Invitation Consultants Blog - Wedding and Party Inspiration

Real IC Customers: Hallow-wedding

It's no secret...we love Halloween. We've blogged about Halloween parties, and Halloween costume ideas - even our own Halloween celebrations! Once, we even dreamed up some Halloween Wedding inspiration. But today is different. Today it is July and we are sharing with you one of our real Halloween wedding invitations!

We love it when brides (and grooms) think outside of the box and shake up the traditional wedding day themes. We love how they played with words ('Til Death Do Us Part) and even how they put their own spin on the expected color scheme (no orange here!).

We totally wish we could attend the reception in costume with all those lucky guests! Congrats to the happy couple, who will be having a destination wedding - and then returning home to celebrate with family and friends in spooktacular style!

PS: Feeling inspired? Shop our fall wedding invitatations or try the invite shown - Black Cat Crossing.
 

BlogHer Sponsorship Winners

We were completely overwhelmed by the responses we received to our BlogHer Sponsorship competition. More than 200 wonderful bloggers applied to win our $300 sponsorship to attend the 2011 conference in San Diego. 

We were so overwhelmed in fact, that we couldn't pick just one winner! Instead, we picked six! All six will be receiving a $300 sponsorship to use toward their trip to BlogHer '11. The winners are:

• Molly - A Day in Mollywood
• Xenia - Thanks Mail Carrier
• Jennifer - Makobi Scribe
• Caryn - Rockin' Mama
• Alicia - The Mommy Insider
• Nirasha - Mommy Niri

Thank you so much to everyone who entered. We hope everyone loves their bag tags and has a wonderful time at the conference.

Also, we received great feedback from bloggers about their bag tags - so we've decided to add the design to the site! For ladies and gents!

It's Friday, We're in Love: A Weekly Roundup of Everything Lovely

Peace out, JULY! It's been a sweet (& sweltering!) month! This week, we worked on debuting new fall themed invitations, new personalized recipe cards and we threw our annual Christmas in July Sale! 

In this last Friday post of the month, I'm excited to share some photos our CEO, Allison, has been sending as she traveled around Texas- the BIG D- Dallas and the hip Austin. Allison and the fam set out for some summer adventure, and here's what she shared along the way:


Here is what we found awesome this week from our favorite blogs:


Antoinette shared a little sparkle featured on Design Love Fest.

Courtney kind of made us all wish we were on the water when she found this super relaxing photo on Oh Happy Day.

Amy thought this shoot on Wedding Chicks was quirky fun with its donut wedding cake and bathing suit bedecked groom.

Kaity loved this color coded organization via You Are My Fave.

Can you envision a cake made of girl scout cookies? I bet you didn't think it would be as elegant as this confection featured on My Sweet and Saucy.

Antoinette's summer mantra.

Finally, an amazing mid-century modern wedding featured on The Sweetest Occasion.

I hope everyone had an amazing JULY! The summah's not ovah'. Get out there and celebrate-- then come back and let us know what you did!

We're FALLing in LOVE!

 

The fall season is just around the corner and we’ve definitely been busy creating new and unique designs perfect for any fabulous fall fête. Fall is famous for its bold, rich colors and these inspiring new designs definitely fit the bill.

 I spoke with Reilly and she let me in on how the creative process started:

When we sat down to design for fall, we talked a lot about what our current customers like – fall leaves, rich shades of spice, olive and red, rustic elements, and unique personalization options like monograms. This gave us a good basis to start with and helped us to think of how we can bring new ideas to those classics. Some of the new elements we’re including are touches of watercolor, vibrant patterns and textured backgrounds. We played with kraft paper, ribbon and other things lying around the office to create dimension in our designs. I think our whole team is thrilled with how the fall invitations turned out and we hope our customers love them too!

 Thanks Reilly! One of my personal favorites out of our fall invitations is Leaves and Letters!  Which invitation would YOU pick?

Getting Sketchy! A Peek at our Creative Process

Animated GIF overload! Yesterday, we were sketching some new illustrations for our 2011 Holiday Card and Invitation collection so I decided to try out my new GIF Shop app! The app allows you to take photos and it seamlessly turns them into animated gifs for you. It was definitely fun to watch our sketches come to life.

For those of you who may wonder how our invitations come to be here are some tidbits about our creative process!

• We sketch twice a week! Sometimes, these sketches turn into actual invitations. Other times, it's just a good way to get your brain moving. We often will play a little music during our sketching sessions. Kyle prefers to sketch to smooth jazz, while the rest of us will jam out to a little pop rock. Sketch sessions are always a great way to end the day. 
• Our whole team shares inspirational images. Most of us peruse Pinterest on a daily basis. You can find me on Pinterest as well as Antoinette, Courtney and Kaity.
• We always chat about our designs. We tend to email them to each other, pop by each other's desks or share them on our internal network where we can leave comments and suggestions.

To learn more about our creative process, check out this post on the Evolution of an Invitation.

Five Fab Questions with...Melissa DiStefano!

Melissa DiStefano of MasterPiece Weddings is the subject of our "Five Fab Questions" this week - and I could not be more excited to share her answers with you! Melissa is wedding coordinator and the boss lady at MasterPiece Weddings (located in Gainesville, Florida) and is absolutely fabulous. She tweets (@WeddingPlanner1) and blogs (Adventures in Wedding Planning) too - which are just more reason why we love her.

