Wedding Invitation
 

(I swear I feel like I say this 40 times a day lol)

ok, so Im getting married. I want my wedding invitation to be unique, I dont like the flowery cutesy crap. I also want to be able to print them out myself. I totally suck at any kind graphic design and a very nice person suggested this morning that I post what I had done so far here and see if any of you wonderfully talented people might improve on it for me.

http://www.celticdesade.com/beyond/u...1107894263.jpg

I know its a jpg image and kinda hard to read....the words arent so much needing help (Maleficent was kind enuff to make some pointers to improve that part)

Basically what I am wanting is a celtic design on the top and bottom, the one I have now I dont think Im attached to so if it goes I wont be disappointed.

There needs to be space at the bottom between the wording and the border for our celtic cross wax stamp we have.

so if anyone feels like being charitably creative I would be interested in seeing what you can do.

Oh...I had given thought to having a VERY light background picture of either a scottish castle or a set of bagpipes, but I am not smart enuff with photo shop to do figure out layering like that...I tried.

Here is the wording on the invite cause I know its hard to read, spacing is off but of course on the invite it would be centered.

The font should definitely be celtic-inspired! This current one is hard to read – have you been checking out fonts online? There are over 50.000 so get going! :D

I think I'll do a search myself and send some your way so you can check them out :)

I also forgot to say...Im set on the font style...If anyone wants me to email it to them let me know

You sure? It just seems so hard to read :confused:

Nancy I spent 4 hours last nite looking at fonts hehehe this particular one was the only one I found that I like (and believe it or not was the easiest to read) but of course Im willing to look at any suggestions in the same theme

4 hours? oh dear :crazy:

/off to find celtic fonts for ya...

This one is really stylish:
http://www.gis.net/~dansmith/fonts/celtic/psalm23.gif
You can find it here along with other fantasy fonts



there are these:
http://free.freespeech.org/cw/pics/fonts.gif
and apparently you can download all of them here



There are some pretty cool celtic fonts on this site as well :)



Have you tried checking out any font books or calligraphic books? You could give that a go and if you find a font you like I'd be more than happy to write the invitation and scan it for you – I do calligraphy in my sparetime so I have loads of practice :)

That first one is pretty much the same one...only I italicized and bolded it so maybe I need to undo that. They are sending to to pick something up for work, so I will check out the link when I get back

Maybe this could provide some inspiration....

http://img106.exs.cx/img106/1386/lindis0vm.jpg

http://img119.exs.cx/img119/1300/lindislarge5vp.jpg

Obviously, it would take a while to write it all out by hand and colour it but it would be more in keeping with the theme than a computer generated font.

There is your problem... used BOLD and ITALICS sparingly. Many fonts, especially heavy fonts like the one you have chosen become quite difficult to read when rendered bold *or* italic... doing both is 2x as bad.


The rule of thumb should always be clean lines... less is more.

The font is nice... just let it have some breathing room and all will be well.

Further to this, it look like you are trying to fit too many words on some of the lines and as a reult your left and right margins are almost gone... again, breathing room... Either use a small font size or break a line in two.

A great piece of work for sure but it reminds me too much of Guthenberg's first edition of the Bible. Too religious and too heavy on the details. The font really is excellent though. Are there any more pages from this book?

ShaniFaye do you want an invitation with detailed ornaments or just a simple layout?

All the invitations I've seen in my life have all had lines that were aligned to the centre. It looks more stylish that way I think :)

It's a page from The Lindisfarne Gospels. There's loads of pages online.

http://www.durham.anglican.org/refer...disfarne/#Menu

http://www.lindisfarne.org.uk/gospels/index.htm

http://prodigi.bl.uk/illcat/record.a...7&NStart=60404

what jwoody posted is very pretty but its WAY more than I want....I want to keep it clean and simple...and Nancy is right all wedding invitations are aligned to center...I still and not set on the final wording, so I'll worry about the spacing of the lines when I 100% know that, and how big of a piece of parchment Im going to use. Im thinking 5 1/2 x 7 1/2 (inches) or for a visual reference, the same size as a standard DVD case

I think you misunderstood...

Yes, of course it should be centred... no question.

But the lines that read:

...are all too close to the edges of the page. The margin is almost non-existant. As a result it looks too crowded on the page.

What I was suggesting is that you either use a smaller font size (so the words don't take up so much space) or break those lines in half:

In doing this, the text is *more* centred on the page than it currently is...


