Kelley Cintra Studio

My husband and I got married in September 2022 in Sintra, Portugal at the gorgeous Tivoli Palacio de Seteais. It was pure magic!

Once I got engaged back in July 2021, the creative wheels began to turn. My favorite part of the wedding planning process was the creativity that went into each and every aesthetic element. I feel truly blessed to have gone through the process of creating wedding suites for other brides. I knew what to create and the whole process… so I thought.

One thing I did not factor in was the added pressure I would put on myself to create my best work as I felt that I had expectations of our friends and family to live up to. It’s different when you’re creating for your own wedding! Instead, I obsessed over every detail, redid design after design, procrastinated until days turned into weeks. Before I knew it, a series of all-nighters were how I got our invitations out the door. I am happy to say I am pleased with the outcome and thank my husband and family for all their support and for putting up with me!

The main inspirations were colorful flowers with a sprinkle of the traditional Portuguese blue and white since we were getting married in Portugal. Portuguese homes are filled with color and pattern mixing and I knew that’s what I would want with our wedding too. I also trusted our florist Luis at Liz Garden and therefore didn’t have a lot of visuals of what our flowers would look like (they exceeded all expectations). So I wanted our invitations to be able to go along with the florals but not too “matchy.”

First, I had to create the Save the Dates. I chose to make them square like a tile with a dainty watercolor border inspired by blue and white tiles. On the front, an illustration of our venue was the main focus and on the back, a flower with typography layered on top.

I wanted to combine hand-done illustration with typography throughout all of our stationery. Sometimes I find the legibility of calligraphy to be subjective and it was important to my husband and I that all information was easy to read since it was a destination wedding.

For the invitation suite, I had the idea of “opening the door to Portugal.” Majority of our guests hadn’t been to the country. I’ve grown up going since my dad is from Lisbon along with extended family that lives there. Now looking back with a post- wedding perspective and knowing how much fun everyone had… I’d say this metaphor has evolved into “an open door policy” to Portugal. Anytime we go, anyone is welcome to tag along again lol!

Ultimately, this idea led me to creating a gate-fold with the decorative vintage key of our venue Tivoli Palacio de Seteais on the front (it was special to see our guests realize this was the key on the front of the invite once they arrived at the venue) to then open up to an illustrated map of landmarks and wedding festivities. On either side would be brief descriptions of the wedding events and hotel blocks with our website at the bottom (usually not something to include in a wedding invitation, but in this case it made sense).

The invitation card included blue flowers on bright white thick card stock to pay homage to the Portuguese blue and white and to tie in the Save The Date with the rest of the stationery.

The RSVP card was an illustration of a famous Portugal tile building (actually in Porto, even if the wedding was in Sintra/ Lisbon). My fiancé and I like collecting postcards when we travel and thought this would be a fun RSVP for guests without the hassle of an envelope.

The invitation elements were wrapped in a transparent belly band sealed with a custom wax seal of an andorinha, a Portuguese dove. These doves were a theme throughout our wedding day and symbolize family, loyalty and prosperity.

Overall, I am super happy with how the invites turned out and they are a true keepsake. The variety of flowers and elements made it easy to incorporate into our day of details (next post) and tie into the new artistic elements I would create for our menu and place cards.

Let me know what you think!

Photos by The Curries

Printing by Stationery HQ