Guest post by Hannah Rodewald of The Pleasure of Your Company.
Every January, when new invitation albums come in and the latest new samples arrive from our designers, we always wonder which designs and trends will be the most popular with brides.
Brides are planning so many different looks for their weddings, everything from a rustic but chic wedding in a barn or vineyard with lots of burlap and lace to an ultra-sophisticated wedding with a very minimalist urban look. And the good news is that wedding designers are on top of it and creating invitations for every new look.
Visit here for some of the trends weve spotted:
Letterpressed invitations look better when printed on a heavier bamboo or cotton card. But even when the bride is choosing an engraved or digitally printed invitation, many want the heavier feel of a 192# or 600 gsm card.
Major wow factor in adding foil printing to the invitation to highlight the bride and grooms names or a design element.
Brides are choosing lace wedding gowns and lacy linens for the wedding reception and then picking up that theme in their invitations. We are doing blind-embossed lace borders and motifs, and adding actual lace to the invitations which adds great texture.
All the old rules about not using more than three fonts, not mixing two scripts together, not using more than a few point sizes are out the window. The result is creative, one of a kind typesetting. Calligraphic swashes and flourishes, names running off the edges of the invitations, and poster-like blocks of text all add interest to the invitation.
Even the most formal brides and grooms are incorporating an element of fun in their wedding invitations. Folk art illustrations of the bride and groom and even their dog adorn invitations. Wedding invitations tell the couples love story. Destination maps and nautical charts are printed on the envelope linings. The response card can be a mad lib fill-in-the words response. The rules of etiquette have become just guidelines as brides are more creative with wording. And check out our Save the Date board at www.pinterest.com/tpoyc to see the clever photos that some couples have incorporated into their save the dates.
Invitations can be printed on diecut invitations, or you can incorporate the trend by just printing the response and insert cards on circles and other shapes.
Folk art illustrations, watercolors, hand drawn border and papercuts are some of the ways couples are adding original art to their invitations.
Many brides chose a traditional invitation printed in a neutral color on a white or ecru card, but then add just a pop of their wedding colors by painting the edges of the invitation or tying a ribbon on it. The colors we are seeing most often are coral, honeysuckle, shrimp, dusty pink, purple, eggplant, khaki, kraft, bark, natural linen and spring green.
One of the trends we are seeing everywhere but Baltimore is ombre using graduated shades of one color. Weve seen some very interesting work and are waiting to see if this is a trend coming later to Baltimore or skipping us entirely.
And the last trend is more of a question mark right now as we wait and see if it will catch on.
Will the smash hit, Downton Abbey, influence weddings and wedding invitations? The elegance of the English set décor, the formal way they dine and entertain, the to-die-for fashions, the mixing of prints and patterned fabrics, and the tradition of formal, written correspondence just might have us doing things in an entire new way. Everything old is new again.
And the last trend is more of a question mark right now as we wait and see if it will catch on.