Becoming a Wedding Stationery Designer: Part II

1. Welcome!: Hi there. My name is Hope Johnson, and I am an illustrator and designer from Louisiana. I'm, of course, a skill share teacher. I am a surface counter designer, letter press printer and a strange mix up Creative entrepreneur spirits. But I'm glad to have you here in the course. Welcome to part two of becoming a wedding stationery designer. I am so excited to bring this asked foreign needed course toe life where part one was all about defining your ideal client, your branding and your pricing and your business model in sort of the foundation to your business. Part two is sort of the technical side of your business where we're gonna talk about client management and knowing your client style so you could guide them as you designed their peace. We're gonna talk about how you work. So the differences between offering completely custom work or maybe collection based work or maybe both were also going to talk about standards and practices. So actual common sizes and etiquette and guidelines like that and all the dues in dotes you'll want to think about ads were gonna end with what will be the course project, which is actually designing your sweet for either an existing or ideal client of yours. So happened the course and get excited for the course project. We are going to design a full suite for an existing or ideal client of yours. So if you have an existing client already, then great years, this course project as an opportunity. Teoh, cross that task off your to do list. If you don't have an existing client that you need to do work for, use the course project as an opportunity. Almost like a style shoot. So you're creating work for a client of yours and work that you want to create over and over again an ideal client of yours. So this would be a great opportunity to dream up something really special, really speak spectacular that you can market to your ideal client and your target audience . So if you whether it's an existing or an idol client in mind, sort of start collecting notes on, you know, the wedding venue and the client style, and we're gonna talk more about this on the upcoming chapter. So that coming chapter is actually about all of the questions that I asked my my own boarded clients in a way that gathers the most information, so I couldn't really tell their story. They're sweet happen the next chapter, and that's what we talk about. 2. Client Management + Touch Points: when this chapter I'm gonna dive into sort of the beginning stages of how I managed my clients. So I use a program called Honey Book and Honey Book is just a client management program. You can link it to QuickBooks. It's really great. You can ask questionnaires and send invoices and all of that good stuff actually go into a lot of detail on Honey book on my systems on boarding and work full of class. It's sort of the dorky side to the businesses, but I love it so you can use honey book. You can use trail. Oh, you can use dip Sado. There are there so many great options out there. Honey, book is just the one I loved the most aesthetically and functionally. So I'm going to dive into the back end of my honey book to show you the questions I asked my clients from the get go so I can sort of pull those answers as inspiration as I designed their sweet and as well as their presentation. So whatever program you use and I highly suggest using some sort of workflow or client management program unless you're just really, really great at managing your email, which I am not. And Honey Book does that for me. So whatever it is you use, take these questions whether it's a form on your website or just direct emailing back and forth and morph them into what works for you. But I have found that the more I ask from the get go not just on what they need out of their stationary, but just sort of their story. I can really start to pull some inspiration and intention, but behind the choices I make for them as I designed. So I'm going Teoh, just share my screen with you and sort of hop into that sort of questionnaire Most okay, so I am in my honey book and inside of a client project that I've created based off of a client that, um, I had in the past and she was just Oh, my goodness. She was just a dream to work with. So I talked with her and got her permission to sort of use her for inspiration throughout this course. So I set it up, though, as if she were a new client. So the great thing about honey book is, um this activity board sort of just acts is one big, basically a big text message. So there's not 1000 emails. There's just one chain of communication back and forth. So when I'm in honey book, the first thing I would do and this is all set up as, um a template for me because I've set all my workflow steps up. So my very first email is, um, welcome to honey book. We're just sort of explains, um, the set up and how honey Book works. So I would, um, send that along now and then. What I would do next is give her that questionnaire, which is also a template. And this isn't a new file section on. And this is the questionnaire that I want Teoh show you. And, um, this is also a template. This is why I love honey books so much so that's low. And even though it's a temple, that I can change this to fit, um, you know my specific clients priorities or needs or whatever without changing the template . So the very first section of