In the world of wedding planning, each detail is an opportunity to weave together a narrative of a couple’s personal love story. Among these details, wedding stationery holds a special place—it serves as the first impression of the event, setting the tone and style for what's to come. When it comes to mountain weddings, stationery takes on an even more significant role, reflecting the larger than life beauty of the backdrop, the unique feel of the occasion and the deeper meaning of the location to the couple and their love story.
Let’s take a deeper look into how we create highly personalized stationery for a mountain wedding like we did with Ciara and Jonathan for their wedding in Telluride, Colorado. From conceptualization to execution, we journeyed through each step closely with the couple to foster creativity and precision, and to gain a deep understanding of the couple's vision.
Initial Meeting with the Couple
As with all of our potential clients, we conduct a discovery call before kicking things off to get to know our couples to see if our stationery creation process is the right fit. With Ciara and Jonathan, it was clear to us right away that our highly personalized services were exactly what they were looking for!
…it was clear to us right away that working together would be a perfect fit both from a personal and professional perspective. Ciara and Jonathan were extremely friendly and gracious, and immediately we felt that they showed trust in our abilities to help make their vision come to life.
We take pride in the fact that we specialize in versatility. The aesthetics of a mountain wedding can vary from traditional to rustic to modern, and everything in between.
We worked closely with Ciara and Jonathan to lay the foundation for what was to come on their special day in Telluride through the invitation suite. From our conversations, it was clear to us that creating a watercolor illustration of the San Sophia Overlook was going to be a sweet hint into what was to come in their save the dates. When creating the invitations, we re-introduced this illustration as part of their suite and expanded on it by introducing lots of textures and unique materials, such as hand-made papers and natural leather. We continued to carry these textures, colors, and unique materials throughout all of their wedding stationery.
We worked closely with both AW Events and K2 Event Co., their wedding planning team. These teams were a dream to coordinate all of our wedding stationery details with.
Seeking Inspiration from Telluride
It’s not too difficult to find inspiration from Telluride, especially given our familiarity since we are based in Denver. From the stark towering peaks to the lush forests and neighboring wildlife, every aspect of Telluride’s natural surroundings gave us a wealth of ideas. We began to draw inspiration from the colors and textures found in the landscape, combined with the rustic feel of the town to translate its awe-inspiring beauty into tangible elements of the stationery suite.
For this mountain wedding, a palette of earth tones, such as deep greens and rich browns, along with wood or leather elements came to the forefront. These colors evoked a sense of tradition, tranquility, and understated luxury, mirroring the natural hues of the mountains at different times of day.
Conceptualization and Design Development
This is where we get to put pen to paper and let our creative juices flow! We have been personifying weddings through our stationery since 2001. It’s safe to say that we know a thing or two about different design methods! We love to play with a variety of textures, concepts, and printing processes in our conceptualization stage. There are endless possibilities with what we have available to us today to create highly personalized wedding stationery. Some of our favorite techniques include graphic illustrations, watercolor, and hand sketching.
We know that the amount of options can be overwhelming! Our discovery process helps to identify the things you like and do not like so that we can create a piece that truly speaks to who you are as a couple without overwhelming you. We ask very intentional questions to get to the root of the overall vibe of your stationery and branding. At Lucky Onion, we guarantee a central, personalized theme that pulls everything together.
After nailing down a few design concepts, we presented these to Jonathan and Ciara to determine which design path we would go down for their wedding day.
Do you want to add anything about their reaction to this first presentation or how the direction went from there?
Selecting Premium Materials and Finishes
Our custom wedding stationery is defined not only by its design but also by the quality of materials and finishes used in its production. We carefully curate a selection of premium papers, inks, and embellishments to both elevate the stationery, and to uniquely portray the feel and aesthetic of the wedding.
In addition to paper selection, our team works with various printing techniques to enhance the visual impact of the stationery. Foil stamping, letterpress, and digital printing are just a few of the options available, each lending its own distinctive charm to the final product.
