Once you’ve chosen the date of your wedding and secured a place for the reception one of the first things you do is to choose your wedding invitation. This is an important part of the process and once you see your names together in print the reality and finality of this momentous occasion becomes more real. All the invitations are sent out and what happens to them? Yours may go into your wedding album but wouldn’t it be nice to preserve it and to have on view all the time?
I’ve been designing decoupage plates for more than thirty years, first for Tiffany and Cartier in New York and then Bergdorf Goodman and finally through my own shop on Nantucket. I’ve designed hundreds of wedding invitation plates and each is unique. People who give them as gifts and those who receive them say they appreciate something handmade that is original. Some of the prettiest plates that I’ve designed are for weddings taking place on Nantucket because I usually surround the wedding invitation with Hydrangeas. There is nothing so lovely as a hydrangea blue blossom to symbolize the island. Another favorite flower for a June wedding is roses when they are in bloom and climbing over the little houses in ‘Sconset. Calla lilies are especially nice for a modern wedding with their clean green and white color scheme. I’ve done some very unusual designs over the years. (se Wedding Plates Section) One couple included a Count and another was for a couple getting married in Greece and another in a Scottish castle. Many people want the flowers to represent the area, or the time of year. Christmas roses or berries are popular for holiday weddings, leaves for a New England wedding in the fall, and sometimes the bride’s favorite flower or color relates to the design of the wedding invitation itself. The time of year, the typeface, the formality or casual design of the invitation, the colors, all dictate the design direction and it is a most creative challenge, but the end product is uniquely yours. . All the work is done on the underside of a clear glass plate and backed with handmade papers. Then it is sealed on the back so the plate can be washed by hand, but most couples hang it on the wall or display it on a stand. This is a gift that a couple often gives to their parents as well. But the best compliment of all is when the recipients receive the plate as a gift and later order the same gift for all their friends who are getting married.