For five more reasons why Melissa is "awesome-tastic", read her answers!

    1. What’s the weirdest thing that’s happened at one of the weddings you’ve done?

Oooooh! Good question, weirdest thing….weird to me, and weird to you may be two totally different things, but I once had a Mother of the Bride be dirty danced with horizontally on the dance floor with the groom. That was weird. Way weird.

A Trip Down Memory Lane: The College Years

We were showing some alma mater pride last week at our July company meeting!  Our college themed meeting taught us a lot about the higher education of our co-workers through a game of IC Jeopardy.  For instance, a handful of ICers dabbled in accounting in college but almost everyone tried out a major or two before finding their niche - everything from marine biology to journalism.  It's pretty fascinating to learn how your co-workers got to where they are because while we're all in the same place now, we took very different routes to get here!

Thanks to the always delish Wrights Deli for the sandwiches and their famous Alpine Cake for Allison and Amy's birthday!  I think it's safe to say we were all running on sugar that afternoon!

Since we learned all about each other here at IC, tell us:  what did you major in? And was it what yout thought you wanted to do?

Inspire Smart Success

This week I attended the Inspire Smart Success Experience in Orlando, Florida. The event is part of the Inspire Smart Success series run by the fabulous Stacie Francombe. You might know Stacie from her time at Get Married - or maybe as a guest judge in our 2010 design contest - but she is wonderful!

ISSE was held at the Waldorf-Astoria in Orlando and was absolutely beautiful. Everything from the linens to the flowers (to the sweets) was perfectly orange and green. All of the panelists had great information to share and it was fun getting to meet others in the industry. You can read Stacie's informative (and photo-ful) recap on her blog.

So thank you to Stacie Francombe, the guest panelists and all of the lovely attendees! 

It's Friday, We're in Love: A Weekly Roundup of Everything Lovely

 
We're feeling a little nerdy... Comic Con started this week and while I wish I was there, I'm taking solace in geekery from around the web!

First up, Antoinette's friend Blaire was the model for this adorably delightful Super Mario themed wedding shoot featured on Green Wedding Shoes! Blaire makes a super cute Princess Peach and we all just love the details. The faux-Mario-groom is extra legit with his fun mustache!

Antoinette also shared this adorable Geek Chic bridal shower featured on 100 Layer Cake!

What lovely honey, honey! This packaging featured on The Die Line is just too sweet.

Courtney spotted Indie Cases on Design Crush. Indie Cases is a shop that features different iPhone cases from designers around the country each week. The designs are clever and unique!

Allison sent us some photos from her summah holiday in Austin, Texas! The one above is from what she said was a GIGANTIC Whole Foods. Sounds fun to wander around!

How pretty is this Milk Magazine cover featured on Oh Happy Day?

Finally, Antoinette is anticipating the release of Kate Spade's makeup line! It will be perfect for fall.

Have a FUN weekend, everyone! Come back Monday!

IC Summer Picks for.....Movies!

 

One of the most exciting things about summer is that each season brings new and exciting movies and an excuse to get out of the heat. Whether your faves are romantic comedies, dramas, or action flicks, summer does not disappoint in bringing us a constant flow of entertainment. Here at Invitation Consultants, we have our own movie aficionado, ZAHARA (who needs IMDb?).

Personally, I am a big Harry Potter fan, but Zahara gave me her top five picks of must see movies this summer, rated on a score from 1-5 stars. Let’s see if you agree!

1. X-Men: First Class (5) – I loved this movie. You were brought back to the origins of X-Men. I tend not to like movies that do this, but this movie captured the beginnings in a way that still made you feel current. The actors and actresses were a mix of new and old, but the combination was fantastic. The movie was a bit dark, but overall the graphics and story line was superb.
   
   
2. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (5) – This movie was great. I watched the 2 previous versions, and this trilogy delivered everything I thought it would and more. The visual effects and animation were top notch. Just the right dose of humor is given at the right moments. The romance between the main character and the ‘new girl’ felt real and made me forgot about Megan Fox, even though I wanted her to be in this film.
   
   
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (4) – The title alone says it all. The big questions are: Did it deliver on graphics steadily throughout the film? Yes. Did it deliver on constant twists in plot? Absolutely. Did the end keep you satisfied? Not at all; I was wanting an alternative ending that did not involve the sadness I hoped they would have avoided.
   
   
4. Super 8 (4) – Cute movie. It really brought our generation back to the 80’s/90’s when you’d meet in the neighborhood with your best friends to hang out. When things were simple and you were curious about random things you thought were so cool. I also enjoyed and appreciated the dynamic relationships of the families and between the friends.
   
   
5. Thor (5) – LOVED THIS MOVIE – The way in which his character was revealed and evolved was so natural. I was completely immersed in the film. The romance between Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman was so real, you would have thought that they dated in real life. If you wait until the credits are over, as most films for Marvel Characters do, you are able to catch a short teaser for a possible sequel.

If going to the theater is not your style, make sure to gather a fab group of friends and plan your own movie screening. Set the theme by sending the perfect theater-themed invitation so your guests will arrive ready for the red carpet.

 Which films are you most excited to see during this summer movie season?