Another rule of thumb:
The empty space at the top and bottom of a page should be same.
The empty space at the left and right side should be the same. (note: this doesn't be making the text justified, it means that parts of your text that stick out the furthest should be equidistant from the edges)

ok, while Im looking at more fonts....here is a redone version with the text as normal, no italics or bolding

http://www.celticdesade.com/images/inviteeditone.jpg

and here is one with some spacing differences

http://www.celticdesade.com/images/inviteedittwo.jpg

Ignore the first picture. I was trying to point out that it would (in my most humble opinion) look more authentic hand-written.

remember I need empty space at the bottom for the wax seal we will be using on it.

but yes I agree on the other....thats something I will work on

no I wont ignore it!! I know what you meant....but getting stuff like that done costs a FORTUNE and since Im trying to do them myself to save money (since I will need at least 100 invites) I cant afford the extra cost of the really neat handwriting :)

My wife can do great calligraphy in just about any style you want, including Celtic. If there aren't too many invites and you are interested, I can ask her if she would be willing to lend a hand with the addressing of envelopes. It would be super cool if the outside envelope was lettered in a similar way to inside font. And don't worry about it matching well, she loves to learn new styles and it quite good at it.

That is better but still a bit too much...

When I used to format invitations I found that varying the font sizes helped to not only make things fit but to put emphasis on one thing over another...

As it is right now, everything has equal billing...

I would suggest that you put things like location, time and clothing options in a smaller font size...

This doesn't work exactly right in this medium but I think I gives you an idea what I'm on about...

I recieved an invitation with a very similar theme... of course, I also was enlisted to help make them and mine was never even sent in the mail.

The method we used was pretty interesting. Handmade sheets of paper, 11x14 was bought from a little old lady in shop... it looked and felt old and like parchment. It was a couple bucks a sheet, but we managed to get 9 perfectly sized invites per sheet. Once we realized that no one had a printer that could handle that sized paper, we set up a repeating text block (a little shorter then yours) and took it to a printer. Printing cost: 25 cents a sheet, no typesetting charge required. We didn't cut them out, we used rulers to tear them, so the edges were straight, but rough.

The best part was the intricate celtic borders. The bride bought a rolling stamp with the design from ebay. Roll it on an ink pad, roll it around the edges, and it looked great. The groom had an authentic family heirloom seal, and wax was used to seal the folded invitations- of course, we had to re-do all the ones that seemed to thick/heavy for a one stamp envelope.

All said, they were pretty amazing invitations. I think everyone commented on them. One of those rolling stamps would make it look more authentic, less computer made.

Also, when we were recently finalizing the guest list for my upcoming wedding, we had a realization. You probably already had it. Although about 130 people are coming, enough of them are couples that we actually only need 68 invitations.

Good luck either way.

Thats very sweet of you....god knows I didnt get the "girl" handwriting gene and my own writing sucks lol, it would probably be too many though...at last count for 135 guests I needed about 60 invitations

Thats a very good idea....I hadnt thought about using a stamp....I will look into that...although Im not good at getting things "straight" so they may look crooked. We had talked about the "rough" edging so thats a definate possibility. I had originally wanted to mail them as scrolls but the cost of the tubes to mail them in was going to be an extra expense we didnt want to incur

charlatan, is this a little better?

http://www.celticdesade.com/images/inviteedit4.jpg

Much better!

Some tweaks...

1) Increase, just slightly, the space between the Hear Ye and the Celtic Cross... just a tad

2) Decrease the size of the AND between your names... one or two sizes only... Keeps the emphasis on your names.

3) Try increasing, slightly, the size of ALONG WITH THEIR FAMILIES... If it looks odd change it back... I say this only because if they are in the same font size as everything else it might be seen as a slight.


Otherwise it's looking really nice.

ok...done, done, and done

Im really starting to not like the borders as much as I did last nite :lol:

http://www.celticdesade.com/images/inviteedit5.jpg

60 invitations really isn't that much for her. She would probably have that done in a week or so. She did 140 for a friend's wedding in 2.5 weeks and the calligraphy that her friend wanted was the absolute trickiest one that she does. You could ask her nice and see what she has to say about it. She is a member here too: astrahl. She loves to do calligraphy, so she might be keen on the idea. No harm in asking either way. :)

The space between the cross and the Hear ye is just a bit too much now... I would make it about half of what you currently have now...

