As far as destinations go, you can’t really beat Estes Park, Colorado. When you add clients who want to go as out of the box as possible with their invitation design… you really have something special. Shelby and Joe wanted to fill their invitation suite with easter eggs of things they love, which is always a challenge I’m ready to face. Fitting tiny details in, even if your guests won’t notice, is one of my favorite things to do when designing custom wedding invitations.
With an early November wedding, the couple knew they wanted an autumnal color palette. They chose some of my favorite paper colors, from deep forest greens to sepia and elegant blues.
We started on their Save the Dates with a vision in mind: a Wes Anderson-inspired movie poster. They wanted to hint at the stunning location of their wedding, just like a teaser trailer. My usual design style is done by hand, with watercolor or line illustrations first in pencil, then in ink. For this, we were going to go purely digital, a little out of my comfort zone. After a few sketches, we landed on a design with a gradient of trees into mountains into the sunset. They didn’t want any calligraphy, and we quickly landed on a very whimsical font that captured the Wes Anderson spirit with some lovely curves and light flourishes.
As always, we wanted the invitation to feel more dramatic, more important than the Save the Dates. What could do that better than custom cutouts of the mountains that would be in the backdrop of their wedding ceremony? You can see the sequence of the closed invitation to open, with the inside flaps functioning as the detail and response cards. I love this style of invitation, which doesn’t overwhelm guest with too many pieces of paper and can keep things feeling very simple.
Now came the fun part: the easter eggs! Shelby and Joe’s names were visible when you opened the envelope, peeping out from behind the mountains. Then, upon opening the mountain, you found a (surprisingly) accurate map of the different places that would feature in the wedding. The Denver Airport, of course. Then a scenic drive up to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Their wedding venue was the Black Canyon Inn, and we snuck in the Stanley Hotel just as a reference to The Shining. There’s a Magic: The Gathering reference, their cats, their musical instruments, and more.
My absolute favorite detail about this invitation suite was the movie ticket “response card.” Joe loved the idea of having RSVPs be at the front edge of technology (this was early 2023), but we also included a written url to be sure that any older guests wouldn’t be too confused.
As it happens quite often with my custom clients, we became quite close during the design process. The more involved and intricate the design, the more time we spend together, and the better we get to know each other! I’m happy to call Shelby and Joe good friends to this day, and was so honored to be entrusted with such an important creative part of their wedding story.
Photography by: Jenny Wagner Photography
