Willow visuals

photography, graphic design, illustration

Archives for June 2016

Where love is…

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willowvisuals blog-16

Image: Rita Miklán Photography

One of the things I really love about my job is to be part of amazing styled projects. There is a certain positive vibe in the air, when creative people work together and share their passion and love for beautiful weddings. When everyone gives their 100%, it isn´t just about image making. It is storytelling, something that you can relate to.

I know, I start sounding like such a cliche for getting excited about every little detail, but what can I do? 🙂 I´m an addict to pretty things, a fan of everything natural and a hopeless visual enthusiast.

Today I wanted to show you the outcome of one of these projects, one with a story that melts my heart, one with a special meaning. Let me share here some memories of Susanna´s and Johanna´s photoshoot.

Our location was a lovely countryside cottage close to Helsinki with that adorable rustic charm. I loved how the details complemented each other perfectly, the pretty tulle and lace gowns with the gorgeous jewellery (my personal favourite is the rose-gold ring 😉 ), the tableware with the fresh green and white flowers and the adorable lemon-ginger cake. For this occasion, I prepared a simple stationery set, featuring dusty-green eucalyptus leaf and flower illustrations. The brides’ story about how they met and about the details of the shoot is published on Häät.fi. Click on the link to read about it. 🙂

The photoshoot was organised back in March, but I felt that sharing the memories of Susanna´s and Johanna´s day has current apropos. It´s Pride Week in Helsinki, celebrating love, equality and human rights.

Happy celebration, love belongs to everyone! ❤️

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Images: Rita Miklán Photography

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Black and white images & images of stationery and table set-up by me

Creative team: Gowns: Ateljee Aaria | Jewellery: Papaya | Photography: Rita Miklán Photography | Stationery: Willow visuals | Cake: Cakes by Aan Tafel | Flowers: Floramore | Hair: Taija Stenström | Make-up: Carita Luhio.

Creative ideas for table settings

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Tablesettingblog_photo3_WillowvisualsImage: Style Me Pretty

One of the best part of wedding decoration is the table setting. I love every bit of it, the cutlery, the tablecloth, the candles and the gorgeous flowers. It´s like all the creative work you invested into the wedding planning is right there at one place. In this post I collected some of my favourite ideas for table settings.

Name tags / seating cards

Playing around with place card ideas is fun and it can be a great DIY-project. Writing the names of your guests one by one might take a little bit longer time, but it definitely gives a personal touch for the set-up. If your tables are small or you simply prefer the cleaner looks, you can substitute the seating cards with one main seating plan at the entrance of the reception.

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Images: Instagram, A Practical Wedding, Once Wed, Fab You Bliss, Wedding Sparrow, Instagram

Wedding menu / wedding program

I´m often asked about the the menu and program cards. How many pieces do you need on one table? Should there be one for each guest? I think it´s up to you. You can choose to have one menu card for each guest, in which case you can make a nice composition with a napkin fold, some twine and flower.

The other way to go is to have just a few cards on the table. Usually one menu and one program card is enough for a table of four. For a table of ten, two or three of each cards will be sufficient. I think it´s up to your budget and the style of the set-up.

From here you can find nice ideas for napkin folds.

Table numbers

In addition to flower arrangements and other decoration elements, table numbers or table names play an important part of the set-up. Just like in case of the name cards, making these decor elements can be also part of a DIY-project. You can use a photo-frame, a chalkboard or even wine bottle corks.

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Images: Etsy, Shotgunning for Love Letters, The Newport Bride, Martha Stewart Weddings, Style Me Pretty, Ruffled, Boho Weddings

Advantages of a wedding website

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Today I take a little break from papers and talk about a solution that can complement printed material for your wedding. It´s wedding websites.

Even though, I´m now endorsing something that is a cost-saving substitution of what I do for a living, I believe that these websites are so helpful, that it would be silly to ignore them.

I can start with my own experience. When H & I started organising our own destination wedding, we quickly had to face reality: it´s an immense work to put every detail together. We wanted to keep things simple, yet the more we talked about the wedding, the longer the “things to consider”-list became. Accommodation, travel guide, food options, traditions, local tourist info, registry, etc. Putting everything on paper would have meant writing an actual booklet for our guests. It just did not make sense for so many reasons. That is why we decided to make a wedding website, complementing the basic and formal invitations. And I´m just so happy we did.

