After the excitement dies down from the big question and the “YES!” and the engagement ring “oohs” and “ahhs,” the wedding planning can get intense very fast. Assembling your team of vendors, selecting the date and venue, and a thousand other micro-decisions quickly become a part of your daily life. It’s all wonderful and fun, but let’s be honest, it can be A LOT.
And all this is before you’ve even begun to wrap your brain around wedding invitations. Much less, illustrated wedding invitations, which require a little more time and attention than a simpler design would.
While the advent of AI and freely available tools has made it a little easier for couples to DIY an illustrated stationery design, there are a lot of things to consider and reasons to go with a truly custom illustration service.
First of all, a lot of people don’t realize that AI is using the work of real, working artists to learn and essentially steal their style and talent. So while of course we at Dodeline are a bit biased, we hate to see that and hope that couples will avoid using AI generated art. Universally, the art generated in this manner is stolen from some human artist somewhere. So in that same spirit, as a side note, please don’t upload the work of your favorite artists to AI!
A truly custom illustration is one that you and an artist discuss together. Do you want magnolia flowers on the railing of your wedding venue? Your puppies peeking out behind a tree? The options are endless when you collaborate with a talented illustrator. In a day and age when off-the-shelf products are everywhere, going the extra mile to have an illustrated wedding stationery design will set your mailing apart from the rest.
Let’s look at some examples of illustrated wedding invitations, save the dates and more, done by our resident artist at Dodeline, Sarah Reed.
1. The couple’s dog and cat sharing spaghetti Lady and the Tramp style
2. This couple threw a big bash for their 10th wedding anniversary, so we created a custom illustrated wedding stationery design from a photo from their wedding day.
3. This couple wanted the save the date to feel very whimsical and handmade, which it absolutely is! Sketched illustrations were custom created to represent the fairy tales the bride loved the most.
Photo Credit: Alex Thornton Photography
4. When you bring on an illustrator, that person can help you make sure that the final result with all the pieces together is a complete slam dunk. Check out this custom wedding stationery suite for a Kiawah Island destination wedding, complete with a custom wedding rest and fully custom liner featuring their monogram and their puppies!
5. It’s not just the invitation design. Remember that you’ll want everything to be consistent with your fonts, colors, and illustrations all the way down to the escort card. This custom tulip design featuring a lovely pink tulip illustration topped off all the rest of the stationery beautifully.
In Conclusion
If you take nothing else away from this month’s post, we really hope you’ll think twice before using AI generated art. Forbes wrote an excellent article on this subject that we would recommend you check out here (The Problem With AI-Generated Art, Explained). If you want to have beautiful custom illustrated wedding invitations, please make sure you hire a real live artist.
Here at Dodeline, we’ve been creating art and producing wedding stationery since 2009. We would love to chat with you about your wedding! Follow us on Instagram or reach out here.
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