CUSTOM DESIGN

What does "Custom Design" mean? To some wedding stationers, it means "Select a design from this fancy book!" But to us, it means starting from scratch with every single job. We are a unique wedding stationery company in that we are both artists who bring our trained expertise as craftspeople into our work. We see every project as an opportunity to be creative and approach each invite as something new. Our goal is to create invitations that are as unique and personalized as your relationship, not just a template that we re-use over and over. We take a lot of pride into our work, and always so excited to come up with new combinations of ink and paper. We see each invitation as a work of art!

The process starts with a conversation with you and your honey in our studio - or, if you're not local, we can set up a time to Skype. We ask questions about your wedding and what types of hopes and dreams you may have for your invitations. It's ok if you don't know what you want - sometimes those are the best clients! But we also are grateful when you know what you want! :) We love hearing how our clients meet and if there are any interesting or memorable parts to your relationship that you'd like to integrate into your invitations. Share your stories with us -it will help us to make your invitations more YOU!

If your invitation proposal is complex - say, it may incorporate unusual enclosures, different-shaped papers or custom dies - we'll put together a sketch for you to get an idea of the "shape" of your invitations. We love sharing the design process as much as possible with our clients, and many people enjoy sharing the pictures and updates with their family and friends. If you're like many other people out there, this will be the first time working with someone who is crafting something specifically for you. We like to expose the "behind the scenes" design phase with our clients - it's always sure to delight!

All concepting, design and illustration is done here on Ladyfingers premises. Arley-Rose and Morgan will begin your invitation with a brainstorming session to discuss different design approaches. Arley-Rose then sets off to tackle the designs with her tedious hand-drawn letterforms, custom illustrations, or general design expertise. Her weapon of choice is a Micron Pen and a great iTunes playlist, sketching words and images while toggling between the clients' Pinterest Board and her own scanned-in drawings. Our detailed notes and inspiration by our clients are always with us during the design phase.

By mayhem or miracle, a final design emerges from the rubble of scrapped ideas, color swatches and overflowing bins of paper recycling. We take each project so personally, we've likened it to raising a child: first you conceive it, and are so excited about your new baby - and as it matures you see it develop into a real live invitation. As we package the invites into their wooden crates for pickup or shipment, it's almost like we are packing the bags of our college-bound adolescent. So sad to see them go, but oh so proud. Oh so proud.