Some wedding crafts I made myself. My invitations were not one of them. I wanted professional invitations that I could build on and personalize.
Here is my idea on how to take simple invitations and add a more personal touch.
Designing a Custom Overlay for Professionally Printed Invitations
Here is what we ordered. It’s me, right? Clean and simple. We got invitations, inner and outer envelopes, and response cards with their envelopes.
I especially loved the invitation because it was a card made out of hefty stock.
A picture of our ceremony site was a theme for our wedding stuff, such as in our Save the Date cards. For our invitations, I designed a translucent overlay/insert.*
Turn a Picture into a Watermark: I started with a picture I took of our site, then turned it black and white. I pasted it into MS Word and made it the same size as our invitations. Finally, I increased the brightness so it would turn into a faint watermark.
Print on Translucent Paper: I printed these with the photo printer on translucent paper from The Paper Company. This is still the best deal I’ve found – much cheaper than buying vellum by the sheet!
Cut and Insert into Invitation: Finally, I had them professionally cut and placed them on top of the invitation card in the envelope. It was loose – I did not attach them. In my scrapbook (below), I did attach it to the page with a thin sliver of tape.
Finished product below (including the maps, which I will save for another time). I love how the translucent overlay makes it so unique!
*I came up with this idea three years earlier when designing a ticket for a formal event (see the ticket and my scrapbook layout for that event here). Back then I tried printing on tracing paper. Don’t do that, it doesn’t work. Make sure to use vellum or other translucent paper.
