martha's vineyard wedding Archives – Swiss Cottage Designs

Graphic Martha’s Vineyard suite

October 9, 2013

Martha’s Vineyard is literally one of my favorite places for a weekend getaway, family vacation and of course, for a wedding. There is something extremely old world about only being able to arrive via boat; it’s lends itself to a certain romance. I also appreciate Martha’s Vineyard for it’s versatile of style. I’ve done a few Vineyard weddings now and each one is more different than the next. With many different personalities, the Vineyard really lends itself to inspired designs.

Our new Vineyard suite is going in a more graphic direction. I’ve been having a moment with this style of design over the course of the last year. As much as I love hand illustrating, digital illustration also creates a great look. Inspired by retro travel posters, this suite embraces the classic red and blues that are so traditionally nautical and puts a modern spin on them. The illustration style is very graphic but then distressed a bit in photoshop to add a rustic element to it.

With this suite, we focused on the idea of a moment. Each piece in this suite focuses on a different Vineyard moment. Collectively, it tells the story of “their” Martha’s Vineyard. The map is always a fan fav {I personally love Jaws just hanging in the bottom right corner- classic!} I really love this suite for it’s personality and bold, graphic style.

PS- Hey Christine! Thanks for reading

Classic Martha’s Vineyard Wedding

April 10, 2013

Sometimes a client tells you about their wedding and you kind of just want to scheme a way to get invited… that was pretty much the case with Sarah and Todd. They had an amazing wedding on Martha’s Vineyard over Labor Day weekend last year. The weekend started with a welcome party at the Bride’s family’s home followed by a Lobster Bake on Friday evening {with custom bibs- amazing} and a lovely wedding ceremony at the Allen Farm in Chilmark on Saturday night. For Sarah’s invites, she wanted them to feel nautical and reminiscent of the Vineyard without having them feel over the top in any one direction. For her invites we created a clean, letterpress invitation with lots of negative space. My favorite element are the blind impressed seagulls in the top right hand corner- so charming. Sarah wanted everything to feel contained so we put all the pieces in a cream invitation folder that matched back to then main and RSVP envelope. When it came to her envelope liner, we had used a vintage MV map on their save the dates and decided to repurpose that here for a sense of continuity, which I loved. Overall, I love how clean and open this suite feels while still evoking the warm, special feeling of a Vineyard wedding.

Martha’s Vineyard Wedding Suite

November 7, 2012

After all the crazy weather we have experienced over the last week and a half, this invitation suite brings me right back to summer with beers on the back deck and the sun on your face. Joanna and Peter got married this past Labor Day weekend on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Joanna’s family has a home in Chilmark and she really wanted to capture the essence of the Vineyard as well as Menemsha, the port by their house.

With the design, we started with hand lettering. Joanna was really drawn to the organic style of hand lettering and wanted that to be a main factor in the invite. Because the invitation suite only consisted of one piece, she liked the idea of the invite feeling like a letter someone personally wrote to you. We also worked with watercolor. Since college, watercolor has been my medium of choice. I love the versatility that it allows you. Here, we kept the illustration style very loose and simple which I think perfectly compliments the hand lettering. On the front, we created a seafood heart complete with lobsters and citrus. The couple’s wedding date fills out the center spacing creating a really lovely design. On the back, I did an illustration of Joanna’s pup, LuLu, who is holding a banner that says “Come Hungry!”. We decided to have the invitation be a square shape so it felt more unique when the guests received it in the mail. The card opens and on the inside you have the proper invitation with a simple fishing boat illustration. We put the entire card is an inner glassine envelope for an added nautical nod. I revisited the fishing boats for the front of the envelope and created a custom frame to set the guest addresses in.

We used an anchor pattern for the liner and other supporting elements within the suite. We also created custom stationery to match the invitation with two whales at the top and the anchor liner. Overall I love the looseness and whimsy that this suite has. Sometimes you don’t need a million pieces in your suite, one really awesome piece can sometimes do the trick!