evolution of a wedding invite

Weddings are quite the thing at the moment! Ours is only about 6 weeks away and I hear there's something going on in Westminster next week. My sister-in-law Matina and her boyfriend George got married last Friday. From what I heard, as I wasn't there, it was a charming and simple little affair, a civil wedding with no fuss, and a dinner afterwards. I was very sad to have missed it, but as weddings are often held in the evening here in Greece and with no one but me to look after Leo, I had to let my husband represent us. We had triumphed however in finding a baby-sitter for the next evening when an after-wedding party for friends would be held and I looked forward to my first evening out in 4 months and a chance to put on some slap and wear my gladrags. I have to explain it was the first time that Leo had been baby-sat (the reasons for this are long and boring), but as he never wakes up once he's gone to bed, we thought nothing could go wrong as we danced the night away. The plan was simple, the baby-sitter would turn up before Leo's bedtime. I would then put Leo to bed as always and after we had made sure he was sound asleep, we would sneak out and he would be none the wiser...

All too easy in theory of course. Do babies have a 6th sense? We drove to the centre of town, picked up George's cousin, found somewhere to park, got to the entrance of the venue and the phone rang. Leo had woken up and having discovered he was in the company of a stranger with his parents nowhere in sight decided to have hysterics. So I had to jump in a cab, go straight home and take care of the poor little soul. It took him 2 hours to calm down with an extra bottle of milk! At least I looked nice...

Anyway, that's by the by. Matina had asked me to design her wedding invite. Being an architect, she wanted something simple, strong and graphic, but lighthearted. Her idea was to have a very stylised illustration of her and George on the front and some very simple text on the back. The illustration was inspired by matroyshka and kokeshi dolls but Matina was adamant on no headscarves (which would've been a shame as Matina has best hair in the world - that's official from me) and George was to have a cute little tin tin hairstyle.

I always have quite a strong idea in my head of how something should look when I start designing. However, that rarely transposes onto the screen.

TAKE ONE


My first attempt was completely disastrous. The bodies were good, but Matina's face looked fat, her hair was too literal and George had a paintbrush on his head. Of course this was rejected immediately.

TAKE TWO


Matina definately wanted less facial features and simpler hair. I decided to remove both faces. This resulted in a rather dull, bland and souless couple with boring hair. Off to the drawing board again...

TAKE THREE


Matina was definately starting to take shape. She liked the OTT hairdo, but there was still a problem with George's hair and he didn't like the hearts. Matina did! So I kept hers and we brainstormed about what George would like to 'wear'. They wanted something silly. We tried a superman logo - that didn't work - then we tried the medallion, which just made him look Masonic...

TAKE FOUR


Finally we decided on a nice retro tie for George and we got the hair right! Everyone was happy and all the guests loved the invite! I'm just sad that we didn't manage to letterpress it which was in the plans, but I'm very pleased with it none the less... cute eh!