Beauty and the Beast Wedding at THe Empress Estate

Working with Deirdra and Michael was so much fun.  Their design process included many aspects of wedding stationery that I love: great couple, fun theme, elements you can’t get when you buy from a big online retailer, and creating something super unique.

It all started on a Saturday in May.  I was all prepared for a nice quiet Saturday in my pajamas and sitting on the couch with my laptop getting some work done.  But then my phone rang and Deirdra was feeling stressed about her invitations and they needed to be out to their guests in just a few weeks.  So an hour later we were meeting to work out their design.

Deirdra and Michael were such a sweet couple.  They were having their wedding at The Empress Estate in Ridgefield, Washington.  Beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe The Empress Estate.  They also were having a Beauty and the Beast theme.  Love! Love! Love!  This was going to be a lot of fun.  Their colors were sapphire and gold and they wanted to incorporate roses as well.  We also decided putting “Be our guest” at the top of the invitation would be a great way to pull in the theme.

Now that we had a design in mind it was time to figure out the actual paper pieces.  Anytime the design is simpler I suggest a textured card stock.  It is a subtle detail that makes a big impact.  Two common textures I recommend are linen and eggshell (looks kind of like the texture of a painted wall).  They agreed that a texture would do nicely.  They chose eggshell.

They were wanting a little more pizazz on their invitations so we talked through some options.  It was also a nice way to add in more of the sapphire and gold.  They chose to have the invitations mounted on a sapphire gate card tied closed with a gold ribbon and to use a gold shimmer envelope.  That envelope was going to make quite the impression before their guests even opened it.  I always suggest colored envelopes to my clients because most mail comes in white envelopes.  Your invitation is not “most mail” and it should stand out.

To help them get their invitations out in the mail as soon as possible I delivered the envelopes for them to be able to start writing out the addresses before the invitations were done.  About a week later I delivered the invitations to them.  I was very excited to show them the invitations but also a little nervous (I am always nervous before a delivery).  But they loved them!  That is my favorite part.

Keywords: wedding, wedding invitations, wedding theme, gate-fold invitation, Beauty and the Beast, theme wedding, The Empress Estate, Washington