the template sort of Just ask some background questions. Um, just I like to send you know paper samples and things like that. If my clients aren't local, which is, um, coming. So I first talk about sort of the inspiration and design, So I asked where the venue is gonna take Pay place. I love doing venue illustrations. So that's always a fun question to ask. And just the style of the venue will give you a lot of insight to their to their formality and their stuff. So this I love. I always ask for a quote that represents, you know, the couple's relationship. And I think that I don't always use this, um, literally, but I use it somewhere in their portfolio. Or it might just pull more inspiration for me and just they always find that it's a nice touch. Um, this is and this I love. I have this list of sort of adjectives and just descriptive words, and I asked my client to pick six that really just describe the overall mood and just aesthetic feel that they're going for for their wedding. Because for me, if I selected, you know, romantic, airy and, um let's see, maybe feminine. I would imagine maybe a Gordon wedding or I don't know just something really. Um though, you know, that would just be described with those words versus something you know, modern urban or, um, black tie. You know, I'm picturing like a rooftop wedding in this city. And these words, really, just ah, and of course, they'll tell you where they're getting married in all the details. But these words just really help define even further your clients inspiration. And then I asked him to narrow those six words down to three, which is kind of hard to do. I don't even know what my three words would be. Probably romantic, airy, and, ah, what would my third word be? Maybe intimate. I know it would want if I could go back and dine would want a much smaller guest list that I had when I got married anyway, So then I move on to color and texture palette. Um, these mean a lot to me. I work a lot with handmade paper. I'm a letter press printer. So all of that is just so textural and bring so much depth to a sweet. So always like to see what my clients like assed faras colors and textures and things like that. And at this point, my clients know what they're about to invest. But I always like to ask, um, their must have list. Because even though I I cater to, um, sort of the higher N budget for brides, Um, you know, they're still there still conscious of their budget. So I like to make sure I have the things that they absolutely want. If there are places that we need to sort of, um, cut down this forest cost and this is always a fun question. I love learning about the significant other, whether it's the proposal story or how you met or just something fun. I like to include primarily I talk with the brights, but I like to talk to the groom's or the significant others and just learn, learn about both of the both, um, both sides to who's planning this wedding. So then we get into the technical details. So, of course, as the big day, the guest count, um, for your client. So a lot of clients get confused on this question because they'll give me their entire guest list, which is what I'm asking are here. But I like to know the entire guest list. Meaning every single person is coming because the invitation count is usually about half to 2/3 of that. And your client may not have that exact number yet, but this will kind of guide you, um, into you know how much material you'll need And just to have a heads up. Because, you know, one invitation may go to a couple or a family, So your guest counting your invitation count is definitely in two different things. So then I asked all the pieces and parts and accessories they need, Um, so I can sort of wrap my head around the suite design, so save the dates. Invitation envelope, reply card in envelope, a details card, a map car. Like I said, I love doing venue illustrations and things like that. And then I kind of move onto what accessories I commonly use. Um, vintage shams or ribbons and wax seals and a love layering vellum. And then give a something else option for my custom brides. I usually start with the Save the Day's take on the main stationery and then, as well as all of the day of stuff. So it's ceremony programs and gift baskets for hotel guests or vow journals and, ah, bar menus. That's always really fun. Place cards, escort card table numbers like all of these day of goods that often the bride doesn't really know she needs. Until I ask her these questions right here, because before I just want to make a note, I feel it's important. I used to not ask this question. I would sort of tackle this down the road, but by asking it early on when I wrap up everything that I think my couple needs, plus some things they may have not listed because you want to kind of be ahead. Ah, step ahead of your client. Um, because if you can take this off of her plate now, it's just it's easier on you. It's easier on them, and nine times out of 10 you offer it. They're going to take it just to cross it off their list. This question has, um, been sort of a game changer, So I like to know what rules I can break. I'm a pretty traditional person, but also like Teoh. Just touch when, um, I don't know something personal. So on a scale of 1 to 10. How traditional are you? And I even explain how I'm a salad five where I like my formality. But that's something different. That