The most personal project
For my wedding I had to do something very unusual...design something to my own design brief! My new husband and I both love nature; one of the reasons we chose our home was that it had a grand old oak tree in the back garden. I wanted this beautiful tree to inspire our wedding design. I also wanted to reference the design of the first Valentine's Day card, which I sent to my husband and that we have always sentimentally kept.
The final invite design was an illustration I created based on our oak tree and the nature that lives in it. My husband wrote out our names, in his beautiful handwriting, so I could incorporate that in to the card design. The design was truly a joint creation.
Our RSVP card designs, included within the invite card, had two variations – day and evening. The day guest card had 4 pages, with the inner allowing the guest to select their choice of food, and the evening guest card had 2 pages. Both cards featured the squirrel motif from the invite card. On the back of the RSVP card designs, I also included a small piece about out beautiful venue, Langtons House; a beautiful Georgian Grade II listed building overlooking landscaped gardens and an ornamental lake.
My design mind then turned to the big day itself...I wanted to make the day as personal as possible and worked with our amazing florist, Lisa, at Blooms and Bows to create bouquets and floral designs that worked with my graphics and our natural theme.
I also designed some very cute pin pageboy badges, in a coordinating vintage style, that Blooms and Bows could add gorgeous little berry-like flowers too.
My next creative job was – JARS! I spent a whole Sunday hand decorating old food jars and bottles. I was in my creative element as I sat there with a bag of lace, ribbons, buttons and bits of twine. I was delighted with the results, especially once Blooms and Bows added their floral designs to them – they looked stunning! The vintage style jars also made a lovely gift for guests to take-away at the end of the evening. Once flowers had died away, I was pleased to hear many of our guests had kept their decorated jar as a souvenir of the day.
And then to continue the oak tree theme, I decided to incorporate acorns in to the wedding place cards. My husband and I went out and collected fallen acorns from our tree, and a bundle of oak leaves. I traced around the oak leaves on to green card and then cut each one out with a scalpel. Each acorn was then glue-gunned to a paper oak leaf via a connecting piece of garden twine. My husband then, once again, used his beautiful handwriting to add the name to each card.
Our fantastic cake designer, Donna at Willow and Bloom, also fully understood my design ideas. One of the best things about getting married was meeting other creatives, and Donna incorporated in to our cake design the twine and ribbons and a little personalised vintage tag. She also matched perfectly the David Austin Juliet rose, which I requested in the bouquets.
Next job... the table plan! I wanted something unique, which would continue our theme. I quickly sketched out a New England inspired shelf display – and my amazing new husband went out to the garage and came back with it built. To go on the display shelves, I purchased a few different pretty frames. Each frame could hold the inserts which I created; different design for each table. The style I went for had a chalkboard effect and the whole table plan display drew quite a lot of praise from our lovely guests.
My final little creative projects were for the 'table bits'... cute little stripy wedding favour bags, which were full of tasty sweets; sherbet, liquorice, flumps; and little envelopes containing sunflower seeds to 'let the love grow'.
I hope you like these design ideas and they inspire you. Our Wedding Day was so beautiful and happy; it really was the best day. If you are getting married, and like some of my design ideas, please email: info@joannewood.co.uk. I would love to discuss your Wedding Day. I have over 18 years experience as a graphic designer and can create your bespoke wedding invites, RSVP cards, table decorations and much more. I can also suggest printers, paper stocks and print techniques. I would love to make your Wedding Day as perfect as ours – and as special as you.
CREDITS:
Cake Designer – Willow and Bloom
Floral Design – Blooms and Bows
Graphic Design – Joanne Wood Design Ltd
Photographer – Lucie Watson Photography
Venue – Langtons House
Wedding Car Hire – Taxi Wedding Company