By Mimi Ko Cruz, Special Advertising Sections Writer
You’ve planned a beautiful wedding ceremony, you’ll wear a gorgeous gown and your family and friends will feast on a 10-course gourmet meal and dance to a 10-piece orchestra.
Now, you want to introduce this affair to your guests with an invitation in keeping with the pomp and circumstance. After all, the cards offer the first glimpse of the upcoming nuptial party’s theme or style.
Mimio in Pasadena created this Asian-inspired
invitation.
For those who are planning a very traditional wedding, classic white or cream-colored stationery with engraved black type still is often chosen as a reflection of their refined approach.
But, for many other couples, it’s more important to have invitations that are different from everyone else’s. According to wedding consultants, couples now spend much time pondering over the design of their invites, hoping to wow their guests with something unique. Or, if they are artistic, they might decide to create something special themselves.
To create an individualistic look, the couple might choose a composition with layers of exotic papers in multiple colors, textures and patterns. The paper itself might be folded in an unusual way, or the envelope might be lined with handmade parchment. For that final decorative touch, people have become very creative in their choice of embellishments, even incorporating glass beads, metallic threads or packets of rice and lavender seeds into the designs.
Another invitation by Tania Baban of Marina
del Rey uses eyelash ribbon.
“All of my clients have been very, very particular about personalizing their invitations,” said Jean Picard, owner of Jean Picard Wedding Consulting and California coordinator of the Assn. of Bridal Consultants. “It’s part of an effort to tie everything together. Brides want to see the invitation really reflect the event and not just convey the information of where it’s going to be and when.”
Picard said some of her clients spend hefty sums on their invitations - $10 to $30 per card.
“I’ve had some brides who were so concerned about their invitations that the amount they spent on them accounted for 10% of their wedding budget,” she said. “One couple got engaged on a trip to Paris and their wedding had a Paris theme, so on their invitation, they had a hand-painted scene of Paris.”
Since intricate trims and exquisite materials can get pricey, some couples save money by making the cards themselves.
“It’s labor intensive, but one couple saved money by buying a basic white invitation and, then, adding cutouts of handmade paper, satin ribbon and dried flower petals,” Picard said.
Two Upon Ten in Los Angeles uses pressed
flowers.
“People want elegant and unique invitations because they care a lot about their wedding,” said Tania Baban, owner of Atelier Baban, a handmade art and invitation studio in Marina del Rey. “For some people, their wedding is the main event in their lives, and they want it to be gorgeous and perfect. Some people don’t care how much debt they get into because their wedding is so special and their invitation is the first thing out there to announce it.”
For her wedding two years ago, Baban made by hand 25 invitations using delicate Japanese lacy paper and silk flowers and ribbons as accents.
“I had a small wedding in Switzerland and I wanted to present something elegant and elaborate because it was such a special event to me, and the colors - off-white and lavender - were the colors on the brooch I wore on my gown,” she said. “It was more like an art piece and a lot of people said, ‘I loved the card so much, it sat on my desk for months.’.”
Because of all the compliments she received on her invitations, Baban decided to start a business making distinctive cards for others. For one couple, she designed an unusual announcement for their American Indian-theme wedding. Inspired by the bride’s buckskin wedding dress, Baban cut the same material into free-form shapes and accented them with feathers for invitations that reflected the look of the marriage ceremony.
While the demand for her custom designs is increasing, Baban, whose creations are displayed at Hiromi Paper International, a stationery store in Santa Monica, said she and Hiromi’s employees also have noticed more people making their own invites.
“A lot of people knock off concepts,” she said. “With all the gorgeous paper available these days and the fact that people have color printers at home, it’s easier to make your own, and, even when you knock off another design, you always put into it something different.”
A beaded pear embellishes a card by Elements
in Irvine.
Some couples put a great deal of thought into their invitations because - unlike the cake or the gown - these paper expressions can be kept in their memory albums, said Wanda Wen, co-owner and founder of Soolip Paperie & Press in West Hollywood. She said many couples now are building a wedding stationery wardrobe that includes save-the-date announcements, invitations, ceremony programs, dinner place cards, menu cards and thank-you notes.
“Paper has become a fashionable thing and that’s wonderful to see,” she said. “It has become very chic to have all your cards agree and to make it all an extension of your personality.”
Wen said she thinks the desire to add something tangible - thread stitching, a dried flower, an organza envelope - probably is the biggest trend in wedding invitations at the moment.
“Couples gravitate toward texture and color and surface interest in the invitation,” she said. “People respond to anything tactile. They are starving for it because they are living in a digital world.”
