As of Saturday October 17, Alex and I hit the 6 month mark to our UK wedding (and the year mark to our California wedding). For us, that meant two things:
1) Get our eco-friendly-and-cheap-because-we-can-email-them Save the Dates out by the end of the month (to be blogged about when the accompanying engagement photo collage is complete) and
2) Choose, design and order our UK wedding invitations.
Gorgeously, magically, and simply, we picked out wedding invitations and emailed the designer in about two hours! Let the show and tell begin.
First up, the Golden Tree Wedding Invitation by ello there on Etsy. (Um, freakin’ adorable shop name.)
image by ell there etsy shop
We liked the tree–we like trees in general–and the simple wording of this one. It’s a clean design as well, but we weren’t sure it had enough pop! for us. Also, we really wanted to support a pro-gay vendor and seek more eco-friendly options–hopefully both!
Because So You’re EnGAYged approved pro-gay vendor, Lasso’d Moon, it had caught my eye in previous posts we next clicked over to their site and Etsy shop to have a look at their portfolio.
This is Golden Love Birds in their custom designs section.
image via Lasso’d Moon etsy shop
The ‘birds of happiness’ theme run through a lot of their designs and while we quite liked their vintage line and custom portfolio, they still weren’t quite ‘us.’
Then we found Baumbirdy on Etsy. The childhood friend team, Sarah and Carolyn, immediately caught our eye with their Eco-Damask design and the bold colors and recycled paper really jived with us.
image via Baumbirdy etsy shop
Good consumers though, we checked out the rest of their collection, and found the one: Clementine.
We really, really liked the swirl design and the contrast between the 3 fonts used on this Save the Date. Like all of the stationers we considered, their designs can be altered for basically any paper need you have, so we emailed them with our requests: design and font elements of Clementine, on their eco kraft paper, in dark purple with a green accent of some kind. We also asked if they had done invitations for a same-sex wedding before and about So You’re EnGAYged–it was important to us.
Well, we got the email straight back from Sarah, who wrote to say that the dark purple would look really nice on the eco kraft paper and while a green accent wouldn’t necessarily look great printed, they could design a custom belly band in green (Alex had to explain that one to me!) or GREEN ENVELOPES. Well, you can guess which one I’m really excited about: GREEN envelopes!! It hadn’t even occurred to me! Genius!
Sarah also replied a double ‘yes’ to our other questions: they had designed same-sex invites before and they were really interested in So You’re EnGAYged. Double awesome, and I emailed them the link to the vendor inquiry form.
While once again the items on the wedding list are seemingly falling into place with little effort (girl, I am not complaining either) there are still a couple nagging thoughts rolling around, about invitations and in general.
First, while I love Etsy most of the vendors are located in the US or Canada and I’m just wondering how ‘eco-conscious’ it is to buy invitations on recycled paper (sounds good, right) but then have them shipped from Chicago across an ocean–with some to be shipped back across that same ocean to the West Coast. Recycled paper vs. Carbon off-sets, really. Better isn’t best…? Reading Cradle to Cradle, an analysis of how much of ‘recycling’ is really ‘down-cycling,’ while I was home got me thinking a lot more. For now, I think this thought is, sadly, taking a backseat to getting the invitations out the door.
Second, no matter how gorgeous some of these designs are for wedding invitations, I would like to see some sample invites with two (obviously) women or men’s names on them. It would be refreshing, inclusive, and, above all, helpful. With all the other things you have to imagine for yourself from the sample, I’d at least like to see ‘Steve & James’ or ‘Olivia & Sarah’ once in a while so at least I wouldn’t have to imagine that!
But, please designers, if you’re reading this, please don’t give us our ‘own’ section. It’s a ‘nice’ gesture, but a lot more work in my opinion. Spread the love all around.
What I keep coming back to in this planning process is that weddings cost a lot of money. A LOT of money. Money has power, every penny; just look at the corporate funding for the Yes on 8 campaign. And if I’m going to be spending a lot of money, I want it to fund something I believe in–independent artists, green initiatives, pro-gay politics. That’s what I believe in, and that’s what I am trying to do more of.
Rock on! Political, eco chic weddings, that’s something I believe in to!
Green envelopes and kraft paper sound awesome together. (I have become such a paper fanatic since being engaged.)