something that makes the sweetened me. For instance, I had a couple that, um they were both dancers and they met on the dance floor So further R S v p, instead of just putting, attending or regrets it said something like, I'll meet you on the dance floor or, you know, something like that. Um, so something where it's still formal in, You know, that first glance. But that little touch of personality is always finding this sort of guides me and to help maybe how Maney rules Aiken stretch your break. Um, I moved Colon and I asked different. These different questions are pretty specific. So Ah, what presentation set up? Are you interested in talking about or designing so organic and handmade elements? This would tell me, you know, maybe she would like handmade paper or silk ribbons or just organic and handmade elements. Um, if a bride selects clean and Chris papers and textures, I know she probably wants a clean cut paper. Ah, something probably heavier in weight. Traditional inner and outer envelope style. I do this for most of my brides, but some brides prefer just a single envelope. Ah, box invitations. I don't do a lot, but it is fun. Teoh kind of go all out for someone looking for something extra special. Um, I always request the mail out date, but by the time my clients and I are talking, they pretty much know, um, that they're contacting me, Probably a year in advance to their wedding, sometimes even more. And then, of course, a big you know. Did I miss anything? Sections, always good toe add. So what I would do is, um, you know, send this along to my client, which this is sort of a, um, test honey book project. So I'm going to send it to myself so we could hop back into that activity board and show you that. So any files I send, whether it's a questionnaire or an invoice or anything like that would be in the file section, and then the activity section would show I should've turned off my notifications. Which show, um, you know, everything I've sent her, So I'm gonna hop back in, um and talk about what we are going to dive into on the next after again whatever it is you use for your client management, whether it's a program or just a form on your website, I highly suggest you sort of listing out Ah, handful of questions you can ask not just on the stationery and pieces and parts that they need, but also their story. When you're invested in your client story, they feel completely connected to you. And it's just gonna make a really beautiful process throughout the entire time you spent together. When the next chapter, I want to talk about the difference between custom work and semi custom worker collection based work and the differences between the two because your target audience might cater toe semi custom work or collection based work where it's not as involved, or you might have a client that wants, all in fully custom from the ground up. So I'm gonna explain the differences between the two and how I've worked with both and offering both to my client so hot in the next chapter. 3. Custom vs Collection: overview: in this chapter, I'm gonna go through sort of an overview of the difference between offering custom work and semi custom work or a collection based work. I'm gonna get a little vulnerable with you on the upcoming couple of chapters when I really go into the back end of what both of these models looked like for my business. So collection based work is when you have sort of a pre designed body of work or work you've done in the past that your client will select from and make minor changes to to really just make their own version of something that is already in existence. Where custom work is work that's pretty much designed from the ground up, based on your client specific needs or aesthetic, or the way you have your custom packages set up. Some big key differences between the two are your. Your collection is probably priced at a lower price point, and you just have simple text or wording replacements. Maybe you change the funds or the paint color, but the involvement and collection work is less involved than, say, custom work where, like I said, you're starting from the ground up so your client will have specific paper selections. Or maybe you're adding illustrative details or details that might not be included on something that you offer in your collection. And it's just, um, or it's a more custom process when the next couple chapters. Like I said, I'm going to get vulnerable and talk about the differences with between the two custom and collection based work a little a little deeper, and I'm going to show you the back end of how high priced the to using a profit first met method, which is what I talk about a lot in some other courses of mine and really guide you through the process on which one, one of the other or both, that would work best for your business model. 