Embellishments such as wax seals, leather elements, and add a touch of luxury and refinement, elevating the stationery from ordinary to extraordinary. These finishing touches not only enhance the aesthetic appeal but also create a sensory experience for the recipients, evoking the magic and romance of the mountains.
Finalizing The Wedding Stationery
After presenting our first concept sketch, we worked with Ciara and Jonathan to narrow down our options and decide on a defined path forward for our general design. From here, we put together a sample packet to help further depict the finishing touches of what was to come.
We do this to not only confirm our direction, but to provide the couple with something tangible that they can have on hand while selecting the other details of their wedding. This helps their planners finalize other details while the final product is being made by our team.
A Picture Perfect Outdoor Mountain Wedding
As you can tell from the photos, everything about Jonathan and Ciara’s wedding day was picture perfect. Our work requires us to build a close relationship with our clients and it was an absolute honor to get to know this genuinely kind and down to earth couple. To Jonathan and Ciara, thank you for including us in your special day!
From the Couple
Q: What were your hopes when initially contacting our Lucky Onion team?
A: We were hoping to connect to someone who could help bring our vision to life… we wanted someone that would be open to listening but also someone who would just take the reins and run with it. I have ideas but not good at executing or thinking outside the box of what could be, so we really were hoping that Lucky Onion could help us execute and come up with some really clever, awesome ideas!
Q: What made you decide to move forward with our team for your wedding stationery?
A: The minute we talked with Cristy there wasn’t a doubt in our mind. We just connected really well with her and she helped us not only on the stationary side but throughout the whole wedding process. Right away we were asking her questions on what we need to do, etc and she was more than happy to help. Our initial call was just awesome, she made us feel heard and she took what we said and ran with it. Exactly what we needed! Also, we looked at her instagram and we were sold, her work is so incredibly detailed… it really is about the little things in the wedding and her attention to detail and creativity showed.
Q: What key elements or visuals did you want to have present in your stationery?
A: We wanted to show the beautiful mountain range which Cristy portrayed perfectly… she painted an amazing portrait on our invites, just incredible! We also wanted to show that it was western theme so she did a great job with the little details tying in the theme as well as the mountains. She thought about adding a leather strap to the invites to tie in the theme, little things like that that just made it look so classy yet, warm, welcoming, beautiful and western!
Q: What was the process like for you from our discovery call to your wedding day? Do any specific moments stand out to you?
A: The biggest thing was how involved Cristy was from the beginning to the end. Her and her husband even DROVE up to Telluride to measure things to make sure everything looked good proportionally. They really go above and beyond. What also stood out to me was how calm and kind they were. We saw them after our wedding picking up the stationery and just felt lucky to have met them. They added a lot of happiness to our day and the journey from the discovery call to the wedding day and after! Cristy made us feel heard and since we never planned a wedding before we really didn’t know what everything looked like from beginning to end and she made us feel very comfortable, it took a weight off our shoulders and was a very stress free process. I never ever worried. Being able to put all your trust in them and just give them free reins is a true gift when planning a wedding and you get to see the artists true gifts because I didn’t need to control anything I could just let Cristy do her thing and what she created was spectacular. Lucky Onion is truly incredible, I can’t say that enough. We loved working with them and they made the process so beyond easy and clear, it was awesome!
Q: How do you look back on your wedding stationery now?
A: HOLY SMOKES WE GOT LUCKY!!! Actually no pun that Lucky is in the name “Lucky Onion” but we really did get so lucky finding Cristy and her husband. They are one awesome team and what they created was truly incredible. We have had people come up to us and tell us that they didn’t want to throw away our invite because it was so beautiful! We feel the same, we absolutely loved our wedding stationery and everything else they created for us. We feel so grateful to have been introduced to Cristy. Again, her attention to detail and how she brought our vision to life was everything. We trusted here and there were never any doubts.
