Bride wanted gold and the Groom wanted red

During the Spring, I had the pleasure of working with 2 NYC doctors who were getting married. The bride is Vietnamese with a little Chinese so they wanted to incorporate Vietnamese traditions and symbols into the invitation and the wedding. We used a dragon and phoenix image to represent the male and female and well and the double-happiness Chinese symbol.

The biggest dilemma the couple had was deciding on which color pocket-fold to choose. The colors of the wedding were red and gold so I showed them mock-up invitations using a bold red matte pocket and the other in a metallic champagne gold. She loved the gold but he loved the red.

The best thing about custom-designing an invitation is that you have the flexibility to mix and match. I told them it was no problem to do half and half, which thrilled the couple. They were so happy with the invitations and kept emailing me saying the responses from the invitation were so positive. In fact, they heard from one older relative that wasn't planning on attending the wedding but after receiving the invitation said he couldn't miss it!

The couple asked me to do the program, menu, place cards and table cards which complimented the invitations perfectly. I was really happy with everything and was told by the event planner it was a huge success!

Baby Shower Invite

Here's a look at what I designed for my baby shower. I know it is not normal for the mom-to-be to be involved but I looked at it as an opportunity to showcase my work to friends and family. The invitation was a big hit and I loved hearing the responses from the mothers. The invitation is a 3-panel z-fold so the other 2 panels that are folded and hidden have the shower info on the middle panel and then a panel for directions and registry info. We went with a rubber duck theme since that is gender-neutral. The accent color of light aquamarine is going to be the baby's room. The blue crinkle paper represented water for the duck.

More Interior and Exterior Photos

We continued to do improvements over the past few months. Here are some more photos of the interior and exterior.

Lots of great projects

Ok, so I didn't stick to my New Year's resolution of being a consistent blogger. We got the year off to a busy start and worked on some great projects throughout. We were fortunate to have a wonderful group of clientele that we all great to work with. Take a look at some of these beautiful invitations.

Our Beautiful New Showroom and Studio!

You know it's bad when you when have to get a good night sleep because you are going to have a big day ahead of you, but your mind is racing and you cannot sleep at all! That was me for 4 nights last week after we finally got the keys to our new location. I was so excited and eager to get moved in and set-up that I couldn't sleep. Even with no furniture moved in, our new painted showroom with the new track lighting looked great. We spent all of last weekend moving in and slowly setting things up. It got complicated with a nice snow storm, but things worked out.

This past week was spent laying the room out and deciding what to put where. It's a big decision, especially with things like glass shelving that had to be mounted to the wall. I am so thrilled with how everything looks. We went for a very bight, clean look with the white walls, furniture, and track lighting. It helps show off the colors and textures of the invitations and papers that are displayed throughout. There are, of course, more things that will be added over the next few weeks but at least we are ready for appointments. We had our first appointment this morning! I have 4 more coming up in the next week so I'll be excited to see people's reactions to when they come in.

We are working on the signage for outside, above the door, in addition to window signage, and a glass etched sign for inside. I have 2 event planners, Danielle Badiali of Full Circle Bridal and Allison Sargent of Allison Sargent Events working on tablescapes that will add more color, as well as give clients some ideas for their own wedding. Dominica Parisi of Florentina Flowers was kind enough to give us a beautiful centerpiece for our table.

Enjoy the before and after photos. More will be uploaded as we continue to improve upon the showroom.

New Year...New Ideas...New Venture

Happy New Year! Welcome to the new blog for Hyland Creative Design. We custom-design and produce beautiful invitations for weddings and charities. This year, we will be expanding into Bar/Bat Mitzvah events. For a look at our business and products, visit our website at www.hylandcreativedesign.com. We will be updating the website with invitations from 2008 in the next month.

I am planning on 2009 being a great year for the business. The big news to start off the new year is that we are moving into a new boutique and studio. We will have a beautiful showroom and meeting area as well as a separate production room. I will post photos to show the transformation as the weeks go on.

In addition, we are also launching a new website for our other business, Hyland Paper. We wanted to offer new lines of invitations that are semi-custom and priced mid-range, that can be purchased on-line. We will be launching this new website later this month.

Everyone has been asking me if I am nervous about the economy, especially with launching a new website and signing a 3-year commercial lease. Call it the entrepreneur in me, but I think now is better than ever. It shows more professionalism and stability. If you can make throughout a recession like this, you can succeed at anything. Failure isn't an option. We know that people aren't going to spend as much but we work in an industry in which people will always get married. We sell a product that is almost required for a wedding or event. Costs will be a factor but we hope that customers will see the benefit of choosing our custom invitations verses ordering from a book where the invitations are pretty cookie-cutter.

We've got some great new projects in store for 2009. Check back often for these new projects and the opening of our new boutique and studio.