4. Custom vs Collection: part I: when this chapter, Like I said, I'm gonna get a little deeper and a little vulnerable with you and share the back end of my website and how I have set up my collection based work. Um, the different sort of packages I offer the increments in quantity and what custom is ations I allow. And even how I press my collection base were different from my custom work. So I'm just gonna hop over and share the back end of squarespace, which is what I use for my website platform. So what you see here is my squarespace site. I designed my site myself. I've been using squarespace for coddle no. Five or six years maybe, and I just really love it. They have some great templates, a really great e commerce set up. And, uh, yeah, I just love it. So I chose to set up my collection as products. This is not the only way to do this. I know so many designers that offer custom work and they offer collection options as well. But it's set up almost like a gallery on their site. Like, this is the work I've done in the past. If you see something you like and you want to start from their great inquire so you can have more of an inquiry based set up as well. I just chose for me. Ah, product based set up because I wanted, um, this process to be a little bit more streamlined to where I get an order. I fulfill that order. I go through the custom process, cousin is ations process with my clients, and I actually outsource all of my work to another printer. So I focus on printing in house for my custom brides and out source of all of all of this work to another printer. Um, like I said, you just see to figure out what set up works best for you. I know I want to make Though my my collection is very similar aesthetically to my custom work. And I did this intentionally. I didn't want to offer two totally different ah products or services in a way that gave me to totally in opposite ends of the spectrum. As for his clients, Go, um, so my collection is still it's expensive. I mean, it's handmade paper is letter press printing, and, um, it's it's still an investment for my clients. So the difference between my custom bride is that my custom bride, once the full kind of the full scope of of me, from save the dates to a wedding stationary today of goods they want a very sort of hands When, um, experience that way where my collection brides air my collection couples may just once just the stationary, which is all it offer. I don't offer, offer, save the dates. But I don't offer core coordinating day of goods. And so that's the difference. That's sort of the the threshold on difference between the two different sort of target audiences that I'm, you know, sort of preaching to between my two offerings. So I'm not pushing my custom brides to think Well, I'll just select from the collection because it's a little bit more affordable than going the customer out because they're not gonna get everything that you would get from the custom. Well, so it's just something to think about as you build your sweets up and offer collection and custom work if you choose to do both. So I'm actually just going, I want to click on one because I want to go into detail on how set up it has set this up as a product. So this is Ah, one of my favorite sweets. It's completely normal. Teoh, Select quantity. I'll have a client say I need 60 invitations. Well, I'm going to suggest that they purchased 75 I do this for my custom, uh, clients as well. So increments of 25 is totally normal. Starting at 25 would be even be normal. I just chose to start at 50. Um so if I selected 50 these air the set pieces I have within this product, sort of variations of this sweet that your person purchasing you can purchase just to save the dates. You can say I want letter, press printing or gold foil printing. And it'll sort of calculate that for you if you select the four piece suite, which I'll talk more about when we talk about sort of building the stationary sweetened what? All these terms need me and four p suite. Um, enclosure card in all of that. Ah, four piece suite for me is exactly what you're seeing. It's the invitation with its corresponding envelope and a reply card with its corresponding envelope. You can also, you know, if you added this to card, and let's say you also needed a map card or an enclosure card. Say you have details that you want to include, like accommodations or an after party or something like that, and you can add that as well. So my client, for me that's selecting from the collection. It's it's a product, so you would add to cart you would check out. And it explains this in my sort of guide to the collection page as well. The process you would check out. You would then get a email for me inviting you to honey book, And that's where you will send in your language details and your wording, and your custom is ations for my collection I don't offer. It's what kind of what you see is what you get. I offer don't offer different paper options, but I do offer different typeface options, printing, medium letter press or gold foil, and you can change the color of your ink. So that's another reason why if you want to go the custom route, that's that's a big difference to you know you have sort of a limited range of custom is ations with the collection versus versus custom. Okay, So like I mentioned, I wanted to show you the back end of squarespace. So what I just showed you was what, um, what a visitor would see when they visit my site and just in case it's helpful whether you squarespace or just in the way you might want to create your collection, I thought this might be helpful. So this is the back and have a lot of a lot of pages currently. If you see this own hold as you're watching this video, it's because, um, I'm booked up and I'm taking a short sabbatical because I'm expecting Ah, baby number three. So, um, this this may be what it looks like if you visit my site life. But on the back end of squarespace, you can