Wedding Suites

Company: Ali Eddlem Design
Role: Art Director
Client: Various couples
Services: Branding, Print Design, Hand-lettering, Photography, Illustration

Over the last several years, I’ve had the pleasure of working on multiple sets of wedding suite designs. In a time where there’s much cynicism, doing some art direction and design for love has been a huge blessing in my life.

Marisa & Jon

Engagement Photo Shoot

Marisa and Jon were married in 2020, and much of my creative work for them took place in 2019. We first collaborated on an engagement photoshoot at the New Bedford Whaling Museum where they had their first date.

Wedding Invitations

A few months before the wedding, we sent out the invitations. Like the Save the Dates, these featured custom hand-lettering and watercolor swatches, as well as hand-drawn maps of the venues. Because her wedding featured eucalyptus, the leaves are manipulated botanical drawings from the public domain archives.

Violet & Greg

Violet and Greg were married in 2017, and much of my work revolved around managing all of their wedding print materials, from Save the Dates to table numbers. We went through a truncated branding process together so that I could create something that really spoke to them, including interviews and a creative brief. The couple is devoutly Catholic. When talking about their future marriage, Violet spoke to me about the beauty that her hometown church (where they would marry) meant to her, but also spoke about the beauty and joy in a small, undecorated mud-walled chapel, with a few lit candles. Both are beautiful in their own way, and both are needed at different points in our spiritual lives. The suite overall is designed to evoke a quiet, peaceful joy while acknowledging the formality and complex loveliness of the day.

Sprinkled throughout the wedding suite are spiritual quotes and lines from the couple’s favorite love poems.

Save the Dates

Violet and Greg chose a very simple design from a range of options that I presented to them. The typewriter font evokes poetry (and reminds of love poems, bringing us back to peaceful joy), and the typography is lowercase throughout the details in order to feel softer. I hand-lettered the couple’s names and designed a matching monogram, and stamp. The sunflower (a symbol of peace and hope) is cut out and duo-toned in a cheerful but calm yellow. The design is grounded and made more formal by the deep burgundy and ornate lettering.

Invitations

Violet and Greg’s invitations were a vertical trifold. Using a color scheme from violet’s hometown parish and her signature flower (sunflower), I created a stained glass pattern that felt elegant, ornate, and hand-crafted. The flowers are drawn and connected by thin dark blue lines, which act as the soldering lines in the glass. The entire back of the invitation is covered with a full stained glass pattern, and the sunflowers overflow with accent illustrations into the main informational part of the card.

Ali & Jon

In 2016, I completed one of my favorite design projects to date: My own wedding suite. With meticulous research, I created a creative brief, Save the Dates, Invitations, a wedding website, table numbers, programs, and more. Because we met in Alaska, we themed our wedding around travel and adventure. For that reason, our chosen palette was greens and blues (land and sea), and we took visual cues from maps and constellations. The typeface we chose is reminiscent of the lettering found on old maps: ornate and organic. It was also important to emphasize joy and playfulness on our big day, because we don’t take ourselves very seriously.

Save the Dates & Invitations