JMG and I are (in the words of Gavin Strange) so stoked with the latest addition to our wedding journey - the Save The Dates! We got in touch with our friend: über talented designer Gavin Strange aka Jam Factory, back in October and being huge fans of his work asked tentatively if he would do us the honour of designing them.

*holds breath*

He flipping said yes! 

*cue somersaults around the room with smiles from ear to ear!*

We wanted something unique that would combine our love of typography, have a simple, not complex design and feature dark or (‘tough’ as I like to call ‘em) florals, to add a little romance.

Our brief to Gav was fairly loose, the main things we wanted were:

• A6 (postcard) size
• A striking typeface for key elements such as titles, subtitles accompanied by clean typeface for the rest of the info (names, date and location)
• A clever way of incorporating the colours and the shapes of flowers overlaid with type

Gav played around with various typography options and vector floral patterns, and took into consideration the inspiration we’d gathered (mainly from Pinterest - see images above).

He also had a look at the old fashioned marbling of books and eventually selected some very cool vintage floral designs that could be adapted to suit our needs.

As for the final typography, Gav used a clean crisp type called Neutra, plus a big brush stroke called Lickety Split for the LEK x JMG lettering.

After feeding back on a couple of initial concepts, we were delighted with the result! They arrived in just over a week and are silky soft to touch: they have a velvet laminate finish with a UV spot varnish. Shiny!

We went with a double-sided design in the end because although our friends know us as LEK and JMG, other members of our families would probably appreciate seeing our proper names. It was a great compromise. 

Thanks to Gav for being utterly brilliant and for kindly fitting our requirements in around his own wedding planning (sorry Jane)! Check out the Save The Dates he designed for him and lovely jewellery designer Jane Kenney’s upcoming wedding - they are very cool, letter-pressed and hand finished in gold ink! Sweet!

Thanks also to Rik at Ripe Digital for doing a super job with the printing and for getting them posted out to us so speedily!

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We’ve only got 6-months to go now before our big day.

We’ve almost sorted out all the catering, our florist, the registrar, lighting and some of the entertainment. JMG still needs to get his Groom suit sorted - but that’s going to be as much of a surprise for me as my wedding dress is for him. My only request is that he does not have a lilac or electric blue tie and that it is tailored and tapered to fit his tall, slim 6ft 2” frame. No small ask?

I had my second (vintage) wedding dress fitting today with Lindsay - The Lady That Does, a very lovely seamstress in Walthamstow, and I must say, it’s all coming together very nicely! We’ve got a couple more sessions after the Christmas break to finish it off, which I’m really looking forward to sharing the results of - post-wedding obviously. I just need to sort out accessories, wedding hair and makeup now… any recommendations for where to shop/look/gander would be much appreciated.

ARGHGHGHGHGHGH! I’m so excited! Saturday 9th May 2015 will be here in no time!

Keep up to date with the rest of our wedding planning shenanigans by following the #LEKxJMGwedding hashtag on Twitter and Instagram and checking out these blog posts.

Photography © Lucie Kerley