have, you know, your product set up. And I just want to show you what this looks like. Just that, you know, um, how you may want to calculate your works. I'm just gonna click on that same sweet I showed you and show you the different variations and the way I have this set up and always takes a second to come up. So the way I did it, instead of having a different product for the save the date and a different product for the four piece suite in a different product for the map card in the enclosure card, I just included the sweet as a whole as a product, and the different variations are the different set pieces you can get just like you have. You get a shirt and you might get a small or medium or large. You can get this sweet and you can get to save the date. The four p suite, the map, Carter the enclosure card. So I, you know, have all my descriptions and things like that. So what I had to do and this took forever, uh, was calculate the price for the save the date in the letter press medium for the quantity of 50. And then I had to calculate this price for 75 of the save the dates in letter press and the same thing for 100 save the dates in letter press all the way. Teoh sort of my top quantity, and that was the first variation. Then I had to calculate the price for 50. Say the days in gold foil and 75 save the dates and gold foil. And then we finally get to move on to that for peace. Sweet. So I calculated how much it would be for 50 of the four piece suite and letter press all the way down to 2 50 and then the same quantity increments for the four piece suite and all the gold Ford boil. So you get it from here, Um, this I did in an Excel spreadsheet, and I just calculated my profit and then my cost, which I'm going to just straight up tell you what it was in part for. So ah, hang on tight and we'll get to that chapter in just a little bit. I want you to know this is totally not what you have to do. You can set up your collection, whoever you want, but this is what has worked best for me. I wanted to create a collection that sort of provided I wouldn't say passive, because it's still very involved but more passive than my custom clients. But almost in the same the same sort of target audience. So I set mine up its products, and that is what worked for me. But it might be ah, different set up for you. So when the next chapter, I want to go into how high priced my products and how I priced my collection for both semi custom and custom work, So I'll see you in the next chapter. 5. Custom vs Collection: part II: in this chapter. I want to talk about sort of the way I price my stationery differently than a lot of people price their seats steering. If you've watched the part, one version of this, it might look familiar, but it's important to touch again. So I'm going to share a couple of formulas with you and get a little technical and, um, explain the differences on why you should price for profit first. Okay, so if you have watched the part one Persian of this course, these lives might look familiar. But they're really important in the way you would price not just your collection work, but even your custom work, too. So I'm gonna go through them again, um, and and show you what I'm talking about. So pricing methods for stationary can get turkey if you price like a traditional product, which is what I did for a really long time. So for traditional product, you would have say, your cult's let's say it's a pillow from target and you would take your costs and you would multiply that typically times to to get ah, wholesale rate. And this is something the manufacturer of say that pillow would dio. And then you would take that whole still rate. The store that is supplying this pillow would take that wholesale rate and multiple applied that typically also times two a ticket to retail. So for the manufacture, if it if it costs $7.50 to make the pillow from the material and the labor, they will multiply that times two to get 15 which would be the manufacturers wholesale price. So the $15 rate is sort of what the manufacturer would profit off up. That would take that $15 minus 7 50 to get their profit and then the store say, target or whatever would take that $15 times two to get their retail. This is just what you would pay for the pillow or a customer, or, you know, So what does this look like in terms of profit? Well, I sort of just explained that, But so for the manufacture, it will call 7 50 Wholesale Price of $15 said the manufacture would profit $7.50 per pillow for a retail storm. It costs $15 to buy it at the wholesale rate they'll up charge it's a Times two and retail it for $30 so the retail store would profit $15 per pillow or per product. So here's the problem. When it comes to wedding stationery, there are so many factors and moving parts, there's thousands of them. So here are some pricing factors to think of when it comes to pricing for wedding stationery. You have your design labor, and this is the fee or the rate you charge to design the job. Now, if you haven't employee that works for you and you outsource this design labor, that is still an expense. Do that is still a cost. You have printing labor, and this is the amount it cost you to either a print and house or outsource it. And I want to make a note here. I print a lot of my work in house, and for a really long time, I told myself, Oh, I print in house so I don't need a charge