As a luxury wedding stationer and illustrator, I’ve worked with couples all over the world who are looking for something a little more special. My clients don’t want generic, off-the-shelf invitations that could belong to anyone, they want something that feels unmistakably theirs – unique, fancy, luxurious wedding invitations.
There are two main reasons clients choose me:
- They want luxury wedding invitations with extra details - ribbons, wax seals, envelope liners… These gorgeous details heighten the experience of opening an invitation truly wowing the guests, build excitement for the wedding and help create a luxury stationery suite that is perfect for flat lay photos and detail shots for the photographer.
- They want personalisation that is next level and goes beyond a custom venue illustration – lots of hand-painted artwork, personal illustrations, decorative borders and meaningful touches that tell their story beautifully.
Each bespoke wedding invitation is designed from scratch and finished with care. From the initial sketches and watercolour illustrations to the final wax seal, every detail is considered. That is exactly what transforms a wedding invitation from something ordinary into something luxuriously unique.
How to Make Wedding Invitations Unique
If you want to make your wedding invitations stand out, think beyond the venue illustration, though they are beautiful and I paint lots of venues each week, you can take a bespoke invitation design even further.
Here are a few ideas to make your wedding invitations uniquely yours with custom wedding illustrations:
- Custom Wedding Crest - A personalised emblem with hand painted initials, custom florals and illustrations that have a special meaning - places you have visited, pets, favourite drinks, sports, hobbies or interests.
- Watercolour Wedding Map - Custom wedding maps can be printed on the back of folded invitations, as separate inserts or as itinerary cards for the day of your wedding. The map could feature the local area or the venue itself, if it has large grounds or multiple function spaces. Wedding maps are perfect for destination weddings or weekend celebrations too.
- Illustrated Borders or Motifs - Hand painted borders are trending and are a great way of fusing together your colour palette, florals and wedding theme. You can draw inspiration from your chosen location too - For coastal weddings, include shells, crabs and lobsters; while lemons, Aperol and grapes may look fab for an Italian wedding.
How to Make Wedding Invites Fancier
Luxury wedding invitations are all about extra little details - going above and beyond the standard invitation you can order online. Think texture, layering, extra personalisation and special finishes. Even small embellishments can make a huge difference in the overall aesthetic. Here are a few of my favourite ways to take make your wedding invites fancier:
- Add Wax Seals - This instantly evokes a sense of quality and craftmanship, making each card feel significant and not like any old wedding invitation. Each wax seal is hand stamped, creating subtle variances in shape and depth. This means every wax seal is different and unique! Choose from a range of beautiful stamp designs, or I can have a custom stamp made for you.
- Add Ribbon - A pretty, elegant, tactile detail that also serves to hold folded invitations closed or flat cards together. I use faux silk ribbon which can be tied in a cute bow or secured with a wax seal of your choice.
- Add Vellum - Vellum is a translucent paper that adds a subtle overlay, allowing the invitation design to peek through underneath. Vellum can be used as a wrap, encasing the whole invitation as strips placed underneath the wax seals or a belly band holding the stationery suite together. However you choose to use it, vellum creates a dreamy, layered aesthetic that feels high-end without being overcomplicated.
- Embrace Special Finishes - Luxury finishes such as foiling and letterpress are available as an upgrade, which add texture and tonal detail to your wedding invitations. Foiling, embossing and letterpress are luxury finishes that have to be sent to a specialist printer and so, do bump up the cost per invitation quite a bit, but definitely make your invites stand out and give a high-end, luxury finish.
How to Customise Wedding Invitations
Explore my website and you’ll find collections of semi-custom designs, pre-designed for your convenience. These can be personalised to make them special to you and fit in with your wedding styling.
- Customise florals - Many of my designs have florals in the corners or surrounding the invitation, these can be customised to colours or flowers specific to your wedding.
- Customise fonts - I have a selection of calligraphy style and handwritten looking fonts for your perusal. You can also change the font colour of your names and headings to personalise the invitation design.
- Choose your envelope colour - Lots of beautiful envelope colours are available, from pretty pastels and classic Champagne and ivory to bolder brights.
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Add envelope liners to your wedding invitations - Envelope liners can feature a custom wedding crest, venue illustration or all over pattern to match the invitation design. Envelope liners look great in flat lays too and will give your wedding photographer a helping hand at getting stunning detail shots that couples treasure so much.
- Upgrade to printed wedding envelopes - I can have guest addresses printed onto your envelopes, which not only saves you heaps of time and looks neater, but can add a little extra to the design by using creative fonts an even decorative flowers on the printed envelopes.
- Include extra illustrations - My clients that have the best, most impressive wedding stationery, don’t just have one custom venue illustration, they have a set of illustrations that are placed thoughtfully throughout their stationery suite – on details cards, on the back of invitations, on tags for the ribbons…
- Customise the wax seal stamp - Couples love custom wax seals and often opt for stamps featuring their initials intertwined. Others may use the logo of their wedding venue (with approval from the venue of course) a particular flower or a special motif.
If you’re dreaming of unique, fancy, luxurious invitations, I’d love to create something just for you, please contact me for more information or to get a quote.