Maple Leaf – Amanda & Joshua
Posted by Amanda on July 30th, 2009
For my wedding in October 2006 I based my design around the Japanese Maple leaf in it’s Autumn coloring. I also decided that I wanted to save money so I decided to hand-pick and press the leaves myself. This meant that I had to start collecting leaves in September 2005 when the maple leaves started to turn crimson.
Borrowed from: CHIAROSCURO.baltiblogs.com
I remember driving around looking for Japanese Maple trees that were on public property. I also had no shame in knocking on peoples doors and asking if I could collect the leaves from their trees either. I ended up with hundreds of leaves to press and used the largest books in my collection to press them.
At that point I didn’t have a design figured out and had collected leaves of various shapes and sizes. I pressed everything that I had collected. In the end it was worth it because it gave me a lot of leaves to choose from when it came to make the invitations.
The leaves dried very well and once we knew that we would be able to use the leaves my Mom and I started throwing ideas around for what we wanted the invitation to look like. We went through many renditions of the invitation before we came up with the final piece.
Maple Leaf Invitation
The final invitation design is 4″ wide by 9.25″ high custom gatefold – red cardstock on the exterior and lined with off-white text weight paper. A off-white 1/4″ ribbon is fed between the layers to tie the invitation closed. The top diagonal edge is torn along to expose some of the off-white interior stock.
The interior piece is the same red cardstock with the invitation printed and layered with a 18″ border. The Japanese Maple leaf is glued to the top. (Note: Japanese Maple leaves are very brittle when they have been pressed.)
The invitations were then placed in and off-white #10 envelope with the response card and envelope.
We were really happy with the final outcome and spent an entire weekend putting them together. I have pictures of me sitting spralled out among all of the maple leaves trying to pick the best ones for the invites.
The suite also included an eight page wedding program, seating cards, table cards, and our marriage promise.
Maple Leaf Suite including invitation, program, place cards, and table card
Maple Leaf Wedding Promise
To view more pictures from this series check out my gallery.
Tags: Autumn, Design, Inspiration, Wedding
