Of themes and stationery

Colour schemes were easy, I had decided at least a year ago that I wanted a purple and cream colour scheme for a simple but dramatic effect. That was derailed rather quickly when someone suggested it was rather winterey but it didn't take much to switch to blue, a nice bright blue, a colour that James (with his blue eyes) looks particularly good in.

Themes took a little longer, mainly because I was adamant that I did not want a theme because I decided themes were just too cheesy. On the other hand a theme makes it so much easier to build up a big picture in your mind. It was when I was designing the invitations (I wanted to make them by hand) that a theme finally emerged. I started by going to Hobbycraft and buying up a selection of items that I thought might come in useful to make the invitations out of:

A couple of heart-shaped punches in different sizes. I wasn't sure if I would use them to punch hearts out of the invite card itself or to make hearts in different colours/patterns to stick onto the invitation.

Some sheets of coloured paper and card, some patterned and some plain, as well as some wedding-ey premade card toppers.

Plain, blank cream cards with envelopes, as well as some extras to practise on.

Rubber stamps with wedding messages on and ink stamp pads in an assortment of colours.




After several ideas and attempts I had made several sample invites that I liked but nothing that was really special. I started googling for images of invitations for inspirations but there was one design that stuck in my head that I had rejected for being far too cheesy. Needless to say that is the design I ended up with and that was the start of my overall theme!

I have rather an obsession with things that are simple yet striking and I think this fits that category.

I started with a stamp saying "Wedding Invitation" using silver ink at the top. Then I used a butterfly stamp which I inked with silver in the centre, blue for the middle of the wings and purple on the edge.

Once stamped I used a craft knife to cut out the butterfly wing shape, following the contours of the stamp outline.


Finally I printed the insert with all the details on onto blue paper so it would show through where the wings had been cut out. I added a few printed butterflies to the insert as well and handwrote the guests' names inside with silver pen.

In the end I followed this theme right the way through, using the same butterflies, from the insert, on the wedding website I made and the same butterfly outline, as on the front of the invites, for the place settings.

I wanted a darker shade for the tables to make them more striking so I chose this indigo shade and tied it in with some purple hints on other decorations. I used the same colour card to write the place settings, also with silver pen and tied very-nearly-the-same-shade ribbon around cream favour boxes. The favour boxes came from Tesco Extra and cost 3.99 for a pack of ten - the cheapest I managed to find once you took into account delivery.

The seating plan was a little more tricky for several reasons. I wanted to be able to print it out which meant I couldn't use silver writing which in turn meant I couldn't use dark paper. In the end I found the perfect solution - a large piece of flower-patterned tracing paper in exactly the right colours which I glued to some cream mountboard. I then printed the numbers in the same shade of blue on a circle and the names onto a ring which I cut out and stuck around the number.


I also used butterflies to decorate the cake, the flowers and for my earrings. I even managed to find some beautiful butterfly thank you cards for my bridesmaids. Check out future blog posts to see more!