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The concept of wedding invitations was a daunting one. I could scroll through pages and pages of ideas, pin gorgeous flatlays of invitation suites on Pinterest for months, and never figure out what design and style really felt like ‘us’. And I honestly didn’t feel like doing that either; I just wanted to find it and be done. One day I was perusing the Instagram account of our venue, when I landed on Gia Boyd; a past Springton Manor bride. It just so happens that Gia also owns her own wedding stationery and brush lettering business and creates some of the most beautiful invitation suites I have ever seen. Once we found her, there was no other hunting to be done; so the creative process began!
Creating the Invitation Suite
After reaching out to Gia for pricing and deciding on pieces we definitely wanted to include (details card, escort cards, hand lettering of addresses), we moved forward with the creative process. We started off with Gia’s design questionnaire in which we gave her as many details about our wedding ceremony, reception location, hotel blocks, headcount, coloring, etc…. as we possibly could. We were then able to peruse Gia’s collection of pre-designed suites so that we could get a starting point and customize our own design.
From the various layouts and designs she has already created, we were able to pick and choose fonts, layouts, and alignments for our customized invitation. We decided to pick design elements from the Jordan Boho Suite and the Michelle Garden Suite. We loved the look of the main invitation of the Michelle Garden and the calligraphy and layout of the RSVP card. I also sent Gia a photo of our floral mood board so she had an idea of what types of flowers to watercolor and color tones to use in our suite.
Mockups are Here!
Within a few weeks, we received two mockups in our inbox. When I opened them and saw the beautiful design, our wedding colors, and OUR NAMES together on a wedding invitation, I cried. Cameron and I absolutely loved them. After reviewing in detail, we decided on a favorite of the 2 mockups, tweaked a few minor pieces, and called it a day! Gia offers unlimited revisions, custom watercolor designs, and brush calligraphy so any of her designs can be altered up until print day. This was very much appreciated considering all of the changes we made with the pandemic.
Gia sent Cameron and I a package of paper and envelope options in the mail to make our final paper selection. This really goes to show you that you don’t have to be local to use Gia for her amazing work. The mail works just fine too! All of the paper options were all such incredible quality and we landed on a deep green for our main envelope. I could not wait to see the white calligraphy addressing on the front 🙂 It did not disappoint when they arrived. It was hard to even stuff all of the envelopes when I couldn’t stop looking at all of our favorite names, beautifully scripted on each envelope.
Along with our custom invitation suite, we decided to add:
- Brush Calligraphy Envelope Addressing
- A Custom Return Address Stamp (an actual carved rubber stamp; so cute!… and a bonus gift for Mom & Dad when it’s all over)
- Hand Lettered Escort Cards
Let’s Talk About Gia
From the very beginning, Gia has been so wonderful to work with… A vendor I could certainly be friends with and a business I would want to support long into the future. We didn’t quite expect a pandemic in the middle of wedding planning and Gia has been more than accommodating in order to help and encourage us. She offered her professional advice in assisting with our timeline of when we need to make final decisions and get our invitations in the mail. She consistently emailed just to check in and was ‘on the ball’ about making sure Plan B options were catered to. She was on board no matter what!
Even just a few days before printing, Gia was able to update our details card with references to COVID-19 safety precautions we would be taking for the event and was willing to redo the entire thing if plans completely changed. With a drop dead date of the first week of July to get them in the mail, Gia helped consult us as our headcount was limited by the venue just weeks before. She even helped us craft a really sweet invitation cancellation for those we could not longer include. She was such an encouragement and was so flexible as we were not exactly meeting deadlines on our side with so many things changing.
The last week of June we received our invitations in the mail. Gia had pre-stamped the return addresses so all we had to do was assemble and seal them up! I brought them to our local post office and hand-cancelled them myself so that there wouldn’t be any issues going through the machine. I have read other blogs where the post office makes you pay extra to do this or simply won’t let you, but the woman at our office simply handed over her stamp and let me do it. Easy peasy. Once that was complete, they were off to their destinations!
In the spirit of helping small business owners in this uncertain time, especially those in the wedding industry that have been hit so hard, do not miss out on the creative gift that Gia has. She is the real deal and I am so grateful that we found her for our day. Gia creates invitations for any type of event, calligraphy signage for events or even your home, custom Christmas ornaments, custom artwork, and even has an online calligraphy course for beginners. Check out the Gia Boyd Design Instagram account for more inspiration! Our invitations are one of my most favorite creations for our wedding day. I know I would love to receive them in the mail 😉 Thank you, Gia!
xoxo,
jojo
p.s. Addresses have been blurred for privacy.
