Once upon a time, I was delighted to receive wedding invitations festooned with stuff. I’d save the ribbons — the cats like them and they came in handy when Christmas rolled around — and clip off and save things like tiny wooden rings, carved plastic medallions, and mini broochy sorts of things I could hot glue onto photo albums in need of a touch of sparkle.
Nowadays I tend to admire these marvels of invitational engineering before clipping off whatever embellishments are recyclable and tossing whatever isn’t. I don’t know exactly when my tolerance for do-dads, thingies, ribbons, and bling went down, but it might have had something to do with all the nuptial chachkas I’d accrued over time.
I’m still of two minds on the subject. Yes, an invitation wearing a cameo choker, gilded frame, or enamel brooch is fun and visually interesting. On the other hand, if your invitation won’t close without a velvet and rhinestone belt, that’s a tad strange. My own wedding stationery was comprised of rather plain gold seal-n-send invitations, but we chose those because the price was right and neither The Beard nor I wanted to spend ages assembling multi-part packets.
I do think the Carciofi Design stationery above is very pretty, though according to the web site it’s also pretty pricey.
For 100 custom wedding invitation sets with printed outer envelopes, reply cards, printed reply envelopes and enclosure cards the price ranges from $1200-$4000. Letterpress, engraving, or thermography are available upon request (special pricing applies). Quotes do not include shipping and handling.
Right now, the invitation I’d most like to receive would be one of those traditionalesque one-sided ecru numbers with only a hint of embellishment. If I was getting married all over again, that’s probably the sort I’d send out. I am curious to know whether or not I’m in the minority here, so I simply have to ask: Do you get a kick out of invitations with all the trimmings or would you (like me) prefer to receive something simpler?