Thank the Lord, it is Friday! Today is a good day for several reasons:
- It’s my day off
- The sun is shining
- It is 25th May… meaning that one year from today I’ll be getting married!
Whoop de whoop, Happy ‘Minus 1′ Year Anniversary to me and Paul! I’m heading off down to Kent bright and early this morning to spend a day doing fun wedding stuff with my Mum. We’re meeting with a potential caterer, then going to look at the venue (we went in January before so I’m looking forward to seeing it in all its springtime glory) and then we’re off to the Blooming Green flower farm in Linton to have a little look at what’s in season, take a bucket of floral pretty home with us and play around with some attempts at table arrangements. What a lovely day.
So to mark the occasion I wanted to share with you today the work of Kate Ruth Romey; a very special (and very sweet) lady who is doing my wedding stationery for me, and whose Save The Dates are currently landing on a few special peoples’ doorsteps. Cleverly timed eh?
The search for a stationery goddess
I have to admit that when working out an initial wedding budget, stationery was right at the bottom of our list priority-wise, along with transport (I’d travel in a Ford Fiesta if I had to- sooo not fussed about a fancy car) and favours (we’re not bothering- the free alcohol is favour enough!). I wanted beautiful stationery, I just thought that a) I’d be able to do it myself, and b) the money would be better spent elsewhere.
However, after a couple of trips to Hobbycraft (the first of which I bought nothing because I just had no idea where to start) and an evening spent haphazardly playing around with kraft paper and glitter glue I realised I was going to need the help of a professional…
I spotted Kate’s work on Whimsical Wonderland Weddings, a fab blog that I check daily. There I was browsing through a very lovely inspiration shoot when an image made me stop and look more closely.
Ooh, that’s laid out nicely, was my first thought, followed by I love that flower image, very rustic and such pretty colours… oh and isn’t that map of the venue cute? And, oh my, is that a gypsy caravan? On wood? With thread weaved through it??? Oh Em Gee, this is my sort of stationery!
So I checked out Kate’s website, loved what I saw even more and got in touch. When I realised that she lived in Blackheath (where I work), well, the deal was sealed.
What is so lovely about Kate Ruth Romey is that she is entirely bespoke. I found that many wedding stationers who offered a bespoke service did this alongside a standard range. For some reason this put me off- with some stationers saying they would only take on ‘X’ number of bespoke commissions a year it sounded way too expensive and unattainable. All of Kate’s work is bespoke, with many of her projects available to view on her website, but even more in her portfolio which she brought along with her to our first meeting. Her designs feel incredibly personal and completely unique- and that’s what we all want, isn’t it?
Image by Kat Hill
Kate’s USP is her postcard concept; your wedding invitations are sent out in a set of high quality postcards, each addressing a different aspect of the wedding. From the wedding announcement to the information card to the RSVP, how many cards you go for is entirely up to you. The picture above for example is a full set- comprising the announcement, information card, dietary requirements, honeymoon/gift list, song request and of course the RSVP. Can you guess which is which? (All text and information is obviously on the back of each card.)
Image by Kat Hill
Up close the work that Kate puts in to these designs is extraordinary. Using a mixture of graphic design, illustation and photography, she’ll take all the ideas you might have about your wedding- location, colours, textures, theme- and then she gets creative. The menu card above (bottom right) is actually a photo- she has hung hand-drawn food labels on to a piece of ribbon, and then taken a picture of them laid out on a piece of wood. So simple, and yet so effective.
All images above by Kat Hill
With my save-the-dates I had a clear idea of what I wanted, having already made an attempt to do it myself. I was desperate for them to be on ‘that brown recycled card stuff’, or Kraft paper as Kate later informed me. I wanted festoon lighting, a mixture of fonts and glitter. There had to somehow be glitter. After talking Kate through our wedding and showing her the dodgy iPhone picture of my original ‘attempt’, Kate was keen to recreate what I had tried (and failed) to do, and I am beyond thrilled with the result…
This was my original attempt:
Yes, that is a bottle of glitter glue, and yes, I was planning on drawing a string of lights on each card with a black felt tip pen.
And the finished product done by someone who actually has talent in graphics and design (still on a dodgy iPhone though I’m afraid)…
I’m chuffed- as I think they strike the right balance between rustic (with the kraft paper), glam (with the glittery bulbs) and fun (with the different fonts)- which is just how we hope our wedding to be.
For those of you yet to sort stationery, I thoroughly, thoroughly recommend getting in touch with Kate Ruth Romey, and I actually cannot wait to get started with the proper invites. I’m going to try to give her free reign this time and everything…
Well I did say ‘try’.
Tomorrow it will be ‘less than a year’ til Paul and I are wed. Eeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!
Sama xxx
Filed under: Paper Pretty Tagged: Kate Ruth Romey, wedding stationery
