wedding invitations. They wanted a more traditional look than their baseball-themed Save the Date tickets (a motif to which we returned in their seating and table assignments). Traditional didn't need to mean boring, so we hand-lettered a monogram and chose a batik paper for the belly band. A turquoise envelope liner was yet another tool we implemented to help show their fun personalities.

'Tis the Season

We designed this cover for Porter Design Company's holiday card. Porter is actually the black labrador in the painting for whom the company is named. Merry Christmas!

Kara & Tom

Kara and Tom were engaged on Prince Edward Island and wanted to incorporate this location into their Save the Date postcards. The couple had fun with the self-timer on their camera and provided us with this vivacious shot as reference for the final watercolor painting, which will serve as a keepsake of their special trip.

Large Letter Postcards

Large letter postcards were staple souvenirs from many U.S. towns in the early part of the Twentieth Century. Since the Jersey shore was a resort destination before air travel was common, it is easy to find this style of vintage postcard from just about any of the stops along the shore. We created our own designs for these three couples' Save the Date postcards using photographs and paintings. The painted card (Red Bank) especially evokes the postcards of days past, and was printed on linen stock to further emphasize the look of the older versions.

A Charming Engagement

We're always impressed with some of the creative ways grooms pop the question, and this one was particularly sweet. Matt carved his and Brigette's initials into a tree trunk and hollowed out a place at the top for the engagement ring. This inspired their Save the Date postcard for a summer wedding.

Bridal Shower Wishing Well

For Stephanie's shower, her bridal party and mother decided upon lottery tickets as a fun wishing well gift idea. We thought it would be amusing to make the insert look like a NJ Lottery ticket and found the right patterned paper to give a similar feel to the actual tickets. 

Annie and Paul's Wedding

The very spirited Annie and Paul were wed a couple of weeks ago. Their personalities and enthusiasm (for not only getting married, but also for this part of the nuptial planning), showed through in this map/parody invitation set. Both Annie and Paul are fans of Broadway, so we designed a logo for their very own show/Playbill cover. A hand-cut cupcake functioned as a reception card, and we used the cupcake icon again on the map, with "Han Solo" and "Princess Leia" cake toppers.

Five Years

Today is our fifth anniversary! Thank you to our clients for all of the creative projects over the last five years. We'd especially like to express our gratitude to the loyal folks who return to us event after event, and who choose to share their significant milestones with us. 

Asbury Park Wedding

Over the past few years, the Asbury Park beach and boardwalk have become very popular for wedding ceremonies and receptions. Laura and Mike wanted to accentuate their Asbury Park wedding sites on the invitations, so we created these line illustrations of McLoone's and Convention Hall. Metallic paper stocks and thermography (raised printing) were used to dress up this non-traditional invitation design. "Tillie" is an icon of the city, and we used the graphic on direction cards as well as these signature drink tents.

Alice in Wonderland

Here are pictures from the second Spread the Love Tour stop for which we provided paper pieces: Toronto. The theme this time was "Alice in Wonderland," and what an amazing job Justin and Mary did making it happen! We tend to work in a vacuum preparing things to send for the shoots, so seeing how our pieces are presented with the props, models, and scenery is always rewarding. Credit must also go assistant Julia Gargano, with whom we work to get the details just right, from Mad Hatter seating card tags & hats, to hand-lettered "Wrong Way" signs and "Drink Me/Eat Me Tags" to timepiece signs and tags. 

Cowboy Take Me Away

These stunning photographs are courtesy of the talented Justin & Mary based in Connecticut. We were fortunate enough to be a part of two of their stops on 2011's Spread the Love Tour.

These shots are from the Houston workshop, where the theme was "Cowboy Take Me Away." We love how they coordinated a Texas-style wedding. They are always gracious enough to provide us with photographs of our paper designs. For this stop we designed seed tags, an illustrated quilt board on which seating tags were pinned, as well as few dessert signs.

Interior Design Rendering

While not invitation or wedding related, this was an out of the ordinary illustration opportunity from the spring we felt worth posting. We thoroughly enjoyed working with our friend Lauren of Porter Design Co. to create a rendering of this beautiful room she designed. We were given fabric swatches and pictures of the furnishings, as well as a general room layout. While it was challenging to create an accurate rendering without seeing the finished room, it was amply rewarding when Lauren sent us photographs of how the room came together.

Joerika's Wedding Invitation

Joey and Erika will be married on the beach this October. They came to us looking for something different for their wedding invitation. An original watercolor painting was created for the invitation, which included the moniker their friends have taken to calling them, "Joerika."

