Hosting a destination wedding can be a wonderful way of celebrating your union and share moments with your loved ones, particularly if travel plays a big part of your lives. Events abroad do require more planning of course, but it’s absolutely worthwhile!
When it comes to choosing stationery, you’ll have so many creative options to choose from and the best way to make your invitations personal is to take inspiration from the destination you have chosen. Whether or not your guests are seasoned travellers, these ideas below are sure to get your friends and family really excited for the journey!
Maps & Illustrations
Using your chosen wedding destination as a theme can take many different forms, and one of our favourites is to include maps and illustrations. By featuring drawings of locations, characteristic motifs, or iconic landmarks, you’ll be sending your guests a little taste of their very exciting trip to come. We particularly love creating map inserts for our clients’ invitations, drawings for envelope liners, as well as digital illustrations that they can use on their wedding websites too. These maps can be as stylised or as detailed and realistic as you wish, and can also make for a wonderful keepsake for you and your loved ones. For example, invitations can include a hand-painted watercolour illustration of your venue, a blind-embossed map of a city, or a drawing of the countryside and mountains characteristic of the location you’ve chosen.
Words & Languages
Another playful and exciting way to infuse the local culture into your invitations is to choose some of your favourite (and instantly recognisable!) words from the language of your wedding destination. For example, for an Italian vineyard wedding you could have a playful little “Ciao!” at the top of your invitations written in calligraphy, or for a French Chateau wedding you could pop a sweet “Merci!” at the end of the details card. You can also create catchy phrases that embody your love for travel, for example “A love story that spans the globe” or “Pack your suitcases and join us in Paris!”
When it comes to playing with wording, another fun idea can be to come up with creative dress code descriptions that reflect the culture. For a luxurious wedding celebration in Mexico, you could have a “Summer Garden Fiesta” dress code for example! If you do decide to think outside the box with dress codes, make sure to also provide your guests with a description of what it means – on your wedding website if you have one – or even a Pinterest board of outfit inspiration to make it easier to pack appropriately, especially handy for a multicultural wedding.
Colours & Patterns
If you want to infuse the personality and culture of the location, but keep the nod a little bit more subtle, you can do this by choosing colours, motifs, or patterns that evoke the destination. For example, some colours feel inherently mountainous, like deep forest green – and some feel naturally beachy, like teal or serene sand tones – and others feel tropical, like bright orange and pink. We love supporting our couples with creating a colour palette inspired by hues from the destination, like muted beiges and greens for a wedding in the desert.
Prints and patterns can also be a fantastic and very sophisticated way of conveying a travel aesthetic, for example through prints of the local florals, animals, or typical architecture. For a Moroccan wedding, you might include some curved arches for example – for a Hawaii wedding, a contemporary palm leaf print – or for an elegant château wedding in Europe, you could have gilded line drawings and silk ribbon for that old-world romance aesthetic. Draw inspiration from Mexico’s rich heritage with traditional patterns and vibrant colours. In an India wedding, consider incorporating symbolic elephants, reflecting cultural richness and traditions.
Postcards
One way that our couples have chosen to reveal the destination of their international celebrations has been through a postcard-inspired save the date. Stationery like this can feel a little bit playful, vintage, and retro, and convey a sense of wanderlust and adventure too! You can choose to have a real photograph on the front or an illustration, and at the back you can have the typical postcard structure with a handwritten font outlining the date, location, and your wedding website address, for example. Personal notes to each guest can be a thoughtful detail here too!
Passports & Boarding Passes
Another chic idea for the travel enthusiasts out there is to create a stationery suite in the style of a passport, boarding pass, or airline ticket – which can be particularly exciting for your guests to receive if they have a long way to travel to reach your celebrations! These can be made very realistic, with barcodes, logos, or a perforated edge, and can be mailed alongside a matching envelope, a luggage tag, or a passport cover, to complete the travel- inspired look.
We hope that some of these ideas have inspired you to create a stationery suite that showcases the beauty and uniqueness of your celebrations! If you’d like support in bringing to life a design that embodies travel, adventure, and luxury, we’d love to help.
Until next time,