Peony - Flower of the Year

According to the wedding planner to the stars, Mindy Weiss, the Peony is the "flower of the year" for weddings and has been for two years straight now. This romantic flower is one of my favorites and I absolutely love how many color variations there are!

Anyway, I love them so much that I fashioned one of my invitation suites around them. The Coral Peony is my most popular suite on Pinterest and has been re-pinned everywhere! I just love the color combination and think it is a very soft, feminine wedding invitation.

There are a few more wedding trends I'm excited about this year as well!

Neutral color palettes - not sure why, but I sure do like the palettes of grey, brown, blush pinks, etc. They just exude elegance to me, if you do it right.

Gleaming wedding invitations - I love adding a little bit of shine to my invitations. Whether it is through heat embossing, ribbon, or the paper itself, I think a little bit of glitter and gleam is a fantastic highlight on an invitation.

Going natural - The "going green" thing has been embraced thoroughly, and rightfully so. I am looking forward to creating an invitation suite centered around being all-natural. The use of recycled papers lends a unique touch to a suite and several of those papers are actually quite cool to work with!

Supplier Review: Paper and More

As a paper product retailer, I have a vast array of quality papers to choose from in my designs. There are imported papers, home-grown papers, recycled, organic.... this paper world is honestly more interesting than people would think and the list of choices goes on and on. With so many different paper and card stock choices, there are a number of wholesalers that I have attempted to work with as well.

When I first started, I found what I thought to be a fantastic pairing for my company - Clampitt Paper Company. They had a HUGE variety to choose from, seemed like they worked really well with their clients, and even offered to give me two massive boxes of paper samples to show my future customers. I met with one of their representatives and he was wonderful. Very knowledgeable, friendly, and open to helping me as much as he could. So, it was looking positive. However, when I priced out materials for one of my big orders at the time, the competitive pricing he told me about was less than that. I found that I could order online for significantly less money than if I ordered with them, even though we were supposed to be partners. So, I kept them in mind but eventually found that the company that beat their prices and shipping costs that one time, kept the trend going. That company is Paper and More and honestly, I have not been able to beat their prices anywhere I've looked.

Quality. That's something every bride looks for in her invitation design. The creativity of the design does absolutely nothing for you when you have poorly made paper. So, quality is my very first criterion on which to judge a paper supplier. Paper and More does an impressive job of offering papers that very closely match the quality of some of the brand name papers such as Cordenons, Curious, Gmund (a few of my favorites by the way). They offer several different weights, textures, and I have never had a problem running through my top-feed printer.

Product Offering. Paper and More is continuously improving their product offering, bringing several new colors, textures, and paper types to their market. Most of the time, if I need a color matched, I have no problem finding it on Paperandmore.com. I'm fairly certain that if I can't find it and let them know, they will work on bringing it to the table in the future. Flat, metallic, wood-grain embossed, metallic embossed, velvety smooth.... seriously, these guys offer a huge variety! I have run into a color matching problem one time, though, with a color of pocket folder called "Botanic" by Curious that Cardsandpockets.com offered. While I was able to match the color, the difference in cost was monumental.

Pricing. Never have I matched their competitive pricing... I have searched all over the web, delved into local paper suppliers, and seriously have not been able to find better pricing. Here is a quick breakdown for a few of the other main paper suppliers I've seen pop up in my searches.

For this example, we will compare the pricing of a plain, ivory pocket fold invitation shell, as shown here:

Paper and More has this listed at about $0.81 per shell (after shipping)

LCI Papers: $1.03 per shell (after shipping)

Cards and Pockets: $1.24 per shell (after shipping)

Any other paper supplier that I've come across just doesn't offer the pre-made pocket fold. I have found this to be a huge time saver and much more professional looking than anything I could have made myself. Paper and More has been the true champion in the price arena. 

Customer Service. If you are a repeat customer, they'll upgrade your shipping for free no occasion, out of the blue. If you need something cut, they'll cut it for you. If you need samples, they have them. Their paper comes in a timely fashion, orders are processed the same day of ordering, and everything is packaged superbly to ward off rain and dysfunctional postal men who might throw your box around and bend the paper you've tried so hard to keep perfect. 

Bottom line, when your customers demand perfection, Paper and More can offer you a perfect raw material for a hard to beat price. I would recommend them to ANYONE who needs paper for any kind of occasion. Of course I look forward to the day when a bride demands Curious Skin envelopes at $84.99 per 50, but until then, I'll stick to the $13.99/50 quality envelopes this company offers. 

Fleur de Lis Fever

Apparently people have fleur de lis fever this wedding season! I've gotten so many inquiries about my signature series Delphinium Suite and other custom orders in featuring this lovely symbol. Most recently, we are designing a suite with a couple who are showcasing the Mardi Gras colors with the fleur de lis. It should definitely be a special invitation.

