Singaporebrides | Essentials
January 2011
Invitation Only
Believe it or not, wedding stationery and invitations play integral part in pulling your wedding together. Singapore Brides speak to Lynette, owner of Ola Designs, about nitty gritty details that comes with customised wedding stationery.
How did Ola Designs start?
Ola Designs LLP was born when I was planning for my own wedding in 2004. My husband and I believed that just like the gowns, the photographer, the banquet, the honeymoon etc, wedding stationery and accessories form a very integral part of our wedding.
After scouring for a long time, we decided that no one understands us better than ourselves! Hence we sat down, worked through the details to come up with our own special stationery and accessories. And soon after our wedding, an idea hit us!
With our love for creating beautiful things and a passion for working with people, there is no better way to share this knowledge and passion than to help wedding couples complete their dream wedding
How should a couple go about getting their wedding invites designed and made? Is there a specific time frame they should work towards?
There are a few important considerations the couple must decide on:
First, the couple must decide on when they intend to send their invitations out. The time frame that they have allows the couple to work out if they have sufficient time to create a custom wedding stationery set or to select something from a collection and perhaps have it adapted to their requirements.
As a guide we recommend couples to allocate at least 4-6 months before the date they need to send their invitations if they would like custom stationery. This will allow the designer to discuss and understand the clients’ needs, design and create the stationery, engage the client in feedback sessions, further tweak the design and finally produce the stationery once all the details have been confirmed.
Next the couple should also decide how much they would like to set aside for their wedding stationery. There are many options available, ranging from less that $2.00 per invitation to over $20.00 per invitation. Their budget will also narrow down the vast options available.
How do you guide clueless couples into whipping up an wedding invite to remember?
An invitation is always the first glimpse into the wedding day’s activities and therefore, the most important aspect of choosing an invitation, is to select one that aptly represents the couples’ personalities and the event setting.
As such, couples should firstly decide on the atmosphere or theme of the wedding. Whatever the couple selects, the invitation will need to set the mood for the event. We will then walk the couple through the other aspects like the type of materials, the colours, the embellishments, etc. that will go into making the invitation a unique and memorable one.
How important are invites and other print collaterals in a wedding, you think?
I cannot emphasize enough how important a part invitations and stationery play in a wedding. An invitation IS the first communication of the wedding to the guests and this sets the mood for the entire event. How the guests perceive the event, how they dress, the mindset they will bring with them to the wedding is all conveyed via the invitation.
Other stationery are just as important. While the invites give the initial insight into the wedding, the other stationery like the favour packaging, favour tags, RSVPs, thank you cards and such, all work to further enhance the overall mood of the event. Imagine having an Egyptian themed wedding party, where the invites feature a sphinx or Pharaoh but the favour tags or thank you cards feature sunflower motifs instead. It just wouldn’t gel!
What is your favourite part of working with wedding designs?
We love every single part of the process! It is very exciting to sit down with our clients to understand their dream wedding and thereafter guide them through the entire process of designing the stationery, selecting suitable materials and then producing the entire set of stationery. And the best part has to be the ecstatic looks on our clients’ faces when they collect the final product. It’s simply rewarding!
Why should a couple hire a professional design service for their wedding?
It may seem easy to piece an invitation design together. Decide on the design, put in the text and get it printed. However, it is more complicated than just plonking in pictures and text. Hiring a professional takes away a lot of the headache couples face when planning for their stationery.
Our designers play an important role in assisting the couple plan for their invites. Other than guiding the couple on the style of the stationery, our designer will recommend motifs that are suitable, perhaps pool together various elements to build the entire design, recommend suitable colours, materials and fonts for the design and most importantly, create the artwork in a format that the production can read and process. A design in Microsoft Word or Powerpoint just wouldn’t work!
Contact Ola Designs via email at [email protected] or check out their website.
All content from this article, including images, cannot be reproduced without credits or written permission from SingaporeBrides.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram for the latest article and promotion updates!