As for the borders... I'm neither here nor there on them... I like the Celtic knots though. It might look nice with a border of just the celtic knots running horizontal across the top and bottom... just a thought.

I love doing calligraphy. If you were interested I could send you some samples of those styles you like. If you want to go with it, 60 invites is NO problemo.Hubby underestimated the number I did for my friend's wedding. It was closer to 200 and I loved every minute of it.

I've been thinking of having the calligraphy as a side-line, but I never got off my tush about it. Let me know!

hmmm I gonna have to figure that out.....it seems Word (which is what Im doing it in) doesnt like spacing .5 (or at least I cant find how to do that)

Double click on the blank line... it should highlight the entire line... then change the font size to something smaller...

You could also double click on the blank line... as above... right click and choose paragraph... under line spacing change it to Exactly and then give it a value that suits your needs...


Changing the font size is generally easier though.

Yep that worked....I was trying to use exactly and I was messing it all up, thanks!!

http://www.celticdesade.com/images/inviteedit6.jpg

Nice!... But don't just listen to me... what do others have to say!

Everytime I've had something to suggest, Charlatan has done it first. Amazing work!

My only thought is your use of all-caps. Does the font you chose have lowercase letters as well, and how might that affect the look? U&lc usually makes things easier to read, especially with an artsy font.

Redlemon, it doesnt matter what I do, that font decides which is going to be capital...if you notice closely not all letters are that way, for example the b's and e's and n's are definately lower case.

Charlatan you've been a lot of help (plus you're the one making all the suggestions hehehe) If anyone else suggests something Im more than happy to try it out....come on ya'll....suggest away!!

OK, so that particular font uses the same charaters for upper and lower. I looked at Nancy's links, and this freeware font looks about the same as the one you chose, but has U&lc. Perhaps give that one a shot?

It would be easier to read if there were upper and lower case letters...

Ok, I will work on getting it downloaded and see what it does....

I like the latest format Much better than the initial one. The differential font sizing helps your names and other important information stand out better. I understand what you are saying with the font determining what will and won't be capitalized. I have seen some other fonts that work the same way.

I think that the items that are bolded tend to push the characters in each word a little too close together making them difficult to read. I think that there is a term for the inter-character spacing in a type-set. Kerfing? Something like that. I am not sure that it is something that you have control over, but you might consider removing the bold if it makes it more legible overall.

'Kerning'. And it is probably more an artifact of the screenshot than how it would look printed out.

unfortunately, something is wrong somewhere......I cant d/l any of those fonts....im getting an apache error telling me I dont have permission to access them...

I can't either. Guess it's a 'cobweb' site.

I will look around tonite when I get home to see if I can find another one like that....one of the ones on that list was the one I was using...its called gaelig

You mentioned a greyed out castle - did you mean something like this?:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/djmwo...doutcastle.jpg

If so, I can give you the photoshop file that created this (really easy, you just put a white layer over the top of the picture and set the opaqueness (100% = can't see picture underneath, 0% means don't see the white layer at all. this is 65% opacity). The castle picture I googled for, and trimmed to get rid of the car and the tourists. PM me if you want the file.

RE the hand drawn stuff - have you considered having one done, then scanning and printing from there?

I agree with Charlatan I think the heavy green borders are a bit much. You can have too much decoration. EDIT: Have you thought about dropping the border from the top altogether? You have the cross there, do you need the heading border?

Minor thing on the wording - I think it sounds funny to say "2 o'clock PM" - maybe that is an American usage but I'd drop the o'clock part...

I seem to recall that SiN is our resident font expert... why don't you send her a PM for a bit of help?

Here's my 2 cents, completely different from what you might want though...

ShaniFaye, I love the ideas for your invitations so far. Making invitations that are unique and memorable is one of my hobbies, to the point that most people for whom I make them frame them as keepsakes... I love the conception and completion of a project, and I have a suggestion for you.

You mentioned that you have a wax stamp, which brought this idea to mind. I saw it originally used for a wedding invitation, and adapted it for my own Yule party invitations this year. After I've described it, I will see if I have one I can scan and post so you can see what I'm talking about.

