We decided to forgo sending out “Save the Date” cards to friends and family. Not to be non-conformists or to knockout another tradition – we simply didn’t want the added stress. I had a string of family emergencies that demanded my time and my (then) fiancé pointed out the fact that it would be faster to simply contact each invited attendee than it would be to design, print, address, stamp, and mail all of them. So that’s what we did.
The invites, on the other hand, the invites got the bulk of our time. Not because it demanded it. Because it was so much fun!
We knew we wanted something different and fun. And I wanted something I could display on my precious wall space. Being a graphic designer by trade, I had the know-how to go beyond the somewhat standard 5×7 flat or fold-over invite. But what was beyond the standard? Where could we go for inspiration? Save us, oh Internets. You are our only hope!
It didn’t.
Yes, there are nerdy invites with binary or pixelated art. TARDIS cards. Mario and Peach separated by an 8-bit heart. Game a Thrones in abundance. But… none of it fit us. Instant frowny faces. So I casually mentioned to the fella our that invite could unfold into a poster. He mentioned he likes those posters that have an image made of words. My eyes got wide and, since I often talk in movie quotes, I suggested we could do that. He agreed and suggested the image could be the Captain America shield since that’s the first movie we saw together. Bam! Nailed down the idea.
We got to work compiling our favorite TV and movie quotes. It was so much fun to stroll through those memories and share them with each other.
A work in progress of the quotes layout.
I then got to work. I’ll spare you the nerdy details but the end result is an 8.5″x 5.5″ french-fold that unfolds to a 11″x17″ poster. I can’t say we broke the wedding-invitation mold — we just completely disregarded it. The internet wasn’t able to spit out the answer we hoped to find. But that actually helped us in the long run. We ended up with an invite that was uniquely ours and that’s what we wanted. And we ended up with something we would proudly display on our precious wall space. That’s what I wanted.