Here are the reasons why I think it´s a good idea to make a wedding website:

Every information in one place

I have already mentioned earlier, but it is true: when everything is in one place, it´s easier for your guests and for you too. No invitation is left home, no map is tossed aside, no travel information gets lost. If you feel you forgot something out of the details, you can always add it there.

Convenient for the guests

Because of the fact that there are no limitations to a website, you can make it a little bit more informative to your guests. For example a page about you as a couple with some pictures make the whole site more personal and fun. In our case for example, we added there a section about the country and town. We thought that a little info about public transportation, tips at restaurants and some local “fun-facts” can be interesting.

Saving time and effort

What if you need to change plans? There might be a modification in the time-schedule or an actual change in venues one month before the wedding (Yes, it actually happened to a friend). I can picture it as a nightmare coming true. The closer you get to the date, the more details need to be cleared up and sealed. On the way to the event, there can be unpleasant surprises and you need to be prepared how to handle them the fastest and most efficient way. So far, I think the website is your best choice.

The “weight-off-your-shoulders”-functions

If, for no other reason, the website is needed for these functions. These are the RSVP, menu-choice (if it´s a seated dinner) and registry information for instance. Most of the website providers add these functions and you can fully customise them. To us, having these extra pages made the whole organisation process easier. Keeping the RSVP or the information about menu choices up-to-date is a huge help.

Cost-saving

Most of the fully customisable websites can fit everyone´s budget. If you think about it, their price is approximately equivalent to the price of envelopes and stamps for your invitations, or even less. In some cases they are for free.

Weddingwebsite_blog_3_WillowvisualsSo, if you consider having a website, which one to choose? Here are some examples that H & I had a look at, before we made our choice. I think that most of them offer the same options and there is no big difference in prices. Probably the decisive point is the layout and your own taste. After some consideration we picked weddingwoo.com. For us it seemed to work the best, we really liked the layout options and the user-friendly interface of the site. Yet again, this was our choice, I´m sure you´ll find the one you like the most. 🙂

The Knot: www.theknot.com

Appy Couple: www.appycouple.com

Weddingwoo: www.weddingwoo.com

Glö: glosite.com

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I think that digital doesn´t necessarily substitute the formal paper invitations. You might also think that setting the website up takes time too. These are all good arguments. However, if for nothing else, it´s good to consider having it. 😉

Invitation design inspiration

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“Organic “- inspiration

(Pictures: Alexandra Grecco Bridal, Style Me Pretty, Pinterest, Oncewed, Pinterest, Style Me Pretty, Stephanie Fishwick)

Finding inspiration is maybe the most challenging part of designing your invites. Wedding blogs, magazines and Pinterest are for sure very helpful. On the other hand, the more you check, the more you like and the more you like, the harder the choice is. 😉

So, as my second post in the “wedding papers”-topic, I collected some tips for you about inspiration, ideas and themes. Hopefully they help you kick-off the project.

The theme of the wedding

Probably you are in the easiest position if you already have a wedding theme in mind. Nowadays it´s a trend to organise the big day around one theme, like French country-style, vintage, organic or bohemian. In these cases, I would suggest to pick two or three little elements that best represent the main idea. For example, in case of a nautical beach wedding, navy blue color, a boat or a compass illustration could communicate the subject very well.

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“Modern minimalism” – inspiration

Pictures: Style Me Pretty, One Fab Day, Instagram, Style Me Pretty, Refinery 29, Precious Bugarin, Brit Co, Betsy White, Alexandra Grecco Bride)

The venue

If the venue has a special place in your heart, show it also on your invites. An illustration of a romantic old chapel, a greenhouse or a nice barn can make your stationery very unique and personal.

The season

Seasonal colors and flowers are always safe ideas and they can be easily incorporated in the paper design. I collected here some of Pantone´s color picks for 2016. For Winter wedding inspiration here is one of my older posts.

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For floral inspiration, I found an amazing series of posts on  Green wedding shoes, that I can highly recommend you to check out. I just love the beautiful boards they created for Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter flowers.

