Ethereal Wedding Dress

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

I love, love wedding dresses with lots of tulle.  This dress is no exception (and is by Amsale).  Cameron makes a gorgeous bride!

{images shown via Mr. Boddington’s Studio; photographed by Charlotte Jenks Lewis Photography}

Parrott Design Studio Website

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

One of my favorite letterpress studios just updated their website this past week!  Congrats, Sarah!  The site looks amazing… definitely check it out!

{image shown belongs to Parrott Design Studio}

Eunice & Dan

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

I am speechless over this wedding dress!  Eunice picked the winner of all gowns for her wedding day to Dan.  Wowza… what a dress (which is by Jenny Packham – the Eden dress).

{images shown via 100 Layer Cake; photography by Studio Castillero}

Happy Weekend & An Absence

Friday, November 18th, 2011

Thank goodness it’s Friday!  I’ve been working twice as hard this past week because most likely I will absent from this space (and from doing any letterpress work) for most of next week.  My amazing cousin and dear friend, Caitlin, is getting married next week (next week! my little cousin!) and we’re having well over 30 people for Thanksgiving because of it.  Between cleaning, baking, and cooking for turkey day, plus all of the prep for the wedding and the nupitals themselves (I’m a co-maid of honor), I think I will actually be more busy not working!

However, make sure to check this space on Monday as I will be posting a special “Black Friday special”!

Have a wonderful weekend!
-Colleen

{image shown via my iPhone; a sneak peek at some more holiday letterpress items}

Jamie & Michael’s Wedding Invitations

Monday, October 31st, 2011

Over the summer I had the pleasure of working on a letterpress wedding invitation suite for Jamie & Michael, who got married at the elegant Ocean House in Rhode Island this fall.  The bride was lovely to work with and through the project I was also able to work with two talented women.  The entire set was designed by Kristin DiVona; often while I was printing these pieces I had people stop while passing the Vandercook and praise the ink choice or design.  I also worked with the bride’s event consultant, Meg Cimini of Cairn Event Consulting, who couldn’t have been nicer.  The bride, Kristin, and Meg were so great to work with and the entire suite was beautiful to print… I was lucky to work on such a great project!

{for more of my letterpress work, check out my Flickr}

Merinda & Ben

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

While flipping through Li’s wonderful photography on her blog today, came across this cute photo from Merinda & Ben’s wedding.  Love the lighting and tent, but also really love the bride’s dress!

{image shown belongs to Li Ward & Fat Orange Cat Studio}

Autumn Flowers

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

I’m crazy for Amy Merrick’s flowers.  These fall arrangements are to die for.  What inspiration.

{images shown belong to Amy Merrick & An Apple a Day}

Caitlin’s Book Lovers Tea Party

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

This past weekend was my cousin Caitlin’s bridal shower, a wonderful afternoon for one of my favorite people in the world.  Caitlin is an avid reader and like many of our family members, a big tea drinker… so the bridesmaids and I thought what better type of shower for Cait than a Book Lovers Tea Party?

For the design and color of the invitation, I was inspired by vintage book covers along with the colors of autumn.  For favors, the maid of honor suggested we do custom bookmarks, so I found the perfect tea & book lovers quote from C.S. Lewis and created an illustration of a stack of books with a tea pot and a tea cup.

The menu was put together by the bride’s mother and the bridesmaids: an autumn butternut squash soup, various tea sandwiches, tea bread, scones (homemade with all the accompaniments), and finger desserts.  For serving, the entire extended family went through their fine china and everyone brought tea pots, tea cups, platters, and the like.  For anything that we couldn’t find or share, we rented from a local company called Fancy That Tea Boutique.  I recently visited their retail space and it is gorgeous!  They have the most amazing collection of vintage china & glassware and the pieces we used made the tea party extra special.

For decorations, I collected vintage books from a local library (and a few special ones from Ebay) and bought tea pots from thrift stores to hold the floral centerpieces that we put together ourselves.  The bride’s sister-in-law (and fellow bridesmaid) put together paper flowers made from book pages, handmade thank you notes for Caitlin, and two gorgeous boxes that looked like books to have as memory keepsakes.

It was a lot of planning but the women in the family really all came together, and you could tell how much love everyone put into the event.  Now I’m very much looking forward to Caitlin & Alex’s wedding next month!

{for more of my perfect parties images, check out my Flickr}

Wedded Bliss

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

Sorry I was absent from here on Friday, I thought I’d be able to get a quick blog post in but had to leave early to attend the wedding festivities of my friends Colleen & Paul.  It was a long weekend but we had such a fun time!  The bride was absolutely stunning (making her own birdcage veil, I might add!) and the couple looked so happy and in love.

The reception site was fantastic; the bar area for the cocktail hour was very old school, full of leather seats, lots of dark wood detailing and bottles of vintage hard liquor.  Very masculine.  My husband got swept up in the atmosphere and had to have a scotch on the rocks (if there was ever a place to do so, it was there).  If you’re looking for a place with lots of character & charm from days gone past and you’re in the New England area, definitely check out the Squantum Association.

Lots of love and best wishes to Colleen & Paul!  What a wonderful wedding. xo

Caitlin & Alex – Wedding Invitations

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

One of the most recent letterpress invitation projects I completed was for my dear friend and cousin’s November wedding.  I was so excited to work on this project after working with them for their Save-the-Dates.  The location and time of year gave me a lot of inspiration to draw from.  The wedding will be at a historic and old New England inn and grist mill, and in late November the autumn foliage season is long gone but winter’s snow has yet to fall.  It’s a time of year that has a particular beauty to it; the starkness of the bare trees, grey cloudy days, and faded, dried flower blossoms.  We tried to capture that feeling while maintaining the historic charm and elegance of the property which will host their early evening nuptials.

As someone who really swoons for a balanced color scheme, the right typefaces, and the perfect illustrated border, I was thrilled that Caitlin wanted to finish the suite with calligraphy and vintage stamps.  We found a mix of vintage and contemporary postage stamps to compliment the design, and the talented Li Ward of Fat Orange Cat Studio did the calligraphy on the outer envelopes.  I have never been so excited to receive an envelope in the mail!

(*Yes, there was a full address written on this envelope, and I assure you, it is beautiful!  I just didn’t want to leave my full address.  My apologies for not being able to show you all of Li’s work!)

I’ve already told Caitlin this: I not only did I enjoy working on this particular invitation suite tremendously, but I think I love how it turned out more so than my own wedding invitations!

{for more of my letterpress work, check out my Flickr}