Thanks for checking out the design work I did for our wedding and your interest in the wedding design process. This was my first time designing materials for a wedding… In fact, I hadn’t designed a love letter, note, or card along that line since I was trading Valentine cards with everyone in my second grade class. Needless to say, I had a lot of fun getting to branch out into this space of the design world.
The following is probably more than most of you want to read, and I promise most of my blog postings will not be this long… For people interested in branding and designing their weddings, this should prove as a helpful piece of insight into the wedding design process. If you’d like some help with your project, please contact us here – www.themotionbar.com/contact. We are always looking for exciting projects and can help you bring alive everything from your start up company to your wedding.
INVITATIONS AND BRANDING
One of the first places we started with this project, was the wedding invitations. We wanted to do something different and unique, which represented both our personalities, and the setting of the wedding. Being a BBQ(which we just loved – http://www.capelosbarbecue.com/) wedding with games and an 8 person band, we turned towards the idea of doing a classic style concert poster. With the 17×11 ratio in mind, we had some more things to think about, like envelope size and whether we could get away with sending the invites folded into quadrants. We agreed on most of this quickly…
Now, I love my wife and I told her, she was both the best and worse client I’ve ever had… We went through quite a number of different concepts and rough drafts. Finally, we agreed that keeping the invite informative and relevant to the venue was most important. Using the redwoods from the venue for inspiration, we came up with the final design. The heart being a slightly obvious choice, we thought it would be nice to design some of the typography into it. This is the first time we introduced the wedding guests to the C(heart)G logo, which was used across the wedding, right down to Das-Bus’ photo-booth strips(more below). We decided a chevron back would emphasize the fun and classy feel of the wedding, while keeping it simple and neat.
Once we had the basic concept of the invitation down, we used those design elements to work up the rest of the weddings designs, including an RSVP post card and a flyer with info on accommodations and transportation for our guests to easily carry to the wedding. From here, we worked with Brandes Printing (http://www.brandesprinting.com/), in order to find the right paper, in both color and weight.
When all was said and done, most of our guests loved the invitations and we have one matted and framed with our guests signatures.Couldn’t be happier with how they turned out, but that’s not to say we didn’t learn a great deal. We are excited for the opportunity to apply it to our next branding and event job.
WEBSITE DESIGN
Had a ton of fun designing and building our wedding site. We stayed within the wedding colors we chose using the green sparingly, allowing the page to feel elegant
and cohesive.
The white background and light navigation overlay helped to re-enforce this feeling of elegance. Simultaneously, we wanted to more accurately represent the venue, so we decided to use photos of the trees and event space as header images. 
We even had the opportunity to spot the deer and snap the photo for the wedding’s Location page, and the photo of the Bay Bridge, was taken from Treasure Island, one day on our way back from the flea market. And yes, I photoshopped the images. Properly balancing the levels, color and contrast. By including these images, with some neutral shots of the bay area, we mainly wanted to give the wedding attendee an idea of what they could expect, and help transport them to our Venue.
When designing a website, the end user is my main concern. The site should be easy for your guests to navigate, especially on a mobile platform, as many of your guests will be traveling from out of town or looking up your wedding info from there car on the day of. For this reason, we put anything we could think of, that a guest might ask. We included hotel recommendations, gift registry with links to the stores, location info and dress attire.
We added a section to the site with things to do in the local area, all laid out here –
http://www.cassieandgabeswedding.com/things-to-do/.
In this day and age, we felt an online option to RSVP was a must. We actually got quite a few RSVP’s this way and it proved to be a big help. With the large list of guests we had, we found an option that allowed us to import an excel sheet of our wedding list directly into the CMS(content management system). It kept track of our RSVP’s and even allowed for options like vegetarian. Finally, we put a full page slideshow, re-capping our story.
Visit the link below to go to our wedding site…
www.gonnabefun.com
(http://www.cassieandgabeswedding.com/)
THE WEDDING
The wedding felt like a wonderful success. Of course, I’m probably a bit biased, but the overall feedback was positive and most people appeared to have a great time. …I know we did. We tried to provide something for all of our guests by serving BBQ, having a variety of drinks and lawn games to play, and an awesome band for dancing. Thanks to Charlie Ferguson (http://www.zongojunction.net/) for the hookup with “The Cool Runners”. They were an incredible band to have perform.
We also wanted to make sure our wedding branding was consistent throughout the event and ceremony. My wife has an excellent eye for suits, and helped me pick out a navy blue suit to go with her vintage white dress. Again, the touch of green helps to both brighten and add a touch of nature to the dress. As well, the green draws the eye towards her and helped her stand out in her beautiful dress.
From the welcome bags for guests at the hotel, to the mason jars we used as drinking glasses, and the Giant Jenga, we kept the colors consistent. These small touches really brightened the event and helped tie it all together. We even had chalk pens to draw on the name tags so you wouldn’t lose your glass… something I recommend testing prior to all your wedding guests getting chalk on their fine attire.
When it comes to having fun, we can’t deny our love for throwing bags while enjoying a beer. Our hope was that the games would bring our guests together, and help work as an ice breaker for getting to know one another. We posted signs with house rules at all the games so any guest could play, beginner or pro. My wife Cassie did a great job sourcing the bean bags in our wedding colors with the chevron design we used on the invitations. Unfortunately, a custom bocce ball set didn’t make the cut. I always enjoy a quick construction project, so we built the boards for bags ourselves. We considered painting it, but decided to give it a natural stain, and a protective spray coat to preserve the natural wood look. It was a lot of fun and the boards blended into the venue grounds nicely.
Even Lola got a new silver leash… (Sorry it’s not pictured. This is a way cuter pic)
…and my nieces couldn’t have been more luminescent in their gorgeous white dresses.
And who can deny how adorable my nephews appeared in their matching navy blue vests with green bow ties and converse?!
The Florist did an amazing job providing us with white flowers and staying within our color scheme. Cassie and I collected and spray painted all the cans we used for the flowers, which looked even better than we imagined it would.
Das-Bus (http://das-bus.com/menu/) came through and was a huge attraction! Everyone loved it from my young nephews to my parents friends. Although the bus was not blue or one of our wedding colors, the vibrant red fit right in and actually matched the color of the BBQ smoker our caterer brought in. A simple garland added to the roof of the bus, and it was a stunning site as if the trees were growing directly from the bus itself.
In fact, the bus proved to be the backdrop of one of our favorite photos from the wedding. I would like to thank Caitlyn Calmeyer (http://www.caitlyncalmeyer.com/), for being our wonderful photographer for the day. She was flexible, laid back and a pleasure to work with.
Thank you for reading this all the way through! I would be happy to go into more detail about the design process or answer any questions you might have. Most importantly, don’t forget, we’re always for hire. No job too big, and almost no job too small. (www.themotionbar.com/contact)
