THE CARNER WEDDING INVITATION

In less than a week, my only daughter, Carrie, will be getting married. She asked that I do her wedding invitations, claiming that she had always wanted me to do them for her. Of course, she had a vision in mind of how it was to look, but had no clue what direction to go in, until we paid a visit to the stationery store to see some designs. While her vision provided essential criteria for the invitation, I still found that I had to work with available elements on hand locally. Those material elements in this part of the country are very limited, so I had to turn on the creativity button to get the ball rolling. Eventually, the light bulb turned on, and I was on a roll to make it happen.


Believe it or not, we decided that we should work from the inside out. We decided on the translucent vellum envelope. I found an excellent website to shop for the envelopes, and we decided on the 4-3/8x11" policy envelope, that opens from the top. I ordered 100 to allow for misprints and extras for mistakes by the calligrapher (that's me). Then, we were set for finding the other elements for the invitation.

Though her colors were primarily mocha and champagne, Carrie definitely wanted some element of handmade paper to be included in the design. Bill and I made the rounds in Tulsa, shopping at the usual Michael's and Hobby Lobby stores and, predictably, found that there was nothing to work with that resembled the handmade look that Carrie wanted. Finally, we drove across town to Ziegler's and found in their flat files a few sheets of Thai-reversible, white and cream, and decided on that for the wrap around the invitation. Originally, Carrie wanted the mocha wrap, but it just wasn't going to happen with limited supplies in Tulsa.

After visiting with a printer, we decided on the natural linen (champagne color) for the printed part, to be mounted on the mocha cardstock we obtained from Hobby Lobby. Finally, we were headed in the right direction. This project just seemed to entail lots of trial and error, but eventually we knew it needed a personal element to tie the wrap to the invitation, and I decided to design the "C" to solve that problem. Conveniently, I decided on "C" to represent Carrie before the wedding, and Carner after the wedding. I drew the "C" by using a cross-hatching method of fill-in that I love to do while simply doodling. At one point, while drawing the larger original, Carrie said that it looked like "sticks." I wasn't surprised by this assessment by my predominantly left-brained daughter,but I had an answer for her, saying, "Carrie, just tell people that it's a fall theme, and you are glad that I didn't include a pumpkin on the design." She was satisfied.

The lettering for the inside invitation took the longest. I'm sure I must have written this out about 80 times. The wording was easy enough, though I was experiencing bouts of performance anxiety that, actually, seemed to sabotage completion of the project. Carrie requested the required number of flourishes, while I just wanted it to be simple and complete. I did manage enough flourishes to satisfy her again.

To make my life simple, I used the computer font for the reply card and envelope lettering. It resembled the calligraphy style I used, and I was not ashamed to use it, either. Of course, the "C" was included on the reply card.

Once I had all of the paste-ups ready, I headed to the printer. Even though the representative at Quik Print was a big help to me while designing this project, their cost-estimate seemed to be very expensive. After making a few other inquiries in the neighborhood of printers, I found a woman that was able to give me confidence that she could accomplish our task at a much more reasonable price. After deciding to switch printers, I had to return to QP to retrieve my originals, but felt quite guilty because I was renigging on my request to have them print my order. My dread in returning for the artwork made me remember the "olden days" of facing a boyfriend that I was about to break up with and ask for my "stuff" back. My good friend Brenda went with me to make sure I didn't cave under this emotional pressure to stand up for a sizeable savings in printing costs that would benefit the wedding budget.

In addition to the invitation, reply card, and envelopes, Carrie requested that I design a larger "C" to hang from the end chairs of the center aisle. This is the original size of my design, and a closer look reveals the cross-hatching I used in drawing the letterform.

While the colors were mocha and champagne, the digital camera I used does not reveal the elegant colors that Carrie will be using as the color-theme in her wedding plans. However, it is the calligraphy on the invitation and the addressing that Carrie was so pleased to utilize for her very own wedding invitations. I have plans to create the guest book, as well, which will coincide with the design of the invitation, using the same colors and papers.

She has received many compliments (as have I, as well), and was proud to have her mom create and letter these for her special day, October 30th, 2009. She is marrying Douglas A. Carner, a really wonderful man that she truly loves, which makes her family excited for her. Cheers to Mr. and Mrs. Carner!!!