If you’re like most brides and grooms these days you might get to a wedding fair or two, and you probably look through wedding magazines, but you spend a LOT of your wedding planning time online. With so many choices for invitations online, often with prices down in the cellar, you may wonder what the advantages are to working directly with a local artist/designer on your wedding invitations. Let me share some:
- Personal Assistance
When you work directly with a local artist/designer, you get to meet face-to-face to share your wedding dreams in person. Don’t underestimate how important this is! The artist/designer can use the information you bring to the visit to offer suggestions, make sketches, and come up with a design that is truly made-to-order, just for you. If you order your wedding invitations online you may save money, but most online shops don’t have the flexibility to create truly unique wedding invitations, designed just for you. - Choices: Added Freedom
When you work directly with a local artist/designer whose work you really like, you have the benefit of her talent, skill and vision to create a balanced, coherent invitation ensemble that you will LOVE, and that will wow your guests. You have virtually unlimited freedom in shapes, sizes and colors, design elements, fonts, and the kinds of accessories you can include! Online you’re limited to cookie-cutter styles with limited choices for fonts, colors, shapes, sizes, accessories, etc., and there’s no-one to guide you to a perfect end product. (The “well, that didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped, but at least it was cheaper” syndrome.) - Choices: Avoid the Overwhelm
On the other hand, the choices online seem overwhelming, but you don’t have the benefit of an artist/designer’s talent, skill and vision to help make the right selections from the various options. How many ugly wedding invitations have you seen? Some fonts and colors are just not meant to go together! But when presented with a font decision, for example, most brides and grooms will just pick two fonts they like, not realizing that they’ll look really horrendous together. This is where a professional artist/designer can help. A good artist/designer will take your scattered thoughts and ideas and channel them into a beautiful finished ensemble that you’ll absolutely love – after all, that’s her JOB! - Flexibility in Ordering Options
If you order invitations online you’ll pay a hefty premium if you need to order extras later, or if you decide to add reception stationery down the road (ie, place cards or escort cards, programs, table tents, menus, etc.) When you work with a local artist/designer there is usually a lot more flexibility. [For example, I only charge extra for additional items if it costs ME extra (ie, if the paper is special-ordered or the printing is outsourced), otherwise I'll only charge the same unit-price you paid initially. And I never charge an extra fee for additional items later than your invitations, so if you want you can order your invitation suite first, and order matching reception items down the road, and you won't be penalized.] - Other Coordinating Items
When you work with a local artist/designer to create your wedding invitations, you’re usually not limited to a preset selection of coordinating items. Whether you’re looking for place cards and table tent cards, a seating chart, or a fine art ketubah or wedding certificate, your artist/designer should be able to create your heart’s desire, AND make everything match! Just be sure to allow plenty of extra time if you want a custom ketubah or wedding certificate that matches your invitations, as creating art from scratch is time-consuming, and the artwork will need to be completed first, before she can create your wedding invitations! (In addition to custom design work, I offer ketubah and wedding certificate prints with matching invitation ensembles that can be completely modified, so if you like my existing designs you can still get a custom ensemble that coordinates beautifully, without the time and money investment of a “from-scratch” custom design.)
I hope this is helpful!
~Melissa
