hi world!! it’s that time of week! #tbt #fbf post this week, is in continuation of the save the date from last week. for the wedding invitation we decided to concentrate on a warm hand-drawn feel with more food and drink elements. today i want to show you the overall look and introduce up-close views in the following weeks.
[ wedding invitation set ] access map | introducing the venue r.s.v.p post card invitation with details on back envelope with personalized postage paid stamp
personalized wine label band with their names
with any of my wedding items, the bride and groom are fully involved in the design process. i make sure to include as many of their requests in the final product. this series is also one of those, and it is my pleasure and honor to be able to provide something that helps them share their dreams with their family and friends.
this week’s #tbt #fbf post features a woodgrain patterned save the date!
今週の #tbt #fbf は、木目調のセーヴ・ザ・デイト!
“save the dates” are quite common in western weddings, especially if you live in the u.s. and you plan to invite out-of-towners, it’s a nice gesture to give a heads-up to your guests. in japan, it’s not quite common yet, but i have had a few “save the date” requests. another way to utilize the “save the date” is as a marriage announcement. here in japan, it is very common to submit a marriage certificate well before the wedding. in a way, weddings here are an event more than an official ceremony. whereas in western countries, [depending on a couple’s religious beliefs] weddings are a religious ceremony and marriage may not be considered before the ceremony.
/// the couple gave me permission to use their full names for this post! they really loved this font + design and did not want it hidden. thank you you two!!! / 今回はご新郎ご新婦さまよりフルネームのご使用のご了承をいただいております。このフォントは特にお気に入りでしたので、こちらを是非お見せしたいとおっしゃってくださいました。ありがとうございます⭐︎ ///
the couple for this save the date, had planned their wedding on march 15th, which can be read as saikou (or the greatest [day]). they love great food, mimosa flowers, and enjoy the company of friends and family. a natural rustic theme was a definite for their wedding, so i drew a woodgrain pattern with leaves and branches for accents. as many of my other wedding clients, this couple also really wanted to use the western letterpress look in their save the date card. to really bring out the letterpress look, it’s important to consider layers and contrasting line weights, which i incorporated with the illustration elements. they especially liked the handwritten feel in the texts so i chose the font “janda stylish script” for their names. this was all letterpressed on a heavyweight kraft card.
ご新郎ご新婦さまは、3月15日『サイコーの日』にご結婚式を挙げられました。ウェディングアイテムには美味しいお食事とお飲物、ミモザの花と大好きなご家族とご友人と一緒に最高の日を過ごしたいと言うお二人の強い気持ちをこめてデザインを考えました。そして、ナチュラルな木目調を取り入れたい、というお声をいただきましたので、オリジナルの木目調柄と枝や葉っぱを描き、クラフト紙に活版印刷で印刷したのがこの『save the date』。やはり欧米のウェディングアイテムで見られる活版印刷が日本でもとても人気で、念願の活版印刷を活かすデザインを考えることが私にとって凄く楽しいのです。フォントにもこだわり、お二人のお名前には個性的な筆記体を使用しました。
why hello! it’s that time of the week again! this week on the #tbt #fbf post, i’m going to talk about PRE mr. banana leaf. as in, the wedding invitations for the mr. banana leaf wedding.
ハロー!早速、今週の #tbt #fbf は、バナナリーフくんウェディングの招待状のお話し。
as i mentioned before, the couple lived in singapore. they fell in love with the green tropical foliage there and wanted to put that into their wedding invitation. especially the feel when you gaze up at the greenery and see rays of sunlight shining through.
from time to time, i like to use my photography in my art work. sometimes collaging with the photo itself, and often times a trace work of something i’ve taken. this time, it was a combination of both, collaging the tracings. i used a couple of photos of greenery that i had taken on vacation just before this invitation.
on the front, i layered the leaves to create a heart shape in the center. on the back where all the details go, i left the center clear.
表はさりげなくハートが見えてくるように配置し、裏の詳細面は、中心部分が見やすいように端に寄せました。
my do the days go by quickly! this week for the #tbt #fbf post, i wanted to continue with mr. banana leaf and talk a little more about western and japanese weddings.
in western weddings, a typical wedding day would proceed something like the following:
● wedding ceremony
● cocktail time
● reception
● dancing
and in most cases guests attend throughout the day.
in japan, the wedding day is very similar except “dancing” is turned into a completely separate event called the nijikai (the after party) and many times is at a different venue. another exception is that it is common for the bride and groom to invite only family and/or very close friends to the ceremony and reception. friends and work acquaintances would be invited to the nijikai. why the separate guest list?:
in japan, it is customary for a wedding guest to bring a monetary gift of 30,000 yen (if $1.00=100 yen, 30,00 yen would be $300). the reason being, even numbers (i.e. 20,000 yen) are considered bad luck since you can “split” the couple in half, not to mention the number 4 is bad luck as it can be pronounced the same way as “death”. of course one may think, “30,000 yen is an even number”, but in japanese 10,000 is 1 man (rhymes with fawn), so 1 man, 2 man, 3 man. if you are family or a work superior the next level up would be to give 5 man. for a nijikai, many times they ask for an entrance fee in the place of a monetary gift. there are many reasons as to how and why a couple separate their guest list, but one big factor could be so as not to burden friends and acquaintances with having to provide so much money.
photo provided by the bride
that said, for the mr. banana leaf wedding, they decided to incorporate mr. banana leaf’s friends into the nijikai pamphlet. the inside of the pamphlet opens up into a color coded “map”. the guests were handed different colored ribbons according to how they know the bride and/or groom (friend, work, college etc.) and each color (and a different mr. banana leaf friend in each circle) on the “map” explains its corresponding ribbon color.
it’s that time of week to introduce another wedding item i’ve made in the past in honor of #tbt #fbf! i love love love working on wedding items, be it paper, fabric, ribbon, crafts, anything. being able to communicate with a couple who is ready to take their first big step together makes me equally as happy for them and in turn, myself.
this couple got married on november 22nd (11/22), a date also known as “the good (married) couple’s day”, as 11-22 can be read as ii-fuu-fu (the good husband and wife). the two live in singapore for the husband’s job but held their wedding in japan. since i make fully one-of-a-kind custom order items, most of the couples i work with have a very clear image of their wedding. these two were one of them. (aside from the items i made, the bride also worked on many other items, and like many a bride and groom, they worked on it until the very day of the wedding.)
their paper items (programs, name cards, thank you stickers, and after party flyers) were inspired by an illustration on an outdoor bathroom wall in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. they had asked me to recreate this wall, which was a very large amount of work, but definitely well worth it with their ecstatic reactions. the tallest and their favorite of the trees/plants on the wall was Mr. Banana Leaf, which became their “official” wedding logo.
here is their wedding reception pamphlet!
this pamphlet includes the couple’s profiles, menus, and the seating chart
(sekijihyo as mentioned in a past post).
こちらがウェディング冊子!
席次表、メニューとプロフィールが入っています。
The fork and knife on this menu are original vector works. / フォークとナイフはオリジナルです〜