Semi-Custom Wedding Invitations - My Bees Knees!!
How to Make Semi - Custom Wedding Invitations Work For You
Wedding planning is complicated, but designing wedding invitations doesn't have to be! You don't need to pick from a catalog of ideas, but you don't have to reinvent the wheel and come up with your very own custom design either. There's a very happy middle ground called semi-custom invitation design.
Most of my wedding invitations are semi-custom. Semi-custom is where I find my groove.
What does semi-custom mean exactly?
Well, you have 3 types of invitations:
1. Catalog design - what you see is what you get, you pick a design, you plug in your wording, you maybe change a color, you go to print. You'll find these at on those big box websites or when you go to a store and leaf through books of design options. This is where we started for our invitations and I walked away saying 'meh', those are all OK I guess.....
2. Custom Designs - you go to a designer with a brand new idea. You have mood boards, inspiration pieces. They design something from scratch for each client. The process is very personal to you and may involve custom art, hand lettered calligraphy and unique processing techniques that are unique to your design.
3. Semi-Custom - You love a catalog design or two, but none are quite right. You want to change a font or two, change some colors or give it a new spin, but it's not something totally new.
This is where I come in and where I love working with my brides the most!
I find my groove with semi-custom designs. I personally don't think I could handle either making the same 5 designs every day or starting from scratch with every brand new client. Everyone has their strengths right?
I love to design, no question about it, but I love to hear what YOU want. Most of my design ideas come from my awesome clan of LamaWorks brides and grooms. I start with a design. I sketch it out, I work on the fonts, I get it just right and launch it into the world ... but then magical things can happen to it.
Emily and Joe approached me about this invitation design with some big ideas in mind. She couldn't find just what she was looking for.
The original design she loved was in light blue and ivory. They liked that the font was playful but it was still traditional, but they wanted to use more color. Their venue was called "Hummingbird House". It is very lush and tropical and vibrant. She was also using a floral lace overlay on her dress and wanted to add just a touch of that element in.
We started with finding some flower graphics she was attracted to - different colors, blooms and painting styles. From there we paired up bright paper colors to coordinate it all together. I sent her a few sketches with different options and photos of the paper along with the florals to make sure that she loved it before we got down to the details of the wording.
YES! This is great! I really loved getting creative with her and creating something new. We didn't have to start from the drawing board, we just needed to update it.
It's custom to the details of their wedding, but it wasn't reinventing the wheel right? Semi-custom products are perfect for the wedding couple that has ideas, but doesn't want to have to come up with ALL of the ideas you know what I mean?
What changes are my most requested?
- Paper Colors
- Font Colors
- Font choices
- Changes to fit within a specific budget
- Changing from a pocket to a flat invite or a flat invite to a pocket
- Adding in belly bands, ribbons or other accessories
So what design ideas do you have? What invitation design would you take from 'almost perfect' to PERFECT with just a few small changes? Let's talk about it! If you love a design, fill out the Custom Quote form to get started!
0 comments