TUESDAY | Vintage Love

A recent, and we must say lovely, trend in invitation design is the use of vintage stamps to create a colorful and graphic statement. The right combination of colors, shapes, and sizes of vintage stamps creates a gorgeous and unique aesthetic that, combined with elegant calligraphy, turns your envelopes into art pieces of their own! 

Allie Ruth Design

Arboreal

 Atheneum Creative 

Sadly, our hearts sink every time we visit the USPS site hoping to discover some gorgeous re-releases of classic postage, only to find more "Flags of our Nation" stamps. Not that we don't love the flags of our nation, but the designers in us crave something more, well...designed!

So here's a collection of helpful websites we've come across on our hunt for those glorious and elusive creatures. 

Verde Studio: Through Etsy, this studio based in York, PA will style and collect the vintage stamps for 
                       your envelopes! Owner Virginia Sauder will look at your color palette and  
                       hand-select stamps to create a truly custom design.

Champion Stamp: Stamp collectors located in New York. They sell out of their store, located in 
                            midtown, or from their website. A good resource if you know what you're looking    
                            for!

Ebay: There are a TON of stamp collectors selling vintage stamps on Ebay. Just make sure to shop 
          smart, some sellers only have portions of their collections that are unused. You don't want to end 
          up with stamps that can only be used for decor!

Keep in mind that wedding postage, depending on the weight of your invitations, can run upwards of $165.00 for 150 invitations + RSVP cards. Most vintage stamps are marked up 75%, which makes using vintage stamps a more costly (and time consuming) project. 

But if it's in your budget and on your radar, the end result is a beautiful thing to behold!

  

MONDAY | Singular Rings

New beginnings... a novel week, a fresh start, revived hope, and renewed love. We're thinking outside the box this Monday about love's metallic incarnations. White gold and white diamonds might not ever be passé, but maybe you find yourself wishing for something more... you? Here are some of our favorite jeweled bands for all of the "outside-the-(ring)box" lovers out there!

Alexandrite cluster ring from MOCIUN

Custom MOCIUN antique diamond, coral, and bi color sapphire set in 14K yellow gold

Bittersweets Brilliant Twig ring in 14K rose gold

1870-80s Turquoise & Rose Cut Diamond Ring, 10K Gold sold at MOCIUN

Wave Ring, gold with flecks of color, from Catbird 

From Satomi Kawakita, an 18K gold eternity band with black diamonds

Modern Romance

Hold onto your hats, people - this is about to be one massively amazing blog post! Awhile back, our lovely friends Mai and Ek got engaged. You might remember Ek from our post, "The Paper Makes the Man." If so, you'll recall that Ek is an impeccably stylish guy with pretty awesome taste, which means that Mai is not only gorgeous and lovely, but also has a fabulous eye for all things timeless, classic, and elegant.

So when, over glasses of wine one night, they asked us to custom design the paper for their wedding, we were not only flattered but also thrilled. We knew that Mai and Ek were going to give us some stellar inspiration to work from and boy, we were right!

Mai and Ek are getting married in Bangkok, Thailand and have a clear vision that their wedding will be a magical, romantic gathering of their closest friends and family. They shared many images and ideas with us that helped guide our design process to make their paper singularly "them." So with touches of vintage charm, gorgeous flowers, and a dash of whimsy, these Save the Dates are just a preview of the wonderful times ahead. 

The Color Palette:

{design seeds}

The colors, sea blue, steel grey, peach, blush, and charcoal, were a fantastic starting point for our design process. We knew with these colors, the Save the Dates would have a classic, yet modern, look.

The Inspiration:

Peonies

Mai gave us so many beautiful images to work with through her board on Pinterest, we were overwhelmed by the beauty of it all! Mai, like most of us, has a healthy obsession with gorgeous flowers, especially peonies, so we knew we had to incorporate those luscious blossoms into the design.

ZsaZsa Bellagio

 Ruffled

Gold

Accents of gold, especially against this color palette, add hints of both luxury and warmth to the design. We were obsessed with finding a way to use textured gold against the matte pinks and blues of the paper, creating a sophisticated look.

