Lilly & Louise: July 2009

Wedding Wednesday: Tom & Mara

Mara and Tom were married on a warm September eve amidst cool breezes from Lake Travis near Austin, Texas. As the sun set with its colors so brilliant, the couple celebrated their joyful moment with 80 of their closest family and friends.

A pastel palette of gold, khaki and light green, and a few bold burst of purple and orange, unified the details of this celebration. The bride wore a lovely, funky-elegant dress that suited her personality to a T (like the invitations!).

After the ceremony guests mingled over creative hors d'oeuvres before they sat down to dinner, Texas style! Smoked chicken and slow cooked brisket were among the Texas BBQ choices on the menu (yum!). A little dancing, some delicious cake and a heartfelt toast from Mara's dad were other highlights of the evening before the bride and groom waved goodbye to their guests as they ran through bubbles. A perfect ending to a fairytale kind of day.

I was super excited to work with Mara on her wedding invitations. She wanted something whimsical, yet elegant. Funky, yet unique. And simple in format...kind of like her dress, ha! As I began the idea stages of the design it was so fun to reach deep into my mental creative files to see what I could come up with. The combination of a clean, sans serif typeface with a hand-worked script was the perfect finish for these fun invites.

Thanks for sharing, Tom and Mara! Your wedding was exquisite!!

Venue: Nature's Point, Austin, Texas. Photography: Jonathan Consiglio and Vance Zachary. Flowers: Merveille Flowers. Catering: Sterling Affairs. Invitations: Lilly & Louise

What the Font?: Serifs

Often one of the first steps when starting a new project with a client is figuring out what kind of type they prefer...or what kind of type is appropriate for their occasion. It's no surprise that I'm a strong believer that type can really set the tone for an event. So today, with the help of Wikipedia, I'll share a little lesson on Serif typefaces.

First, a few vocabulary words: A typeface is a set of one or more fonts, in one or more sizes, designed with stylistic unity, each comprising a coordinated set of glyphs. Times New Roman or Arial are examples of a typeface. A font designates a specific member of a type family such as roman, boldface, or italic type, while typeface designates a consistent visual appearance or style which can be a "family" or related set of fonts.

Serifs are semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. I like to call them feet. With invitations or announcements, serif typefaces express a more traditional, classic touch and they work well with script fonts. There are no rules, however. It's fun to find combinations of typefaces that work well together.

Here are a few examples of serif typefaces. If you can name them you get a prize.

These are Swell

I'm loving these artfully delightful king and queen stamps.

It Runs in the Family

My very crafty aunt has been visiting this week and I managed to document one of the projects she completed while hanging out at Casa Sigler. I'm so impressed with her hand work and patience. Enjoy!

Inspired by a True Story

This weekend I visited Lotusland in Montecito. Madame Ganna Walska, a Polish opera singer, purchased the 37-acre estate in 1941 and spent the next 43 years of her life designing unusual display gardens with exotic plants. Among the crazy and beautiful flowers, succulents and cacti were few structures; but these structures had the most beautiful and historical features. I was most intrigued by the patterns and shapes of the tile work and inlaid tile throughout. Below are some images from my visit. Hoping to find a way to use this inspiration in a new project!

By the way, if you live in California or plan to visit the Central Coast, I HIGHLY recommend a visit to Lotusland!

When Life Gives You Lemons...

...make a centerpiece!

In Santa Barbara it seems like everyone has some kind of fruit tree in their yard. For me the novelty has not worn off, and I try my darnedest to put the beautiful things to use. We are lucky enough to have a lemon tree in our front yard. In the year that we've lived here it has never been without fruit, it's always exploding with beautiful yellow fruits! (We give them away often, all our guests leave with armfuls of lemons!) This week I made a casual centerpiece with the lemons. I found this gnarled wooden bowl at a flea market last year and I think the lemons look perfect in it. It also functions well as a storage place for the lemons, whenever I need a little lemon juice or zest in a recipe, I just reach over to this lovely arrangement!

