Puerto Rico is an amazing option for getting married. For one, if you are a U.S. citizen, you don’t have to worry about asking your guests to get passports for your destination wedding. That is a big plus! If you reside in Puerto Rico, you only have a ferry ride away to get to the beautiful sandy beaches of Culebra or Viequez for a gorgeous beach wedding, similar to the one inspiring this blog post. The first photo above is one of my photos from my trip that inspired the Puerto Rico Beach watercolor wedding invitation.
The other inspiration I collected for couples considering or planning a Puerto Rico wedding focuses on the simple beauty of the island, with flairs of bright color to reflect the colorful Puerto Rican culture.
As I mentioned in Tuesday’s blog post, the bride in this Country backyard wedding did a lot of DIY touches. She spent a long time designing and “crafting” for her wedding. I was lucky enough to work with her on some of the hand-painted touches such as the music themed wedding invitations, thank you cards at each person’s place setting, escort cards which were strung on an antique windowpane, and Country Cobblestone thumbprint guestbook.
The couple both shares a love for music so they included that love visually in their wedding invitation design with the music notes graphic. Laura is a wonderful singer, who wrote and recorded their first dance song at their wedding. This song literally gives me chills…it is so amazing! Craig plays the guitar, so they had a white guitar at their wedding for guests to sign with a gold metallic Sharpie marker.
Impressed by the amount of DIY touches, the bride created for her wedding, I asked her a couple of questions about her tips for other DIY brides out there, as well as how paper products are incorporated into a DIY wedding.
Allison: How did your wedding paper tie into the look of your wedding?
Laura: The Hand-Painted Wedding touches captured the the rustic elegance I was going for. Purples and greens were bled together in a simple, understated elegance as the backdrop for my wedding invitations, escort cards and personalized thank-you cards at each place setting. I chose the Country Cobblestone thumbprint guest book which was perfect because it looked just like the dirt road behind the alter at our backyard country wedding. I hand made almost every decoration in the wedding and so I really appreciated the originality and the beauty of the Hand Painted wedding paper. Allison Krosnick is so talented and I feel so lucky to call her my sister.
Allison: What tips do you have for other DIY backyard wedding brides?
Laura: “Be easy on yourself! Seriously, if you are anything like I was, you are putting way more pressure on yourself than other people are. After a year of planning and crafting, a million pins on pinterest, and a few dozen spreadsheets, the wedding finally came. It was clear about two hours into hair and makeup that things weren’t going to go as planned. Tents were flying upside down, I was a full table short of place settings, and half the lights on my DIY backdrop made with organza and Christmas lights wouldn’t stay lit! The groomsmen forgot their boutonniere and my aisle runner was blowing in the wind as I stood at the alter!
And it was STILL one of the most amazing nights of my life. I stressed out trying to make everything perfect and then nothing went to plan and I realized it didn’t matter anyway, and no one cared. So please brides, be nice to yourself, you are only one woman.”
Wedding day paper includes menus, escort cards, ceremony programs, favor tags, thumbprint guestbooks, and other various signs such as dessert table signs, such as the macaroon sign above. As you can see, adding this little detail of custom paper to your wedding day brings the whole look of the event to another level.
The paper are the items your guests will be holding and using to navigate throughout your event, so it makes sense to give them the same attention you would for the invitation set. In fact, the wedding day paper items are also a way to carry the theme from the wedding invitations throughout the wedding.
In the case of the Alice in Wonderland wedding the detailed illustrations from the Alice in Wonderland wedding invitation set are not in the designs of the wedding day paper. Instead a colorful watercolor wash is used in the design to coordinate with the invitation but not be too matchy-matchy. One of my strengths as an artist is figuring out how to transition and grow a design into the coordinating designs so that they all feel like they are in the same family, but aren’t identical.
The Alice in Wonderland theme is really interesting because while there is the eclectic tea party aspect of the event, there is also this mystical haze throughout the forest Alice is wondering about. The watercolor wash is inspired by that haze. I just love this design, as you can tell. The team of vendors did such an amazing job designing the decor and the table settings. I love how all the details came together. It is really an inspiration, and I am so excited that other couples can use bits and pieces of this inspiration for their wedding days!
