Introducing The Illustrated Invitation
The Illustrated Invitation offers a unique and bespoke service that will add a completely personalised touch to your wedding day.
You and your partner have fallen in love with your venue right? Our artist will sketch your wedding venue (please check with us to see if we have sketched your venue already!) and the image can then feature throughout your wedding stationery.
There is complete flexibility for you to choose colours, typestyles, and wording. We also offer a personalisation service where we can include your guest’s names on the actual invitation in printed calligraphy style and also their names and address on the envelope making your stationery totally unique. We hope to ‘wow’ you and help wow your guests too.
...a little bit about us
We are based in Somerset, UK. We specialise in illustrating our customers wedding venue via a stunning pencil sketch which is then featured throughout a suite of personalised and unique stationery, from Save the Date to Invitation suites and from Orders of Service to Table Plans, Place cards and Menu’s.
At wedding exhibitions featuring our work, we noticed that one of the products which always drew the crowds and got people talking was our Guest Comments Frames. So much so, we decided to create a separate brand for this and thus The Alternative Guest Book was born. You may wish to view this brand on our other Hitched profile.
We are a small family business which consists of Rachael, who makes sure things are running like clock-work, Jamie (who makes a good coffee) and two assistants, Lily and Faith, who are Rachael and Jamie’s daughters and earn their pocket money by giving a helping hand at the weekends.
We have sketched many wedding venues in the from churches to cathedrals and castles to estate homes. We are even getting orders for venues in Europe now for Italian villas and French chateaus so word of mouth is getting out there.
All the very best with your wedding planning,
Rachel, Jamie, Lily and Faith xx
Frequently Asked Questions:
How would you describe your style
As you can hopefully see from the gallery we would describe our style as classic and elegant. We have a range of typestyles (from traditional to more modern contemporary) on hand-selected card. Our card is white or cream (ideal for show-casing our pencil illustrations) and with different finishes (from texture to pearlescent).
The result is a classic, luxury and unique stationery item like nothing you will find on the high street, illustrated with the venue you have fallen in love. We hope it will help set that perfect tone for your very special day.
Do you provide a sample pack?
Yes – we would love to send you a sample pack. Please note that photographs of our sketches are reduced for showing online so we would love you to see first hand the quality of our artists work. We have a generic sample pack we can send to you which includes various samples – however if you have booked your venue please let us know so we can check to see if we have it and if so then we can send specific samples. Our samples are usually sent out each Thursday so that you have for that weekend.
When do I need to start thinking about my wedding invitations?
We would probably answer this in the first instance by asking if you wished to send a "Save the Date" card ahead of your invitations, something which we are finding increasing popular as venues/dates are secured well in advance. We have clients who do this as far ahead as 12-15 months to make sure their guests pencil this into their calendars. This is particularly useful if the date is in holiday season and/or near bank holidays. However for your Invitations we find that 3-6 months is the average lead time and we would advise allowing one month from your initial order to final delivery (although if we need to move faster then set us the challenge and we will do our best to deliver!).
Is there a required minimum order?
Our smallest order for invitations was for x7. The couple were thrilled when they heard there was no minimum order. Obviously, this is much more cost effective if we already your venue sketched as the original commission will apply otherwise.
During these covid times, with reduced guest numbers, it may mean you are having an intimate wedding with your closest friends and family, and we would love to play a part in making that extra special.
Can we order in stages?
Most of our couples will order the “Before the Day” which will either consist of Save the Date cards and/or Invitations/Invitation Suite. Then at a later stage, as we near the big day the “On the Day” items are ordered such as Order of Service or Order of the Day, Menus, Seating Plans and Place Cards etc.
Do we get a proof and can we make changes?
Absolutely! In the first instance we provide a soft copy proof via email and after dealing with any revisions, changes etc then we post out a hard copy proof, exactly as the final ones will be printed in your chosen colours on your chosen card.
We don’t charge for any changes to get your proof right. We are completely focused on getting in just perfect for you.
Does the invitation cost also cover the printing?
There are two points to consider with regards to pricing.
