Basic Invites | Wedding Invitations for the Adventurous

So, I have always been drawn to entrepreneurism. Ever since I was young, I always had a business idea (lemonade, jewelry, cleaning, pet-sitting) and a couple of years ago I won a Young Entrepreneur competition and met some incredible people through that process. Since then, I’ve been torn between getting my business off the ground and wanting to help others get their business off the ground (or show them off if they’re already soaring). So, I am starting a new line of blog posts that will be about businesses that I love and want to show off. Most of them will be small local businesses, but I wanted to start off with this business based out of Utah.

I wanted to find stationery wizards who could accommodate the awesome couples I get who are having unordinary wedding days, and Basic Invite is SO customizable, I feel like it’s absolutely perfect.

I ordered a few samples, customizing them to what I think my couples would want (and to be honest, what I would want) and it was fun to imagine different wedding days and create the invites to suit it. If you read the invites, I put some fun things inspired by some of my past weddings and elopements I’ve photographed (:

So, for my first Small Business Showcase,
here is Basic Invite and what I love about it so much :

Insane Amount of Colors - Basic Invite is one of the only places I’ve seen so many customizations for designs like this. Once you select a design you can change the color of each element on the card to over 180 different color options. So, you can make sure the card is exactly how you want it - down to the littlest detail. I chose mostly blue and green colors for the invites I designed because of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but it’s insane cause you can go through so many colors and choose the exact shade and combo you want and see it instantly.

Custom Samples - Finding samples that are actually customized is hard to do - mostly when you order samples it’s with whatever the heck is printed on it, but with these I could change the colors and everything that was written on the invite and see exactly what it would look like, which is awesome so you don’t have to order 100 of them and then realize there’s something up that you don’t necessarily like.

I had fun with the custom samples.

Colorful Envelopes - Basic Invite has over 40 different colors when it comes to their envelopes so that they can make their invitation stand out even before it is opened. I LOVE colorful envelopes. I used black for my own wedding and wrote all the addresses in gold ink.

But the best part? All of their envelopes are peel and seal!! This is seriously the best part because for my wedding invitations (and Christmas and everything else) we had to lick the envelopes and Johnny and I were miserable. We kept talking about Seinfeld and the unfortunate cheap envelope situation, and tried to come up with other ways to seal them (wet sponges, hahaha). When I ordered samples I didn’t get any colorful envelopes, but based on the high-quality colors of the invitations, I’m sure the envelopes are just as amazing.

Cohesive Invitation Sets - Each of their wedding invitations is part of a set. They have everything from save the dates to wedding invitations and enclosure cards, wedding menus, wedding programs and even matching thank you cards!

I designed a sample inspired by the last wedding a photographed - Emma & Jeddah rented out the entire Hotel Laurance so their family could stay there over the weekend and explore Luray and Shenandoah National Park on days other than their wedding day! So I made a sample with a weekend schedule that matched an invitation. This was one of my favorites because the back of the invite was also green! It also reminded me of a foggy forest, which you all know is my favorite (:

Watercolor Evergreens

Free Address Collection Service - If you’re as bad as I was at getting addresses, this is really freaking helpful. They will help you GET addresses from guests! You just share a link, collect addresses, and get free envelope printing. 

I am so excited for these invites because not only is there a huge selection (they’re not all woodsy and mountainous like the ones I chose) but they are SO unique because even if you chose the exact some ones as I did, you could change up every detail in them to make them yours (:

I hope you enjoyed this little bit of planning help!

wedding invitation set | personalized coasters for wedding | save the date examples 

Intimate Shenandoah National Park Wedding in April | Blue Ridge Mountain Elopement Photographer

“Have you ever been to a wedding like this?”
Grandmama : “No, I never have.. after all these years there’s not much I can say I haven’t done, but I’ve never done this.”

Emma & Jeddah planned an incredible and intimate wedding day for themselves. They booked the entire Hotel Laurance in Luray where their families stayed over the weekend - with plans to explore the town and the mountains for the rest of the weekend. The day of their wedding, they got ready in the hotel casually with the kids and dogs running around the hotel. When I showed up, Emma and Jeddah and a few others were sitting outside on the deck having a drink. Emma already had her hair and makeup done, but wasn’t in her dress yet.

Eventually they parted ways to get ready and Emma got into her dress while Jeddah went on up to Skyline Drive. Emma rode with both their families together on a bus to bring them all up to their ceremony spot on Shenandoah National Park. It was a remarkably quiet day up there, even though the weather was perfect and it was a Saturday. Once we got there, we chose their ceremony spot and everyone gathered around. They said their vows when the time seemed right and then took family photos before everyone (except Emma, Jeddah, their dogs and I) went back to Hotel Laurance for cocktail hour. We explored the overlook where they had their ceremony and took their photos together before heading back down to join everyone for drinks and an amazing dinner.

Their dinner was wonderfully relaxed. They had a few dances, but mostly it was speeches and toasts and stories told by whoever felt so inclined.

The entire day was relaxed and flowed gloriously with almost no timeline in place (except when dinner would be served). I left them shortly after their big dance party to “Love Shack” by the B52’s,

Hi! I’m Gabrielle and I am an adventurous wedding, elopement, couple, family, and portrait photographer. If you’re interested in visiting the Shenandoah Valley, Blue Ridge Mountains, or Shenandoah National Park, I’d love to help you plan your visit as well as a photo shoot of your time here.

I have helped couples plan their elopements and small weddings in Shenandoah National Park - with suggestions of places to go, things to do, and awesome spots for food and drink to make your wedding day into a wedding getaway in the awesome local small towns.

Interested in a shoot and a few days away in the Virginia mountains? Reach out! I’d love to chat.

Kat & Kreighton | An Intimate Wedding in Sperryville, Virginia | Dinner with a Side of Vows

Kat asked me only shortly before their wedding to photograph it - they planned it quickly, but incredibly well. It was a casual wedding with only their nearest and dearest. As Kat called it “a dinner with a side of vows”.

The entire wedding took place at their friends’ home, sitting atop a mountain, overlooking more mountains. Their food and drinks were local, there were puppies, their rings were passed around before the ceremony to be prayed or well-wished-over, there were a lot of tears throughout the night, and a lot more laughter. Throughout dinner, different friends and family members would stand up to give a poem or a story or a toast.

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Venue was a friend’s home

All of the design, florals, and handmade vases that looked like stones was done by :

Flourish Root

Catering was done by :

Roadside Chive