Printing labor. I don't need to add up. That is a cost that's gonna eat away at my profit. That is not fair to yourself. You are still the printer. Aside from the designer, you are both the designer and the printer, and both of those things have separate cost. Aside from profit, which I will talk about shortly, you also have your material cost, and this is the amount it costs you to purchase the paper and purchase the envelopes and any other physical goods, like postage or ribbons or anything like that. So again, here's the problem. Your unit price will vary depending on your paper choice. You're printing method, your quantity and all of that good stuff, just like that pillow call $7.50 no matter what. Each stationary job will be different based oin the printing and the quantity and paper choices and all of the factors that come into play. So incomes thebe profit comes first formula. This is your profit, and this is the money you want to make, which is not included in the cost of material and labor. You add up the cost of your material in labor, whether you in health, print and design or else source at all. So your profit plus your calls equals the total, and the total is just the money. You end up charging your client. I know some people that prices way, but they still put a slight cushion in there and up charge the cost a little bit. Um, this is good. It accounts for mess ups that accounts for shipping delays and just some extra breathing room that if anything happened, it wouldn't cut into your profits. So I want to go a little further and explain how important it is to price. Ah, your profit first. So taking that first product example and when I use the word wholesale, I'm not referring to actually wholesaling your stationary because that would be really complicated. Um, and it's done. But that's not what I'm referring to here. I'm just using this formula as an example, because this is the way I used to Price and it just it didn't work. And I'll show you why. So let's say you have a client who needs 200 wedding sweets. She wants the invitation. The reply card, a details cart. She wants letter press printing and silk ribbon with wax seal and vintage stamps and all kind of bells and whistles. So, using the product formula, let's say, and these air just random numbers. For example, let's say all of the materials and the labor. So the paper, the printing costs and the design labour cost you $1000. Using that product formula, you'll take your cost $1000 times two to get your quote wholesale. Ah, $2000. You'll mark that wholesale up to get your retail. So 2000 times two is 4000. And that's what you would charge your client, which is a really great job, right? So your total charged US 4000 you subtract your cost of 1000 and you profit $3000 which is fantastic. But Scenario number two, same product formula, but it's 100 piece wedding. Sweet set. Your bride or your couple only needs the invitation in the reply card. They're not real sure about letter press printing. They're gonna go with flat printing and they don't have any extra bells and whistles. It cost you $500 times two to get $1000 of your wholesale times to to get your retail. And this is what you would charge your client. So your total charged is $2000. You would subtract your cost of $500 and that gets you a profit of $1500 which is still a really great job. But let's see what a year's worth of these two types of clients. These two scenarios looks like so, using that cost markup formula or the product formula, let's say you have your one of nothing but that sort of higher in client. That first scenario you charged to her $4000 it costs you 1000 and that equals $3000 worth of profit. You have 15 jobs throughout a year that make $3000 worth of profits, so $45,000 off of really awesome jobs. But then the next year, you get a client or 15 clients like that second scenario, you charge $2000 for that job. You subtracted your $500 worth of calls and you profited $1500. Well, 15 15 jobs of $3000 of profit is $45,000. 15 jobs of $1500 of profit is 22,500 and I'm thinking that 45,000 looks better and you're going to get a mix of clients. But my point here is that you want to calculate your profit first, for many reasons, it allows you to understand exactly how many clients you want to take on each year, and it gives you a better definition of your bottom line at the end of the year without having to worry about the material choices and quantity and all of that stuff that your client will select. So, of course we want the bride's that want the fancy bells and whistles and the letterpress printing. But at the end of the day, their selections should not guide or dictate what your profit iss. Now I'm gonna show you the same two scenarios as before, but with the profit comes first formula. So your profit. And let's just say it's you wanna make $3000 for getting out of them bed and doing the job . So that same couple, she wants a 200 piece wedding suite, invitation or apply card, a details, card, letter, press, printing bells and whistles galore. She wants all the things. So your profits $3000. It still cost you $1000 worth of material and labor, so you charge her $4000 just like you did before, but your profit stays the same. Your profit comes first. The job calls really doesn't matter because you're just talking that onto your profit and your profit stays the same, just like in scenario