south of france wedding {invitations}

My dear friends, who live in France, are getting married in September! And I had the fortunate opportunity to design and hand-print the wedding invitation. They are getting married in the town of Guéthary in the Basque Country {a neighbor of Biarritz} - with a beach ceremony and a reception dinner at a local restaurant that overlooks the ocean. To celebrate the beautiful ocean of their wedding location, as well as his {and hers in progress} love for surfing, I created a motif of an ocean wave in a style that is hopefully reminiscent of the Japanese woodblock print process {Ukiyo-e}.
Otherwise, the design was kept very simple with the couple's wishes of wanting the invitation to look like "an old hand written letter." The invites are not hand-written but I did personally letterpress each invitation and matching RSVP postcard. It was such a nice feeling to run each 220 lb sheet into the Vandercook press, as it placed its impression in the thick paper. Here are some work-in-progress photos from the letterpress studio. {top to bottom: 1. soy ink mixture to create dark navy blue color; 2. custom plate of invitation design; 3. on the Vandercook press}
The final result is hopefully sophisticated {just like the happy couple}. More photos of the invitations that were sent out to guests who will be coming from the US, France, and Japan. {top to bottom: 1. invite package with a matching dark navy liner; 2. envelope, invitation, and RSVP postcard; 3. detail of invitation; 4. RSVP postcard - guests are given a blank postcard to write a personal message to the happy couple; 5. other side of RSVP with French postal stamps designed like pieces of chocolate; 6. sheet of French postal stamps that are designed to look like a chocolate bar - how cute~}
It was such a fun experience and I cherish the feeling that I had a small part in making their wedding come together. Now, on to more fun things like planning the trip in September!