Style Me Pretty

Style Me Pretty

Green Wedding Shoes

Elegant Whimsy

Finally, because we know how fun, easy-going, adorable, and charming Mai and Ek are as a couple, we knew that there had to be some playful elements to the paper, reflecting their personalities and style. We used several images of paper, fashion, and design to point us in the right direction.

Emmaline Bride

Oh So Beautiful Paper

Style Me Pretty

The Paper:

Once we were thoroughly inspired, we let our imaginations run wild! After coming up with a design proposal and several rounds of editing, we finally settled on a design!

The Save the Dates would be letterpress printed in three different colors - blush, charcoal, and peach, with a blind embossed "peony" detail in opposing corners. The main piece would then be backed with layers of lace and peach paper, giving depth to the design. 

This was finished with a band of opaque shimmer paper, gold thread, heart tags, and Tiffany blue envelopes. The final detail was we created a fabulous return address stamp for Mai and Ek, to be stamped in gold. 

All we can say is...wow! We are so lucky to have such fabulous friends and so excited to see where the invitation design process leads us!

Industrial Revolution

Here in L.A. and spending the afternoon pondering raw spaces, industrial landscapes, and, of course, weddings! After getting a great cut at Refuge salon in Echo Park, which is located inside a huge warehouse of broken windows, old school lockers, and basket swings hanging from 35 foot rafters, the grittiness of it all was refreshing. 

We’re a retouched, reblogged, posted, commented, contrived, liked, replied, filtered, and exclaimed, image obsessed culture…and trust me, we love it! But it can make it hard to re-imagine the imperfect spaces around us instead of craving a pristine alternate reality.

Picture a wedding that is a walking tour of some favorite, “off the beaten path” places, as if the city is a guest too! So we’re dedicating today’s images to lovers of the city, the urban, and the untouched, overlooked spaces. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but sometimes it is just around the corner…

 The dress: The intricate Pavot Gown from BHLDN, Elie Saab’s glamourous gold dress from haute couture Fall 2012 collection, or an architectural white sheath from the Calvin Klein collection.

Akatre - Degrades (2012) The color palette (could make a brilliant “altar” too)

Groom's shoes, hair and makeup, graffiti style, and flowers.

 Everyone takes pubic transit to the first destination and then it’s all an urban hike from there.

First stop, Chinatown in Downtown L.A. for a “block party” cocktail hour before the walking ceremony starts. It will losen everyone up and make for some memorable photos. 

From Chinatown, the walking ceremony continues to Los Angeles State Historic Park, once home to the fantastic installation “Not A Cornfield,” by Lauren Bon, where readings and musical performances compliment the Los Angeles skyline and the Gold Line train tracks. 

By this time, your guests will need some reinforcements so why not stop at the installation, “Another city is Possible” (Lauren Bon/Metabolic Studios/Farmlab, 2008) located under a pedestrian overpass. There guests might find some appetizers catered by Philippe’s (home to the original french dip sandwich!), while pondering the juncture of art, the city, and sustainability.

After receiving sustenance, guests (and their feet!) should be ready to take a seat to listen to declarations of love and all that jazz. If the event is timed right, every year in early September Sci Arc faculty members and students put the finishing touches on a temporary pavilion for graduation, which often result in breathtaking transformations of space - perfect for ceremonies of all kinds! 

While guests enjoy their second cocktail hour at Villian’s Tavern, complete with beer served in mason jars and live music, the wedding party heads over to the (nearly extinct!) Sixth Street Bridge overlooking the L.A. River for gritty, site-specific photographs. 

The last and final stop of the evening will be a gastronomical, kinetic, and aquatic delight as everyone takes over the event space at Factory Place Arts Complex for a serious pool/dance party catered by the local and seasonal restaurant Forage. It will be a blowout evening to match a one-of-a-kind wedding, a day for interactions with places, spaces, laughter, and love. 

Of course, we can't head out into the urban jungle without showing off a little paper. Maybe it's all about graphic, maybe it's all about pattern, or maybe it's a little of both.  

 'Til next time!