This symbol is a stylized lily flower - fleur for flower, lis for lily - associated mostly with the French monarchy from days of old. It has been around for so long, with similar symbols appearing in the ruins of several ancient civilizations including Babylon, Persia, Scythia and Egypt. Some people believe that when the French adopted the symbol as part of their royal emblem, it represented the conversion of the Franks to Christianity in the fifth century, with the three branches symbolizing the holy trinity.

There is still a lot of debate among historians about the true meaning and origins of this simple symbol, but for a long time, it has been associated with royalty and elegance. That must be why so many brides just love this symbol - it captures the elegance of their special day.

Rustic Gardens Wedding and Event Center Open House

We had a wonderful time out at Rustic Gardens last night and got the chance to meet some fantastic people! Thanks to everyone who came out to support all of your local vendors. There were bakers, makeup artists, photographers, fitness professionals, lighting and sound specialists, barbecue caterers, and even fresh squeezed lemonade! It was truly a great night and we are so happy to have been a part of it.

Image Photography by Julie Pinsinski was set up next to me and was able to capture some real pictures of our booths, but here is my blurry camera phone picture of mine - I was so proud of it! My first show :)

My sign kept falling off! Note to self: figure out a better way of hanging that sign!

I got to design our brochure myself! I thought it was pretty!

We knew we were going to meet several bride-to-be's and their families, so we wanted to make sure our product offering had a lot of variety. So, we were busy planning and designing in the weeks leading up to the show!

Let me introduce you to the newest additions to our stationery family!

the gardenia.

Secret Garden Themed - hence, the key!

Gate Fold Design - to represent the Secret Garden's Gate

Green and White, like the Gardenia color scheme!

the bare tree.

Petal Fold Card in Onyx Black

Stunning black and white contrasting color scheme.

the wisteria.

Soft color scheme and an interchangeable embossed stamp design!

the bicycle.

Tandem bicycle Invitation

Save the Date

the coffee bean.

the ?

I'm not sure what to name this little guy yet! But it's cute!

If you have a name suggestion, let us know!

Rustic Gardens Open House

02-24-12

 Be there to see some of the local vendors and this beautiful new wedding venue!

We'll be there showcasing some of our work along with Image Photography by Julie Pinsinski and a few other local wedding professionals. 

and.

We'll be offering all brides who attend a 25% discount on our paper goods and custom design process! 

Sign up at our table and when your purchase comes through, we'll hook you up! ;) 

No need to go all the way to San Antonio or beyond to find the perfect wedding vendor when you have a number of choices right here in your local area! 

So, come out and see us and help support another local business!

3:00-7:00 p.m.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Rustic Gardens Weddings & Events

14025 Highway 87, Adkins, TX

2013 Wedding Color Trends

... and an update from our household!

2013 is in its early stages and already bold color combinations are coming out on top! Late in 2012, the wedding industry foresaw an upswing in soft mint green and rose pink, which is a beautiful, sweet color combination!

Then, in January we saw a definite lean towards a bold emerald color scheme - such a rich color for a wedding! Perfect for spring and summer, hinting at the lush greenery that touches our world in the warmer months.

Now, we are seeing a comeback in the sparkling, glittery gold! That's very exciting to us, as our first invitation suite featured a bold, gold pocket folder.

Here was our first suite - featuring a gold pocket fold with navy blue accents to include a real, pressed blue bonnet (love those Texas wildflowers!)

We'd love to see those color combinations mixed together - mint and gold would be stunning, and emerald and gold would be a show stopper for sure. Maybe a future design?

Oh and from our household - our beloved foster dog Nnicholas had to go back to the DoD early Monday morning after an unfortunate accident with a horse. He snapped his leash and chased the horse, taking a clip to the nose. After they took him into x-ray, they found he had been shot! A week or two before this incident, I had treated a little hole on him, where I thought one of his little play buddies got a little too rough with him - it was so small I didn't think much of it! Unfortunately, it was a shot from an air propelled pellet gun that one of our neighbors shot him with... one shot, through the chest - meant to kill him, in my opinion. Poor Nnicholas was probably only trying to protect our little house - he deserves a puppy program purple heart for being injured in the line of duty, protecting our household before he even reported for military working dog duty! It was a sad week and we are heartbroken to have had to give him up early (at all! he was so sweet). Anyway, we hope all of you dog/pet owners keep a good eye out for your pets. You never know who your neighbors are.

You'll be missed silly Nnicholas!

Custom Work 03/16/2013

I just finished up two separate batches of custom invitation work for two very lovely brides who are looking forward to their big days in March - one is even on my birthday, the 23rd! :)

Now that the invitations have been sent out for Cecilia's wedding, she went ahead and gave me a green light on creating a blog post showcasing her GORGEOUS one of a kind invitations.

We teamed up in the early stages of planning to start brainstorming and bouncing ideas off of each other. What we came up with is just simply amazing. With a palette of eggplant, lavender, and silver, the design incorporates a little bit of the old French flair of Louisiana with an old photo album theme.

A custom ordered stamp featured their names and wedding date - they got to take it home with them!

Every piece was carefully hand bound.

The old photo album style featured two of their engagement shots accented by silver photo corners.

