Custom Wedding Invitation Platters

I love designing wedding invitation plates. Most of them are 10-inches square, but lately I’ve been expanding to platters. Most are 16×20 inches because the invitations are getting larger and there are so many activities with printed programs included. Also, more and more, couples are creating little booklets of events, names of everyone in the wedding party as well as cute maps, “save the date” cards, and lots of other printed material. And then there’s the shower invitation that I usually put on the back.
While more weddings take place in the spring with a theme that often includes roses or hydrangeas, a winter wedding is special. Sometimes it coincides with the holidays. What makes it so refreshing is the choice of flowers and colors. Often white rose is the flower of choice and with the green leaves, the green and white color scheme is so elegant.For this wedding platter there were many printed pieces of paper to work with and so I had them all reduced in size in order to fit in a pleasing arrangement on the platter.

It took some doing to arrange the cards to design well and in a logical order. I used the “save the date” card at the top to signal the beginning of the events. It is so lovely with a picture of the church in a snow scene. The wedding invitation takes up the center of the platter flanked on both sides by the other material, sized to fit. Once these were arranged, I filled the spaces between with the cutout botanical flowers and pinecones (part of the wedding invitation theme) overlapping all the printed material. After all these elements were secure, the entire design was applied to the underside of the glass platter. Finally everything was backed with hand-dyed paper to match the color of the wedding invitation, in this case, white for a beautiful finish that looks as if the design is printed on the platter. Several coats of my special decoupage finish seal the back. Then I added the shower invitation to the back with a few flowers and pinecone around the edges. To finish the project, I edged the platter with gold leafing, meticulously applied to match the edges of the invitation. These plates and platters can be hung on the wall with the brass wall hanger I include with it, or put on a stand on a table for display. It’s a nice way to preserve a special day for all to see and for the couple to remember.