A Personalized Bridal Shower

When it comes to living at the shore, an outdoor shower is an indispensable summertime perk. We liked using the pun approach for Jamie's bridal shower invitation, and including an original portrait of her (created for her wedding invitation)  made the design even more tailored to the event.

Summer Fun

Since summer is upon us, we thought this design was the right one to post to ring in the season! Michele and her friends are sure to have a great time celebrating and enjoying the beautiful Vermont scenery.

Katie and Kevin - June 12, 2010

Clients Katie and Kevin just celebrated their one year anniversary and generously shared pictures of our work from their wedding reception. It was fun to see how the Dancing Shoes buckets looked filled with flip flops. Seating cards and starfish-embellished menus were also nice to see in context. We really enjoyed seeing the photo of Katie's wedding present to her father (an original "Father of the Bride" painting of the two of them) next to the DVD. Photographs courtesy of Thérese Marie Wagner Photography.

Phillies vs. Yankees

Kelly and Chris were married yesterday. She's a Phillies fan and he loves the Yankees. We created a wedding logo to parody MLB's recognizable brand and used it on the jersey-style table cards. Team Line Up cards served as seating assignments. For their own sweetheart table, the bride and groom used Bobby Abreu, No. 53, a former member of both teams.

Beach Bridal Shower

In the summer, it is not unusual to see groups of friends gathered in small (or large) circles on NJ beaches. Michele and her friends and family have enjoyed many summer memories this way, so we wanted to bring this concept to life for her bridal shower invitation. We tried to present the text of this piece in a different way than we had ever seen or done before. By using characters and dialogue, the message is conveyed in a fun and unique way. 

Map Save the Date

Save the Date announcements are an opportunity to have a good time: for us as designers and also for our clients. We often do a fun Save the Date followed by a much more formal wedding invitation. Original maps are perfect for such instances, such as this one for Jena & Gary.

Sunrise Engagement

We met recently with Lyndsey to come up with a design for her Save the Date cards. When she showed us these pictures of her sunrise engagement on the beach, we knew we had a concept. Eric arranged to have his brother document the occasion from further up the beach. Lyndsey was not only unaware of Eric's grand plan, but also that she would be able to relive the moment for years to come through these photographs. We loved everything about the story.

A Nice Wedding Gift

This travel poster-inspired wedding gift was commissioned last fall along with the St. Lucia/Jamaica poster  . The ceremony took place at Villa Zorayda in St. Augustine, Florida. The architecture of the building was a gorgeous backdrop for the couple.

Patty & Kris

Patty and Kris's letterpress wedding invitations were at the top of our list for favorites to design last year. The playful type, vintage art elements, and subdued color scheme made for a lovely addition to our portfolio. We were even happier when Patty returned to commission a map as a wedding gift for Kris. This is the first time a client requested a map to match the invitations, and we love how the pieces go together.

From Sketch to Final

All original lettering and illustration solutions begin with a sketch. The lettering, especially, takes multiple sketches to get the desired look. Here is a new Save the Date design showing the process from beginning to end.

Megan, John & Cosmo

Megan and John's wedding invitation has been very popular in our studio. The original concept was more of a comic strip, which evolved into this format, telling their story in four panels. Jersey Shore area locals know D'Jai's well, and this couple's family and friends teased them mercilessly for meeting there. That's their real house, and their dog Cosmo was also a big part of their story.  John's surprise proposal in the City of Light made for a nice visual as well. We are always happy when clients will let us go this far out of the box for their wedding invitation!

Travel Posters

Winter snowstorms have us longing for sunnier destinations! From time to time new clients fall in love with existing designs or illustrations and request a version of their own. The original Key Largo poster was part of a wedding invitation set and was created using watercolors. The Saint Lucia/Jamaica poster was a digital recreation commissioned as a wedding gift by a mother of the bride. In a crazy turn of events, St. Lucia airport was shut down due to Hurricane Tomas the weekend of the scheduled nuptials, and the entire wedding had to be replanned on the spot (in the airport!). The wedding party and their guests rerouted to Jamaica, and the story had a happy ending!

Merry Christmas

Ugly Sweater Party

'Tis the season...of holiday parties. Brian and Carol's Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party is a project we look forward to as the year comes to a close. They first came to us in 2008 for an invitation design for the second annual party. Last year the area received over 20 inches of snow the night of the event, so this year it seemed appropriate to make a joke out of the weather. 

Golf Scorecard Save the Date

Since we're posting fun Save the Dates, here is a new one. Shannon and Dave played miniature golf on their first date. They chose the same date of July 19th for their 2011 wedding, which falls in the middle of the week. We decided to emphasize the 7-19-11 date in their scorecard. They were good sports about having such terrible scores.