I used "natural" paper I bought from Hobby Lobby... That coarse, homemade looking paper is what I'm talking about, it's rough and textured, and usually there are subtle flecks of other colors in it. You can get it in a natural shade that is gorgeous (and MUCH easier to find than the red I used for my Yule invites, lol) I also purchased light cardstock and vellum. On the cardstock (which is actually optional, but you mentioned the possibility of a watermark graphic), I printed a green-tinted picture of a tree in winter. I printed the actual words for the invitation on the vellum. I used double sided adhesive... comes in an applicator like dry white out... to stick them together so you could see the graphic through the vellum. Then I used the adhesive to glue that to the center of the natural paper that I had cut to be equal in height but left long enough to fold closed over the invitation. I folded them closed and wrapped a bit of raffia around the invitation. I laid a bit of dried baby's breath over the closure and dripped melted sealing wax over it to seal it closed.

The first one took the longest, but once I got it exactly how I wanted it, the 40 invitations I made took only a couple of hours to put together. I kicked things up a bit with mine by spraying the red natural paper with red glitter spray to give it a sparkle. And I sprayed the baby's breath with iridescent glitter spray, too. The baby's breath was natural, the raffia was natural but I painted it gold (I refused to pay what they wanted for gold raffia, lol), and the sealing wax was metallic green. The invitations turned out absolutely beautiful.... probably my best effort to date.

I'm going to go search my craft box. I know I kept at least one. I hope it scans well... I really think the style of invitation will work beautifully with the theme you're using.

yellowgowild.....orgy hahahahahaha thats cute

Bryndian_Dhai I LOVE that idea...I will ponder over it....seeing one would help cause Im not a real vellum fan

spindles, thats a great picture...almost like one of the ones I found, though not big enuff (thats my problem I havent found one the size I like...and you're right, it should be 2'oclock in the afternoon (according to wedding invitation etiquette)

*grins* Gods, I'm anal retentive. heheh.... I saved one invitation, lol.

Here are the pics... sorry for the size, but this is as small as I dared make them.... some of the words are hard to read as it is because I shrunk it.

The outside:
http://members.cox.net/lady-alethea/...,%20closed.JPG

The inside:
http://members.cox.net/lady-alethea/...te,%20open.JPG

thats beautiful...I like the fact that its folded...to me that kind of "saves" the worded part from wear and tear. I was thinking of something like that, and having an inside fold for the map and rsvp cards.

gosh you guys have such good suggestions...Thanks for talking me into posting about this Nancy :icare:

Thanks. The wedding invitation I got the idea from was absolutely exquisite. I'm just glad the idea worked well in the colors I used. There are so many different colors and papers to choose from... I think this particular idea could work beautifully with a lot of different themes or colors.

I'm working on baby shower invites right now.... having a hard time getting any real inspiration, lol. It'll come, though, eventually.

Where did you get your supplies from? Was it somewhere like hobby lobby, joann's, michael's? It would be cool if I could find dark green (our colors are hunter green/purple)

I got the papers from Hobby Lobby. Usually raffia is easier to find at Joann's, but ours closed here, so I had to get it at Michael's, but that's the only thing I got there. Everything else came from Hobby Lobby. The natural papers came in a lot of beautiful rich colors, including green, as does the sealing wax.

How did you get the print on the vellum? Is that something that can be run thru the printer?

Yep. This time I ran it through my inkjet printer, since I have a nicer one that doesn't glop the ink on the paper. You have to let it dry before you touch or stack it, but that only takes a minute or so. I have taken the vellum to Kinko's and run it through the color laser printers, too, and the copy machines. Hobby Lobby carries vellum in sheets and packs, comes in several pastel colors, and some of it has "texture".... like faint clouds or iridescent flecks in it. There are some really beautiful choices out there now, not like when I used to have to order it by the sheet from specialty paper stores, and it only came in white and white, lol. Don't buy "artist" vellum.... you'll know the difference, the vellum I use is sturdy, feels almost like plastic, sort of. Artist vellum is more like tissue paper or tracing paper.

We have a place here in Toronto that sells Japanese paper called, wait for it... The Japanese Paper Place.

They have the most beautiful selection of paper you can imagine. I'm sure you could find something similar either locally or online.

Bryndian_Dhai that invite is awesome... I love everything about it.

I hope when Im done with mine you say the same thing :lol:

I'm sure I will ShaniFaye...

In Australia we would never put "oclock" on any invitation (because 2PM or 10AM is enough information - every time is oclock :)), so I've learned something today, but my wife thinks oclock looks grand, but is descriptive enough on its own (unless you think your guests might turn up at 2am for a wedding).