Your relationship

I think that above all, you should choose a design that represents you as a couple. It may be a memory you share, an important place or a hobby you have in common. When you focus on these details, you can create authentic and meaningful designs.

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“Artistic” – inspiration

(Pictures: Free Heart Project, Lilac & White, Peaches and Mint, Alexandra Grecco Bride, Greg Finck)

I hope that these tips and the photo-collages help you find some inspiration. 🙂

Petra

Where to start with your invitations?

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invitationsblog1_willowvisuals_suite(Pictures: Just My Type )

Let´s start from the beginning: Congratulations! 🙂 You are preparing for one of the most profound and beautiful experiences of your lives surrounded by your beloved ones. You have the date, booked the dream-venue and probably you have started the search for The Gown. So it is very soon time to think about the invitations. But actually, where to start? What are the elements of the stationery suite?

Honestly I would say that there are no exact rules or right answers to this question. Every wedding is different, so every suite will be different. However, it usually includes a primary invitation asking your guests to attend the wedding. I am often asked what to include in the text. I praise the idea of keeping everything “clean” and simple with only the most important details:

  • names: full or only first names
  • date
  • place and time of the ceremony
  • place and time of the reception
  • RSVP-date

Before you start creating the text, there are some things worth considering. Are you planning to have a more formal, traditional wedding or is it going to be more laid-back? I think that the way you form the text with the outlook of the invitation already sets a certain tone for the wedding.

Save the date

In some cases invitations are preceded by save-the-date cards. When you´re organising a destination wedding or you´re marrying during a high-travel time, it´s a great idea to inform your guests in this form. This way they can be prepared well ahead, so there is a higher chance they can actually make it to your day.

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(Pictures: Just my type stationery / Coccorina / Instagram / Offbeat Bride / A fabulous fete )

What else?

You can add enclosures to the invitation. Of course the amount and type of cards depend on the special details of the day.

RSVP-card with return envelope:

It is a more traditional way of asking the favour of response from your guests. This is usually a small card attached to the invitation with a response envelope. It is a very elegant solution, but it is maybe more common in the US than in Finland.

Instead of sending RSVP-cards, a popular solution nowadays is setting up an RSVP-function on your wedding website. (More about the website in another post.) But without doubt, the RSVP-card adds a nice touch to the suite. 🙂

General information card:

You can call it in many ways and you can attach really as many as you want to the invitation. Usually they include information about:

  • details of venue
  • food options
  • dress code
  • accommodation
  • directions
  • etc…

It is good to share information that is otherwise not obvious. You can save yourselves a lot of time and probably hundreds of phone-calls / emails if you chose to have these enclosures.

However, I suggest you to have just as many extra cards as it is really necessary. I believe that too much information can be overwhelming for the guests. Here again, if you have a wedding website, you can significantly reduce the amount of prints. Of course sending these cards is a very respectful solution towards guests who are less likely to use computers in general.

If you are super prepared and organised, you can also add here the schedule of the day. On the other hand, handling out the program on the actual wedding day is quite enough and for sure your guests will not accidentally leave it at home.

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(Pictures: Yao Cheng Design / Ryn Frank / Wed Luxe / Bklyn Bride / Style Me Pretty / Wedding Chicks / The Girl Tyler )

Wedding map:

A popular – and personally my favourite 🙂 – enclosure is the wedding map. Usually these little graphics are hand-drawn and they add a twist to the suite. They can present for example the direction from the ceremony to the venue, the road from the airport to city center or even different stations at the reception (cocktail-bar, dance-floor, photo booth, etc). I love the handmade feeling of these maps and I can spend a long time admiring the little details on them. They make the whole package fun and very personal. 🙂

To sum it up…

If you´re into delicate and lovely details, you´ll most likely care about the papers and colors you chose for your wedding. One thing is for sure. Your stationery is going to be one of the first things your guests interact with. It´s a beautiful and tangible way to communicate the significance of what you´re celebrating. And it is a keepsake of the day not only for you but maybe for your guests as well. That is why I suggest you to take a little time to think about it, to be creative about it and to make it special. 🙂

Petra

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