The invitation was illustrated by our dear friend (and the best man's wife) Kaylene Alder. Our initial inspiration for the invitation was the horticultural patterns of William Morris and Voysey, which tie us to our first home together in Walthamstow, around the corner from William Morris' house. The invitation is also the first thing that you, our guests, will see informing you of what you might expect from the big day.
Thank goodness we had Kay to create such a perfect reflection of what we want the wedding to be about. Rustic, charming, thoughtful - Kay completely surpassed our expectations by adding further sentiment to the design through the flowers she used and their meanings. Included are white chrysanthemum for truth, freesia for spirit, gardenia for joy, holly for domestic happiness and geranium for comfort. And by a stroke of luck, Kay had used Ivy to tie it all together - the same plant which will border the walls of the ceremony chapel.
To make sure we did the invitations justice, we decided to get them screen printed. After much googling and extortionately high quotes, we finally found a screen printer that we could afford, which also happened to be in East Sussex. We must thank Kay for her patience during this part of the process - who knew screen printing could be so complicated!
A few weeks later, we were sent a proof of the invitations from Steve the printer at Harvey Lloyd Screens. After inspecting the delicate raised black outlines of Kay's final invite on our living room floor, we carefully rolled them back, giving Steve the go ahead to print the invitations. A week later, the box of your invitations to our wedding arrived. The first thing that struck us on opening the box was the strong smell of fresh paint, reminding us of how they were printed, the second was how fantastic they looked. We chose recycled card, recycled envelopes and recycled tags for the materials and hope you love the final result as much as we do.
To see more of Kay's work, take a look at her website here: www.kaylenealder.com
And if you need a screen printer, these guys are reasonably priced and did a great job: www.harveylloydscreens.co.uk