First of all there is the sketch fee. We have a large number of venues already sketched in the UK. If we already have your sketch on file then there is no sketch fee applicable. If we do not have your venue, then you can commission an original sketch at a cost of £125. The original is then yours to retain and we double-mount the sketch for you to keep and treasure - see examples in our photo gallery.
Secondly, there is the printing cost for each item. You also have a choice of various optional extras that you may wish to consider for each item, for example luxury card envelopes, printed guest names/addresses. We have a full price list on our website.
When do we pay?
We ask for £80 deposit for any sketch commission. Otherwise, you do not pay anything until you are completely happy and have fallen in love with your soft and hard copy proof. We then ask for full payment prior to delivery.
How much is postage and packaging for orders?
We charge £7.50 for each delivery. Our stationery is sent via courier and you will receive approximately three business days after sending. Our deliveries can be tracked as it progresses on its journey to you and a signature is required upon receipt.
What are your delivery times?
This is more difficult to answer because it depends on whether you are commissioning an original sketch, in which case this depends on our artists availability at the time of ordering. We would advise you contact us to discuss timing in this respect and we recommend early booking to avoid disappointment. If we have the sketch already on file then we aim to supply soft copy proofs within one week. We would then normally print within 10 days of confirmation of the hard copy proof you will receive. Obviously if we need to go faster than this then we can arrange that.
Do you attend any wedding exhibitions?
Yes, we do although at the moment with Covid all plans are out of the window. We will publish any future events on here and also on our blog on our website.
10 Reviews for The Illustrated Invitation
Recommended by 100% of couples
Alex H. · Getting married on 08/05/2021
Best service, top quality super flexible
The Illustrated Invitation (and the alternative guest book) have been absolutly fantastic throught this incredibly difficult process of planning a wedding in covid. Even with all the changes they have been friendly, helpful and super responsive whenever we contact them. They have helped us with wording, and approach to our invitations (and notes to guests who we can't have anymore). I can't speak highly enough of the flexibility and level of communication we have had from them.
Sent on 25/03/2021
Not only are they a very easy supplier to work with, the quality of the invitations, sketches and stationary they have provided for us is incredible. With a full set of printed invitations and envelopes it has made the invitations and stationary one of the easiest processes of our wedding planning.
Lisa
A huge thank you
We wanted to write to you as well to say a huge thank you for everything – the invitations were flawless, we’re absolutely delighted with them. Both product and presentation were exquisite and really set the tone for not only our wedding, but our weekend – we spent a very happy Friday evening reading through the invites and stamping them up to send out Saturday We really cannot thank you enough for all the time and effort you have put in, including the hand-delivery Friday which was incredibly kind and a very nice personal touch. We won’t need to once our guests see your work, but we will be telling everyone about your wonderful services!
Sent on 27/08/2019
Glad to hear our payment has reached you; I expect we will be in touch following 2 May next year to discuss your ‘Thank you’ stationery that I’ve beadily spotted on your website
Huge thanks again and our very best wishes for the success of your business – you have a very special service there.
Liz
Highly recommended
We contacted Jamie and his team after finding out that they had created Wedding invitations for Clearwell Castle where myself and my partner are getting married. The incredibly detailed artwork of the venue caught our eye and once we found their website and looked deeper into what they could create for us, we knew we had the perfect place to make our day extra special. After deliberating with Jamie over a few weeks and making sure that the design of the invitations were nothing less than perfect they arrived and we were blown away. They were presented professionally, the craftsmanship was the best we've ever seen and the standard was nothing short of world class. Jamie and his team had gone to great lengths throughout the whole process and even when we noticed the day of the wedding was incorrect (solely our fault not Jamie's) we panicked thinking we would have to purchase more invitations which would eat into our wedding budget but Jamie offered to do them free of charge getting them out to us 2 days later. We cannot thank Jamie and his team enough and regard them as the best in the business and would highly recommend The Illustrated Invitations to everyone we speak too. Thank You Jamie for making our Wedding that little bit more wonderful.
Sent on 15/04/2019