The main invitation featured a small fleur de lis and was backed by beautiful metallic lavender card stock. Elegant!

The hand bound booklet featured the main invitation, a center frame holding a musical piece composed for Cecilia by her fiance, Steven, and three inserts. The RSVP was spelled out in French to capture a little bit of the old French heritage in Louisiana.

The piece composed for Cecilia by her future husband,  Steven! There is a subtle fleur de lis showing through the vellum.

She let me put a little stamp on the back for advertising purposes! Awesome! 

We are hoping to showcase our second custom order here in the weeks to come! Meanwhile, we hope to be designing a few more signature series invitations and save the dates to add to our collection.

An Adventure in Crafting a Website

SEO. Now there's an acronym that sends a lot of people reeling - including me! It stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it is one term I've come to be friends with over the past few months while crafting our website. We were so excited yesterday to have FINALLY released our website to the public!  

< PLUG > WWW.WILDLACEINVITATIONS.COM </ PLUG >

Haha ok. Seriously, though, building up a nice looking website is a lot of work! Even though we've been working on building it for months now, it still has a long way to go. Content needs to be added, pictures need to be uploaded, and most importantly, our Search Engine Optimization needs to be continuously built upon - it's all very extensive to me, a non computer-savvy person.

Our journey began with me browsing through a lot of other people's stationery sites. They were gorgeous. I decided I wanted a website, so that our company could look more professional and more reputable online. I talked to Steven about it, and we decided to opt for a website that not only featured our work, but also gave us the capabilities to actually capture the sales online. 

We knew we had a plan ready for action. We teamed up with Volusion, an online hosting/e-commerce solution. They offer pre-designed templates, hosting, domain name services, and a lot of fantastic features that would help us to keep track of our website's performance and our business intelligence all in one convenient location. We found our perfect template, bought our host name, plan, and domain name and then we were off to build! In the meantime, I set up a little Etsy shop that could start drawing some orders while our website was down. This, ladies and gentlemen, is where I was first introduced to SEO.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization - is making sure your site pops up to the search engines when someone goes to Google and searches for something related to your work. It's something that has to be built up through many different avenues so that your website shows up higher on the search list, without having to pay someone bookoo bucks to feature it at the top. 

Since I am also a member of Wedding Wire, I am able to take advantage of their online education center. I attended several webinars on the subject and learned several ways of increasing your visibility to those search engines! 

Here are a few tips I've tried to follow:

1. Monitor where you stand: http://www.seositecheckup.com  helps me to see where my weaknesses and strengths are.

2. Keep up with those keywords: Load up with keywords, but don't stuff them in there! Don't want to look like a spammer. For my business page, I loaded up on a lot of words about San Antonio Wedding Invitations, Custom Invitations, Handmade Invitations, the various materials I used, etc. 

3. Link back to yourself: There are links within your page that lead back to you and your website link is on other websites that have very reputable, well built up SEO. When you're super connected to sites like WeddingWire.com, theknot.com, etc., you have a better chance of looking reputable to a search engine.

4. Have a sitemap:  Lucky for me, Volusion has this built into their sites. I would have no idea how to set this up otherwise.

5. Have a search friendly URL: Don't be www.adfjkl_1243_kald_.com please... no one will know what the heck that is. Also, we were advised to keep it short - something people will not hate typing. We originally were going with wildflowersandlaceinvitations.com but look how long that is! We chose wildlaceinvitations.com instead. It also helps to have keywords IN your URL! Clever.

7. Image Descriptions: Search engines don't look at the pretty pictures, they eat text. So write something in the image description place and make sure it has some keywords! ;)

8. Content: Fresh. Fresh. Fresh. Update it regularly, keep it original, and keep it interesting to your clients!

9. Social Media Love: Share content from your website on social media platforms - the links help give you more SEO lovin'. 

10. Link to Others: Make online friends and link to them, they will return the favor and everyone is a happy camper. 

Well, there is my informative post of the week. I hope I didn't bore all of you readers out there. I'm also hoping if you are a small business owner interested in getting your piece of real estate on the world wide web, this helped you just a little bit! 

Happy creating!

2013 Beginnings

Well with the new year came a flurry of activity that had to be taken care of!! We had two gorgeous custom orders that required a lot of attention, so we were completely focused on that (hence our absence from the blog),

Country Chic

Vintage Photo Album

Carlie Exploring Lou's Mouth

 we added a new member to our little family (Carlie the German Shepherd), and have been working like crazy on getting our official website up and running! We got our photos back from Image Photography by Julie Pinsinski, so we are very excited to go through those and get them up on our website this week. Furthermore, we've started the year with a few other custom orders that look like they will be a ton of fun to work on. A Brave themed birthday suite, a version of our Delphinium suite to include save the dates, and another custom wedding coming up later this year with what is sure to be an exciting theme. :) Can't wait to see what 2013 has in store for us! Once these ladies get their custom work mailed out, I'll post a more detailed blog about each of the suites showing off some of their unique design elements. I've taken some pretty nice pictures myself, actually ;)  Have a wonderful week!