A Special Gift

In the midst of planning every detail of your wedding, the time has finally come to choose a thank you gift for your parents.  How do you thank the people that gave you life, stood by you during your ups and downs, and gave countless advice? 

If you are anything like me, you want a gift that would have sentimental value and be a piece that your parents would treasure.  Now I will have to say that for my own wedding, I kind of failed at a truly sentimental and treasured gift (sorry guys!).  But one of our recent couples had a great idea that we just had to share.

Lauren and Jimmy were looking for a piece that would share with their parents a little of their love and gratefulness, and be a nice piece that could be used, not just stuck in a box somewhere.  So they contacted us with their idea and we put it on paper (well canvas).

The couple wrote out a special poem for their parents which we then added  to one of their engagement shots using the same fonts as their wedding invitations.  We then had them printed on canvas which was wrapped on a traditional wooden frame.  The gifts turned out so cute and make great decor for the house.

Not all of us are wordsmiths, but the same concept could be used with the lyrics from the song of your first dance or a excerpt from a favorite childhood book that was read together and could be applied for parents' gifts, a gift for your future spouse or bridal party gifts.  The canvas is professionally printed and stretched and comes in a variety of sizes.  Design can be complex or simple depending on the overall look you are hoping to achieve.

Thanks Lauren and Jimmy for the great idea and for letting us be a part of your special day!

And the envelope goes to....

With all of the buzz on Facebook and Twitter talking about Oscar Night hair and fashion, we decided to share a little eye-candy from one of our favorite parts of the night - the invites!

Designed by invitation designer Marc Friedland, the iconic gold envelopes are just as important as the Oscar statue (and in our world, a little more important)  Here is a close-up of the pieces Friedland designed:



Understated and elegant with the perfect amount of glam factor. We love the envelope liners and the use of gold foil.  What do you think?

For the original post and to see a behind-the-scenes video of the making of the envelopes, visit http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/2013-oscars/awards-minute-video-man-behind-golden-oscar-envelope-230943545.html

Ten Things About Tasha

Today we decided to introduce our newest partner in design-crime, Miss Tasha who is our Design Intern for the semester.  Tasha is a little shy, so here are a few fun points about her:

Hi everyone,
My name is Tasha. I am a senior at Robert Morris University. I currently work as a cook in a nursing home. I love designing, photography, and horseback riding. I am a big country girl and enjoy Luke Bryan concerts with my best friend :)

If you get the chance to meet Tasha while you are in the studio, please say hello and help us welcome her to the Sara E. family!

Oh Boy!

The last  few weeks have been very busy for us at Sara E. with non-stop wedding shows, client meetings and design, design, design! 

We had the fun opportunity to design a few baby shower invites this last month and oh boy has it been a change from our usual wedding focus! 

First up is this cute invite for Kate that has my favorite little man tie (who can resist a baby with a tie?!), clean stripes and a manly yet whimsical font for the call-out text.  I love the color palette with the deep reds, cream and navy - perfect for your little man-to-be!

Our next baby shower invite was for one of our favorite photographer friends, the very talented Jackie of Jacklyn Byrd Photography.  Jackie and her husband are boat enthusiasts, so of course we needed a nautical theme for her shower invite!  

Gorgeous linen paper with an aged look, toy boats on hand-drawn waves and a compass leading north.  I especially love the "Ahoy its a Boy!" line and the fun, nautical font.  I also love the back of this card with the rope knots.  I try to include a special back on every piece we design for a fun, finished look.

Hope you enjoy our little foray into the world of baby boys.  Stay tuned for our next blog when we return to the World of Weddings!

Check out our new look!

We have been bad little posters this wedding season!  With a huge year for us with almost twice the clients as last year and opening a new studio in the middle of the busy season, we have sadly and badly neglected our little blog.  As we move towards a new year with new beginnings, we decided to start early and quit being blog slackers. 

Today, I have a shortie for you - check out our new awning for our studio! 

Not only is it super cute, but its bright red so it will be easier for you to find us!  Our design studio is in East Peoria, where we are blessed to be surrounded by wedding (and woman) owned businesses and we love it when our brides get a chance to check out all the offerings on our street.

This week, we are looking forward to a photo shoot with the amazing Jacklyn Byrd Photography and unveiling some fun new non-wedding projects we have been working on.  Have a great day!

Invitation Basics

With the New Year in full swing and a ton of newly engaged ladies starting the wedding planning process, we here at Sara E. thought it would be the perfect time to go over some invitation basics.

A standard invitation suite includes the invitation, a reception card, a RSVP card and outer envelopes.  Traditionally, inner envelopes are also used but we have seen a shift away from this practice with budget-conscious brides and "green" brides leading the charge.

When choosing your invitations, it is important to note a few pointers:
Avoid odd shapes and sizes.  Square invites look awesome but are more expensive to mail since they cannot go through a standard machine.  Small RSVP cards can cause problems at the post office, as well as certain types of envelope materials, like vellum,  that catch in the machine.  Dimension requirements can be found at usps.com.

Types of Printing:
Digital - the least expensive, this flat printing allows for an array of creativity in the terms of colors and design capabilities.  Certain textured papers don't work well with this method of printing if there is a lot of color used.

Sara E. Invitation

Offset - similar to digital in that it is a "flat" printing process, offset can be used with a variety of papers.  Can get expensive when using more than 1 or two colors.

Sara E. Invitation

Thermography - this method called "the poor man's engraving" is cheaper than engraving since the letters are actually raised on top of the paper instead of pressed in.  Perfect for a formal look.

From Practical Manliness website

Letterpress - a beautiful but more expensive process.  Letterpress is where the letters are pressed into the paper for a vintage look.

From Wedding Times website

Engraving - the most expensive and used for very formal weddings.  A metal plate is incised and inked.  Transferring it to paper creates raised letters.

By GreerChicago on Flickr

When to send?
Wedding invitations need to be sent out 6-8 weeks before the wedding.  The response cards must always be sent with postage. Make sure you have the right amount of postage on the response cards by taking your finished invite to the Post Office to be weighed and measured. The Post Office will also weigh the entire invite so you have the correct postage for the invitation suite.

Do Not, I repeat,  Do Not enclose gift registry cards with your invitation. This information can be passed along to your guests by family members or can be listed on your wedding website.

Next week, we will look at how to properly address your invitations and how to cut down the guest list.

We here at Sara E. like to make life a lot more simple for our brides.  That is why we offer finishing and mailing services.  We can have the invitation weighed, buy postage, address your envelopes, put the invitations together and send them out for you.  In a world where brides are more and more busy, we like to help take the stress off your big day!  Contact us at saraecustomdesigns@gmail.com for more info.


Happy Planning!

We've won the Bride's Choice Awards 2012!

Not to toot our own horn, but we were pretty excited to find out today that we are a Bride's Choice Award Winner for 2012 from WeddingWire!  To let you know how it works, every time we design a job for a client, we send them a link to review our work on WeddingWire.  Not all of the feedback is good, but we know that every business has room to grow and the only way to improve is to ask our clients what we should be doing better.  We are blessed to have so many happy brides and look forward to unveiling new designs and ideas for 2012!  Thank you for helping us to be one of the top invitation designers!