Meet Attila Vermes, an award-winning wedding stationery designer and craftsman for Giant Invitations, based in Melbourne, Australia. In an exclusive Q&A, Attila shares some top insider advice for our beloved Destination I Do community to achieve the best stationery suite possible!

What would be your best advice for couples choosing stationery for an upcoming destination wedding?

Start early!

Choosing the right wedding invitations is just as important as any other aspect of planning your special event. For destination weddings, this is especially true. When you consider the fact that guests will have to proactively make travel and accommodation arrangements, giving them as much time as possible is the least you can do.

The invitation will often set the tone for your event and help you plan all other wedding décor and on-the-day styling. It is an opportunity to really find your voice as a couple and reflect that through beautiful stationery. Having this done as your first priority will allow you to get on with everything else and avoid any disappointment.

Many people say, ‘It is just one day in your life. Why waste money on the best flowers that will wither away or stunning invitations that may be discarded, or an extravagant cake that gets eaten in minutes.” Our simple answer is that the ‘one-day’ is not ever just one day!

From the moment a wedding date is set, there is a whole chapter of excitement, which ripples on to immediate family, extended family, friends near and far. Your invitation will be displayed in your guests’ home for the weeks and months leading up to the event, as a daily reminder of your love story. Invitations are the first physical declaration of the two of you coming together for life so don’t underestimate the importance of your invites.

How should a couple begin the process of selecting the right stationery for a destination wedding?

Keep an open mind.

Whether you are planning a tropical, oceanfront, lakeside, desert, winery, farm, garden or city event, there are hundreds of design options to choose from, so keep an open mind.

Using the special location of your wedding in the artistry of your stationery will set the tone for your guests. With the amazing print techniques and paper stocks available you can achieve a stationery set that speaks your ‘love language’ to share with your guests, a tangible prequel of what is to come.

Just like a brand in business encompasses much more than just the name or a logo, your perfect wedding invitation is much more than just print on paper. It highlights some subtleties that represent your style, your attention to detail, aesthetic preferences, and the vision you and your partner share for your big celebration.

Our creative team always suggests that the couple use the venue to inform the wedding invitation stationery as the place creates the vibe, and the vibe can be captured in a custom invitation.

Paper stock and colour theme are great starting points. Keep in mind that colour schemes can be achieved through combinations of cardstock, typography, embellishments, and envelope choices.

What are the benefits of choosing print stationery rather than digital invitations?

5 main reasons that couples choose print wedding stationery…

1. The actual process of creating something in print together is quite rare. Doing so for an upcoming wedding will bond the couple by allowing them to find their unique visual voice. It can be a lot of fun. The end product is something they can be proud of.
2. Friends and family enjoy the experience of opening a print invitation and displaying it in their homes. This sparks joy and builds real excitement as the event approaches.
3. A print invitation is a keepsake like no other. Something that a digital invitation will never be. Even now, young generations hold onto wedding invitations of their ancestors as an important part of their family history.
4. The physical invitation helps with on-the-day signage design and theme. It acts as a reference to tie everything together for consistency and elegance.
5. Print equals luxury. Print invitations feel important, and for a one-off celebration as special as a wedding, most couples want to mark their momentous occasion in a beautiful, tactile way.

What to ask your invitation designer?

Ask the right questions.

Couples should feel as in control as possible throughout the process. To eliminate stress, ask the right questions during your first discussion.

The key question is, ‘what will happen if we are not 100% happy with the finished work?’ Most reputable stationery providers will offer a quality guarantee, and a staged approach to the creative process, but you need to confirm the extent of the guarantee to avoid being left unsatisfied.

If you go through an online print stationery company, confirm the realistic production timeline. Then double it! Allow time to for a reprint in case the invitations miss the magical mark. A contingency plan is well worth it for a once-in-a-lifetime event such as your destination wedding.

Another important question to ask is whether your designer can provide physical proof. An on-screen viewing will not give a true-to-life experience. You want to know how the stationery feels and the exact colour output. If this isn’t possible, print a copy of your final draft, even on your office black & white xerox, as you are 38% more likely to pick up typos, or other mistakes either supplied to your designer incorrectly or by their own fault.

What are the top wedding stationery trends right now?

Understated elegance.

A decade ago, couples were all into the add-ons; the frills, the glamour; things like a laser cut cover plus ribbons, or a fancy glittery backing card. Any ‘bling’ that was available was the best way to impress guests, the more the better!

No longer is this the case.

Understated elegance is the current trend and is likely to be the style for 2022 and 2023 weddings. What does this actually mean? It’s about simplifying and achieving less with more. Think simpler font styles, less curvature wrapping around the ‘&’ symbol, and minimal, chic design.

It is not all about the design though. There is a strong appreciation for beautiful, unique paper stocks, and the way the texture and colour of handcrafted paper can enhance the graphics and typography. Try to get a first-hand experience of sample car stocks to work out your favourite.

Atypical shapes are also on trend in 2022. Arch-shaped invitations, in particular, which give an almost architectural feeling to the stationery are in high demand at the moment. This is an affordable way to be modern and different.

The old technique of letterpress which impresses a monogram or text into soft papers, combined with hot metallic foiling is being used as the main feature on current trending wedding invitations. Couples love the option of designing a monogram or custom brand, using their initials, which can be replicated in letterpress on other wedding stationery such as RSVPs, thank-you cards, and on-the-day printed sets.

Monochrome layering has and will always be guaranteed success. Using an array of materials such as acrylic, soft cotton and heavyweight cardstocks, combined with sharp printing techniques in black, white or gold you can’t go wrong.

Final words of advice…

With so many ‘designers’ out there, you need to know what to look for, to ensure a stress-free and budget-friendly experience. Couples should be as informed as possible going into the process. Things like a ‘wedding surcharge’ can get out of hand if you are not careful. My advice is to be smart and research as much as possible before you splash your wedding budget around. The Ultimate Wedding Invitation Print Guide is a free resource that will put you in the driver’s seat and is well worth the read.