{"id":207,"date":"2021-11-22T05:48:18","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T05:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/?p=207"},"modified":"2021-11-22T06:00:17","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T06:00:17","slug":"dodeline-featured-in-the-knot-wedding-stationery-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/dodeline-featured-in-the-knot-wedding-stationery-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodeline Featured in The Knot: Wedding Stationery Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dodeline Design<\/a> has been making custom wedding invitations<\/a> since 2009, so needless to say we have quite a few years of experience under our belts. But still, you can imagine our delight when The Knot magazine reached out to feature us in their \u201cAsk the Expert\u201d section in print in June 2020!<\/p>\n

In case you missed it, we thought it would be helpful to share some of the expert tips we put together for the interview. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

What are you \u201cknown for\u201d?<\/h2>\n

I would say we\u2019re known for how our designs almost always relate to the wedding venue in some way. It\u2019s been a hallmark of my designs from the beginning – all the way back in 2009, I was drawing Charleston single houses and making handmade pockets from seagrass paper to incorporate a Lowcountry vibe.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a born and raised Charlestonian and I love celebrating my city \u2013 there\u2019s certainly no shortage of beautiful buildings and scenery to emulate! Over the years, we\u2019ve created a large catalog of artwork of Charleston wedding venues and scenery. We love working on new places too, though, and work with clients all over the country to create designs that celebrate their wedding location and vision. Some of my recent favorites have been at the Central Park Boathouse and another on a mountaintop in Lake Tahoe.<\/p>\n

Do you offer save the dates, invitations and day-of paper goods (menu cards, escort cards, place cards, favor tags, etc.) or only some items in this list? What else?<\/h2>\n

Yes! We offer all of the above. Another thing that differentiates us is we don\u2019t have a minimum to work with us \u2013 if you find us after you\u2019ve already done your invitations and you need some cute escort cards, that\u2019s no problem at all. We always love working with clients from the save the date all the way to the favor tag, but it\u2019s totally ok if you only need help with certain items. We\u2019re very flexible.<\/p>\n

\"custom<\/p>\n

Save the dates<\/a> are always fun because they can be a little \u201clooser\u201d than the invitations \u2013 a lot of people do our custom maps or use their engagement photos for the save the date. The wedding invitation<\/a> of course is what most people focus the most on and those can be everything from a classic black and ecru to bright and colorful watercolor scenery. And then we love working on the day of paper because we can take what we came up with for the invitation and use it in a new way at the reception. Some of my personal favorite day of paper items are program fans for summertime weddings, round menus that fit perfectly in the charger, and welcome itinerary booklets for destination weddings.<\/p>\n

How many months in advance should a couple book a stationer to ensure they get the one they want?<\/h2>\n

Once you have your venue and planner locked in, it\u2019s definitely good to reach out to your preferred stationer and get on their radar, especially if you are a paper person! We always like to set up a call or appointment early in the process so we can discuss all the options and look at inspiration \u2013 the possibilities can be overwhelming so it\u2019s nice for you to have time to process it all. Once you do, we can hone in on what you really want.<\/p>\n

We always say that, once you\u2019re in the same year as your wedding, you\u2019re all set to send save the dates at any point. So it\u2019s good to reach out to a stationer a little more than a year out for save the dates. For invitations, those will be mailed more like 2 to 3 months before the wedding. Ideally, we like to be discussing and starting that process 6 months before the big day. That said, I don\u2019t want anyone to panic reading this! That\u2019s our ideal, but it doesn\u2019t mean it won\u2019t get done if you\u2019re a little behind.<\/p>\n

One other big thing to factor in is your own schedule \u2013 a lot of our clients are in school or have big life events happening that they know will prevent them from being able to work on the wedding for a little while. So be sure to keep that in mind as you\u2019re reaching out to vendors and setting deadlines for yourself. Planning a wedding is like getting another job!<\/p>\n

Most couples have likely never had to send this much mail before. What are the common mistakes or myths about the process? Let\u2019s set the record straight.<\/h2>\n

One of the big ones is that square envelopes require extra postage, as do wax seals, which can sometimes significantly increase your postage cost. As a general rule, never ever mail your wedding invitations without handing them off to a postal employee and having them weigh them for you just to be 100% sure they are going to get where you want them to go.<\/p>\n

We have found some of our local post offices will no longer allow for hand canceling, which is a process where you use a rubber stamp at the post office to \u201ccancel\u201d the postage stamp [do you know how much easier my life would be if those were two different words instead of both being \u201cstamps\u201d?! Same thing with \u201creturn\u201d and \u201cresponse\u201d being such similar words, sigh] – but often the smaller ones will. It\u2019s nice to do that to hopefully prevent them from going through all the machines that are so tough on those beautiful envelopes you worked so hard on.<\/p>\n

We also recommend against mailing wedding related items from Thanksgiving to New Year\u2019s. For one, the postal service is totally overwhelmed, and secondly, people are overwhelmed. They\u2019re traveling, getting tons of packages and holiday cards, and just generally losing their minds in the holiday chaos. So we always say, if you can, either mail ahead of that madness or hold it until January.<\/p>\n

How can a couple help you design? Are there any words, phrases, descriptions or images that really get your creative juices flowing?<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s the best when couples are specific about what they like. It does not hurt my feelings in the least to hear \u201cI really don\u2019t like that font\u201d or \u201cThat is so not my style\u201d \u2013 on the contrary, that\u2019s extremely helpful! Knowing what you do like is just as helpful as what you don\u2019t. Specific feedback is key.<\/p>\n

It sounds crazy, but I get excited about almost every design we do because it\u2019s not very often we just repeat a design as is. Most of the time we are tweaking it in a way that\u2019s new and different for a given couple and I love to do new things all the time.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a blue person so anytime a couple wants to do a classic blue and white look I\u2019m inspired and personally really love it. As a creative, though, unusual requests and color combinations probably get me the most excited, even when they aren\u2019t my personal aesthetic. My favorite example for that is probably when a bride mentioned \u201c1970\u2019s kitchen\u201d as the color palette she was going for \u2013 it absolutely made for a one-of-a-kind invitation suite!<\/p>\n

What about monograms \u2013 are they out or in? How are you incorporating them in new ways if they\u2019re sticking around?<\/h2>\n

I don\u2019t think monograms are ever out in the South, for sure. We are all about monograms and do them regularly. What\u2019s amazing, though, is the range of styles encompassed by that one word \u2018monogram.\u2019 Everything from the watercolor crest to the traditional interlocking letters falls under that moniker.<\/p>\n

While the highly personalized watercolor crests are certainly popular right now (think: incorporating your dog, your wedding venue, your date, and your favorite flower all in one crest), I would say we do simpler monograms just as much. It all depends on the couple and what they\u2019re looking for, of course!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dodeline Design has been making custom wedding invitations since 2009, so needless to say we have quite a few years of experience under our belts. But still, you can imagine our delight when The Knot magazine reached out to feature us in their \u201cAsk the Expert\u201d section in print in June 2020! In case you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wedding-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dodelinedesign.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}