(This is our generous lemon tree!)

Wedding Wednesday: Staci and Robert

Robert and Staci were married at Highland Park United Methodist Church on a beautiful, warm, June summer day in Dallas, TX. The couple chose chocolate, coral and celadon as their colors--I think these colors made this wedding perfectly unique! Staci's bridesmaids wore chocolate brown, long dresses that were complimented by the rich, warm colored bouquets they carried. The wedding ceremony was traditional and elegant (with the bride in a cathedral length veil!) while the reception took on a modern tone with simple floral arrangements and music for guest to kick up their heels.

I had the pleasure of working with Staci and Robert to design the Save-the-Dates for their big day. It was important to the couple that their personalities be reflected in this first piece of correspondence they would be sending to their guests. To them, this piece was less about the Institution of Marriage and more about the excitement, exuberance, and joy of their relationship. They wanted to spark their guests' anticipation! With the decision to save the elegance for the wedding itself, we dove in to ideas that spoke of the fun, spontaneous kiddos that were about to tie the knot.
It was so exciting to work with Staci and Robert because it was extremely evident that their hearts were bursting with love for each other--a story they were excited to share with everyone they loved.

Reception Venue: Arlington Hall at Lee Park. Photographer: Andrea Polito Photography. Florist: Garden Gate Floral. Save-the-Date Design: Lilly Louise

Save-The-Fun-Date

I think Save-the-Date cards are a great idea. It's a great excuse to make something beautiful to send/receive in the mail AND it's your guests' first taste of your exciting event (not to mention it's extremely functional--guests can make their travel and hotel arrangements with plenty of time to spare AND you can include a web address for more information). I also think its a great idea to send a fun and footloose Save-the-Date that shows your personalities and follow it with a more formal, elegant wedding invitation, something that reflects the wedding itself.

This is the Save-The-Date from my wedding. I had this idea YEARS before we were even engaged and had to file it away in my brain for future use...it was good because I was able to refine the idea and design when it came time to create our Save-The-Date. We have a friend whose workplace has a free photo booth (the old kind--not the no-fun digital kind) in the lobby, so one day after work we spent a good half hour making silly faces, bumping heads and laughing at ourselves in the photo booth to get a few good shots. Here is what we came up with.

Beneath the photo strip I included a web address for more details. With the additional photo strips, I put together a simple webpage with clickable info for our guests. Check it out here. It turned out to be a perfect Save-The-Date for us, our families and friends loved it and we loved working on it together. Hope you enjoy!

Wedding Wednesday: Juan & Merce

Perhaps you've noticed that my posts lately have been few and far between. My husband and I have been traveling a bit this summer and on our biggest, and most recent trip we traveled to Spain and France. While in Barcelona we attended the wedding of two friends of ours. I had never been to a Spanish wedding and I had no idea what we were in for!

Juan and Merce were married on a crisp summer evening at a church in residential Barcelona. Everyone in attendance looked LOVELY! The women wore long dresses in bright colors with their shoulders covered for the service. The men donned dark suits, some even wore tails!

After the ceremony guests were shuttled to a small castle in a nearby town. We mingled about for 2 hours as waiters passed Cava and amazing appetizers, including hazelnut soup shots, fried-phylo-wrapped shrimp, Spanish jamon, fois gras, and seafood canneloni spoons. It was delightful. We mingled and appetized as the sun set. Then around 10 PM (Spanish schedule) we sat down to a 4 course dinner. The table settings were classic white and ivory and oh-so-elegant. The centerpieces were tall towers of open white roses with ivory candles that flickered romantically as the sun set. Coffee, after dinner drinks and Cuban cigars followed dinner. Then dancing and a rock-n-roll band!

This wedding was incredible and I am honored that I was invited to be part of it. I was able to snap a few photos to share. Enjoy!