With Charlotte Willmore Designs
Charlotte Willmore is a young and vibrant Wedding Stationery Designer, based in her rural studio in Dorset, working nationwide. With a degree in Illustration, Charlotte soon began her own design business after graduating. Her attention to detail throughout the design process is second to none.Charlotte has also collaborated with fashion and luxury brands for events, painting her floral designs onto various objects. She focuses on traditional, yet whimsical wedding stationery designs, ensuring every suite is completely personal and bespoke. She works closely with the bride and groom as well as wedding planners, using traditional watercolour hand-painting techniques, inspired by flowers and natural surroundings. Charlotte is always open to new suggestions, themes and styles. Here’s Charlotte’s Hottest Stationery Trends for 2024.
Trend 1 –
Venue Illustrations
Every single one of my designs are are completely unique to each bride & groom. My clients are often attracted to my bespoke style through the venue illustrations I create. I carefully hand-paint each venue in water colour; any venue looks stunning when painted in this media, especially historical houses with ornate features. When used within a gatefold invitation design, venue illustrations provide a real ‘wow’ factor when your guests open the delicate paper folds. The venue illustrations also look fabulous when used on welcome signs at the wedding entrance on the big day.
Trend 2 –
Crests & Monograms
Bespoke, elegant and traditional; crests and monograms include the initials of the bride and the groom. My designs often involve these hand-painted letters intertwined with a surrounding floral feature or ribbon design which perfectly compliments the rest of the stationery suite. Every couple’s unique crest is used as a recurring motif, flowing across all items of their stationery. They are a wonderful way to enhance the personal aspect, and give each stationery suite an ‘heir loom’ feel. These can also be engraved onto wax stamps, for that ultimate luxury finishing touch.
Trend 3 –
Destination Designs
Unlike venue illustrations, destination designs are a wonderful way of integrating your wedding location to your stationery, without a physical illustration of the venue itself. Here, for an Italian destination wedding, I have incorporated lemons in a typical Italian style and colours for these menus. Perfectly paired with a collaboration of digital and hand-written text for that authentic look. These were a different style to the rest of their stationery, and were quite the show-stopper at the table. Even if your wedding is UK based, with a Greek-inspired menu; bespoke painted olive groves could be a great way to bring the menu into the design at the table, for example.
Trend 4
– Hand Painted Florals
Included in each of my suites, hand-painted florals are undoubtedly my distinctive signature. Natural flowers are always my biggest source of inspiration, often working from mood-boards provided by the client, or directly with the wedding florist themselves to ensure I capture the chosen wedding flowers within their stationery. Whether simple, classy and elegant, or bright, whimsical and fun, I create floral borders mainly for Save the Dates and Invitations, and then paint smaller ‘accents’ of the same floral designs to use within other pieces such as Place Cards, Order of Service booklets and Table Plans.
Trend 5
– Menu Place cards
My combined menus & place cards are an exquisite way to enhance any beautifully decorated table scape. I design menus with hand-painted artwork, inspired by the rest of the stationery suite, adding bespoke hand-written calligraphy of the guests’ names once the menus are printed. There are many different layouts and techniques of displaying the guests names on a menu, and can be made as contemporary or as traditional as required. Completed with gold foil, wax stamps and ribbon, these are stunning for guests to take away as keep-sakes from the special day.
Trend 6
– Hand Embellishments
Finally, the most wonderful way to complete any stationery suite is through the bespoke, hand-finished touches. I do this mainly through the elegance of gold foil, wax stamps & ribbons. Hand-embellishing with gold leaf creates the ultimate sense of luxury. It means that every single item of stationery is different and feels incredibly special to hold. Wax stamps, whether with a monogram of the bride and groom’s initials, or a flower design captured from the bespoke floral, are the ultimate ‘cherry on top’ of each suite. Especially when they’re encasing the stationery with a silk ribbon bow.
https://www.charlottewillmore.com
Related Article: Personalised Illustration Ideas For Your Wedding