Our wedding invites were along the same lines as Bryndian's yule thingys but much simpler. My wife got the cardboard printed with a swirly pattern, then used a tracing paper (which is like Byrndian's vellum, but I thought vellum was a heavier paper used for calligraphy...) and stuck the insert in with glue. This was just put in an envelope with no ribbon or anything.

It looks like the attachment.

Also RE the castle picture = have you thought of using the spires of an old church perhaps? you might find a better picture.

I've looked at several different kinds of pics....havent found the one that speaks to me yet :lol: I did play with your picture and your instructions today just to see if I could do it and I did!! I was so proud :)

Thanks Charlatan. And now I'm all jealous, since the only "paper" places we have around here are scrapbooking supply shops. Not that that's a bad thing, but scrapbooking paper is usually blank on one side, which isn't very helpful when you need both sides. I've had high hopes twice when they opened new stores here, but unfortunately both of those were invitation stores... they sell parts for invites, at insanely inflated prices, since they want you to order your complete invites from them. I've had to be very creative to find the papers I want when I have ideas, lol

I should've given you the photoshop file - might've sped up the learning. I wish my parents lived close, after their recent trip to the UK, the have a cazillion photos of castles which I could've scanned, but 700km is a little too far :)

oh no, I'd have asked for the file if I needed it (you DID offer it) Im just the type of person that would rather know HOW to do something than have it done for me....IF its something Im perfectly capable of doing....art conception isnt something Im good at though...thats why I asked for help on this....but learning technique will help me to accomplishment by myself :)

I did a little more googling for pics. There are a couple of possibilities here, here and here

I found that googling "castle wallpaper" (pictures..like this )will give you larger pictures.

Hope that helps!

Bryndian_Dhai (and ShaniFaye)...

I just found out that the Japanese Paper Place has a website and do fulfill online orders... http://www.japanesepaperplace.com/index.html

They supply paper to this place in Georgia:

Primary Art Supply
14 E. Broughton Street
Savannah, GA
USA 31401
Phone: 912-233-7624
Fax: 912-233-1253

Man, Charlatan, you ROCK! *grins*

And please, call me Bryn. My whole name is such a mouthful, lol (or fingerful, if you're typing it *winks*)

*goes happily off to peruse the world of creative papers*

Im bumping this becaue I need help

See the celtic cross Im using? I need that to be green and dark purple instead of green and gold. Is there anyone that can change the color for me? oh and make it a transparent background as well?

Im going to start working on this again this weekend

thanks in advance

So you want the gold changed to dark purple? And the green left as is?

yes please!!!

Shani, where are you using this image? In print? I've included the image at the size you gave me, and also at print resolution. The print resolution doesn't look as clear, but should print out correctly. The files are in PNG format which is lossless and supports transparency. Let me know if the purple is dark enough.

Edit: Forgot to clean up the edges of the large print. New image uploaded.

Edit: Darkened the purple a bit.

Edit: Darkened purple to desired crayon color.

you did exactly what I wanted, but the color doesnt look purple its looks more pink/magenta (not that Im TRYING to be picky) but thats way off from the color I wanted.....I meant like a royal purple. An yes, since Im using it on my wedding invitations I guess that would be considered "print"

god Im so rude.....Thank you SO much for taking this up for me :icare:

^ edited the above post. Closer?

No worries Shani.

What color is the paper? I can make the cross edges a little cleaner if I anti-alias it with the background color.

its getting there!!!!.....have you got any crayons? I want the color of the purple crayon in the box

its going on ivory parchment

can you find the color? I haven't eaten, err bought, crayons in quite some time.

try this hex code #551A8B

^ Okay, much darker. Thanks for the hexcode Shani, that helped.

thats a perfect purple!!!!

Great! Shani, can you do me a favor and print out the image on a piece of the paper you're going to use to make sure it comes out the way you like it? Just a small test print, for sanity. :D

When I get the paper and near a color printer I sure will :)

ShaniFaye - If you haven't done the printing yet, I just came across a great font site. Here's a link to 55 free fonts that fall between Celtic and Gothic: DaFONT :: Gothic > Celtic (page 1/6). You might get something from Cry Uncial or St Charles.

ohhh I wish you hadnt shown me those lol now Im rethinking the one I thought was perfect :lol: