Park Château Estate & Gardens Wedding | Sabrina & Matthew
Photos in this post by Shanell Photography LLC and Chelo Keys Photography
As a stationer, I have the privilege to working with a number of brides each and every year—some of whom become dear friends. Sabrina is one of those brides! Our meetings were more like a social gathering—our ideas just clicked and we fed off each other's creativity beautifully. I am trying to talk her into pursuing a career as a wedding/event planner so that we can work together every year! I could go on and on about how sweet and fun we had, but let's move on to the pretty paper, shall we?
Venue
One thing that I loved about Sabrina and Matthew's wedding was the fun story behind their venue: The Park Château Estate & Gardens in New Jersey. First of all, what a breath taking venue! Beautiful details, lighting, grounds and architecture! And would you believe, they booked the venue for their wedding before it was even finished?! All they saw were the blueprints and the jumped on board! But they have a history of knowing when to grab at the deal in front of them—they had the same gut feeling about the apartment where they lived before the wedding, and it ended up being the perfect location for them. Sure enough, they were right again and the venue was a picture perfect place for their wedding day.
After hearing this fun story, I knew that we needed to throw a few architectural drawings in there, and Sabrina loved the opportunity to add a strong element to the stationery. We decided that the details card was the perfect place to highlight this style of illustration, showcasing the beautiful entrance and main reception location for their special day.
Florals
The watercolor florals were an important part of this suite. Sabrina had thought carefully about her flowers and overall color scheme and wanted to show that off! In addition to this, we wanted to incorporate a more playful element to balance out the more structured feel of the architectural drawings. The loose watercolor style pulled this off perfectly! Stately white ranunculus surrounded by delicate sweet peas and a generous amount of greenery dance across the envelope liner and the back of the invitation itself. We also pulled in Sabrina's french blue with a variety of blue berries nestled underneath each cluster.
The Crest
Sabrina and Matthew's wedding crest was the perfect marriage (pun very much intended) of all of these elements. Sabrina was very sensitive about Matthew's feelings when planning their wedding—she wanted to make sure that their family crest was a reflection of him as well. Keeping this in mind, we included a stately architectural illustration front and center: the chapel on the grounds at the Park Chateau—the scene of their marriage ceremony. We mimicked these strong lines again in the shield of the crest: using the arch of the windows and the doors to guide my pencil as I drew out the plan for the lower arch and point of the shield, and again on the monogram itself.
The flowers on either side of the crest softens the masculine elements of the crest by bring some natural life to the entire piece. While the flowers are nearly symmetrical, they are not perfectly symmetrical, which is more visually interesting and helps to force the eye to travel around rather than getting caught (or bored) somewhere in the middle. Flowers are not going to be perfectly symmetrical, no matter how hard you try! And I wanted to highlight that in this piece.
What do you think of this suite??
What is your favorite part? How would you make this piece your own?
Below are some photos from the wedding itself on March 10th, 2018!
If you are interested in starting your custom wedding stationery design process, I would love to hear more about your story and the dreams you have for your big day! Simply fill out this questionnaire and I will contact you soon with a custom price proposal. I can hardly wait to meet you and get started on your one of a kind heirloom