** The opportunity to vote for a winner has now ended and the winner will be announced later this week on Love My Dress. Huge thanks to all of you who took the time to cast your vote **
Hi Everyone, I need your help! Two weeks ago, I ran a competition with the fabulous Love Illustrated, where together, we invited readers to submit details of what illustration they would have designed by Love Illustrated to go on their own, bespoke, save the date cards. The response we had to the competition has been phenomenal but finally, fiiiiinally, we have managed to get ourselves to a shortlist of four entries and over the next few days my lovelies, I would like you to help us choose a winner :)
I'm going to hand over to Sian from Love Illustrated to talk you through, and once you've had a chance to read, simply leave a comment at the end stating which of the finalists below you think should win, and why :) You have until midnight on Monday 30 January to place your vote.
ALL the shortlisted entrants who don't win will be entitled to a 25% discount on any order they place. And all entrants to the competition in general will be entitled to a 10% discount on any order they place. Emails with details will follow...
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"I genuinely can't tell you how much we loved reading all the entries to the Love My Dress competition! The entries included mention of camels, derelict chapels, the Beatles, sailfish & unicorns, restored
Victorian baths, comic superheroes, half the congregation in headphones, Elvis - the list goes on and on!"
Love My Dress Wedding Blog - All Illustrations Copyright (c) 2012, Love Illustrated
When we received our list of entries, we knew we were in trouble. It took another week and three more cuts to get it down to where it is now, and even then we had to plead with Annabel to let us sneak in an extra finalist. That's why we'd be more than pleased to offer all the unsuccessful finalist a 25% on any commissioned work rather than the original 10% we offered.
We will be contacting a select number of entrants whose ideas for invite we absolutely loved with a personalised quote - unfortunately this won't be everyone, as we couldn't possibly draw every invite by
the end of the wedding season! - but we're so thrilled that out of all the entries we got, every single person's idea was an unique and individual representation of their weddings and themselves!
So, for the finalists - and in no particular order, they are...
Charoltte Sissons
"For our reception we are having tipis in a field, our illustration would hopefully reflect our love of the countryside and the vintage/fun filled mini festival/country fete style day we have planned! Haybales, teacups, coconut shy, cows, lanterns, bunting, tractors, and a whole lotta fun, laughter and love!"
We loved Charlotte's rural mini-festival theme, and although teacups and bunting are pretty widespread throughout the wedding invite world, we think the fact she's also thrown some cows, a tractor and a coconut shy into the mix is fab. This sounds like a wedding with a lot of fun and energy, and it would make a great illustration.
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Hannah Jeffrey
"I love the idea of a tree with lots of little things from our lives in the branches (musical instruments, books, some running shoes...) - like a 'family' tree, as we're 'branching' out to start our own family
tree. We're also trying to have a green wedding and it's all about local, seasonal and recycled - so we're definitely into tree hugging too!"
We thought this idea was an amazingly strong visual image and really personal too - the imagery around creating your own family tree is truly lovely. We try to be as green as possible when printing invites
to, so this aspect of the invite also very much appealed to us.
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Elizabeth Oldham
"It would be me and my groom in our wedding attire and massive walking boots standing in the middle of the Patagonian wilderness, with a little tent in the far distance, rain lashing pretty much horizontally but still with manic grins on our faces. It would be this because I spent 10 months of last year 9000 miles away from my lovely, patient boyfriend living in Chile and then Brazil. He spent all the money he had coming out to Chile to see me - the first time to propose (on Christmas Eve, which is like Christmas day in Chile) and the second time to accompany me on my long-dreamt-of trip to Torres del Paine national park and spend a week freezing his little tush off and carrying massive backpacks during all-day treks from campsite to campsite. That time together really showed just how much he would (literally) go to the ends of the earth for me and so Patagonia and Chile became the symbol of these important moments (and will hopefully figure in our future too!)."
We love the romantic story behind this entry (Ends of the earth? *Sigh*), but we also love the idea of a bridal couple in hiking boots in the middle of nowhere, wet though but still having a fantastic time! It tell a great story about the couple's history, and call us old-fashioned romantics, but that's something we love to be able to draw.
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Ruth Casey
"We are going for a 1920/30s speak easy style wedding.We would feature the 1936 Rolls Royce that we are hiring and myself in a white vintage dress with tea roses and my other half in a smart tuxedo.We would like the reception building in the background as this was built during this time and was the inspiration for the theme.We thought up the idea of a couple of Film stars of the era waving out of windows as our tables are named after stars like Greta Garbo and Fred Astaire. We love the idea of celebrating with signature cocktails, we have chosen our favourite cocktail, sidecars from the same era which could feature somewhere in the invitation.Our guests are completely unaware of our 1920/30s style and this would be a lovely way to surprise them with a unique, illustrated wedding invite personal to us."
Ruth has clearly put so much thought into the whole look of her wedding, tying the 1920/30s style together with not only the usual candidates of venue, transport and dress, but the fabulous idea of
using movie stars in the windows of the hotel, which we love. It's also fantastic that she wants to spring the idea of the vintage wedding on the guests by sending them such a bespoke, detailed image -
imagine their surprise on opening the invite!
**Readers** To help us pick a winner, please leave a comment below stating which finalist you would like to win and a little note why. Remember you have until midnight on Monday 30 January to place your vote. And Charlotte, Hannah, Elizabetha and Ruth - GOOD LUCK!!
Also be sure to pop along over to the Love Illustrated website for further inspiration for your bespoke save the dates and wedding stationery...