two, where it cost you $500 your profit is still $3000. It doesn't matter what your clients selects or the quantity she's looking for or the type of printing. And like I said, of course we want to do all the bills and whistles. But not every client is gonna need the same thing. So this is a better way to guide your sort of year in bottom line. I want to remind you these are methods and formulas that worked for me over the years. This is not written in stone. That's not the way you have to set up your collections. This is not the way you have to price your work, but for me, it's worked in really allowing me to understand how many clients not that I can take on that. I want to take on because I set my profit first. I can take on less clients throughout the year by knowing what my end of the year. Bottom line will be. So join me on the next couple of chapters where I'm going to talk about sort of the same process, but how it's a little bit different for my custom rights. 6. Custom vs Collection: part III: so on this chapter, I'm not gonna go through the exact same thing. I just went through on the previous couple of chapters because it's really the same set up that I go through for my custom brides that I do for my collection based brides. It's just charged more for my profit for my custom brides because I'm working with them for a longer. I'm often working with my custom rides for like a here because they book me at their save the dates we talk a wedding stationery down to the day of goods, which is, Ah, lot of work. And so for you that might look different. But for me, this is how I set it up. I use the same pricing formula. Profit plus costs equals total. Um, there are some different variations evolved in custom work like assembly. I hire out an intern to do my assembly, so there's just a little bit more. Um, there's a little bit more labor involved in a custom couple physical labor, not just material. So it's a similar formula, and you'll just learn what what works best for you as you go through your collection based work or your custom based work or both. If you offer both. Here are some questions you might want to ask as you build either your collection or even your custom based work. Should I offer free or paid samples? Paper samples? So I know some station your designers that have collections that probably printed 50 or 100 full suite samples, um, of each suite and they offer those tables for sale. So maybe it's like $10 or $15 or just, um, you know the cost to ship it and, you know, that could be a revenue stream right there. It's costly to set up to get that many sweets printed. Ah, just for the sake of samples, which is totally fine, but just something to consider me. I just I didn't necessarily, um, print a whole bunch of samples of each suite, but I did offer free paper samples, and this just might be the paper that this suite is designed from. It won't necessarily be that particular, you know, design printed on that particular paper. Another question you might. May 1 ask us. How can I educate potential clients to avoid repetitive back and forth communication from my end. So, like I said, I set up my collection, um, pretty streamlined, and I had a leak That said the guy to the collection and this this page on my site fully explained from start to finish the process. So clients new customers knew that once they added to cart, they knew they were going to get an email that prompted them for language and wording and things like that. So the more you can educate your clients on the forefront, the less back and forth you'll do communicating with them. How many font and color options should I offer? So this could be for collection based a custom based work as well. I know many people who have custom work, but they still put limitations on it. Ah, but for collection based work, you'll definitely want to ask yourself how many fun options, how many color options in my experience. Less is more, Um, you don't want to overwhelm your customer with too many options. So I would suggest picking a few maybe script finds that, um, really cover your basis. I have this real hand written organic font, but some people like the more traditional script fronts in sort of one in between. What if my client wants something I don't offer? So I get this a lot for customers that Onley need stationery. But this they just want one more thing. So it's not. It's not quite custom, but it's a little more than semi custom for this. I just charge a fee, depending on the job. So if it's a quick change, like maybe they want a different script option than I offer, I charge a Let's just say, a $50 change fee for anything they want to change. That's outside of the changes that I already offer. So you could always set up your collection that way so you could sort of have your collection be sort of ah, sort of ah, home base from where your customers or clients can start from. And you can treat changes that you don't typically offer that way. Okay, I promise we're gonna get to the design that design side of this course, But I also promised that I would get a little vulnerable with you and just share my figure . So I'm just going to talk candidly and out loud about what I charged for custom work and what I charge my client work. Um, like I said, I use the prophet first formula so you could take what I'm talking about now. And you can go back to that screen, share on whatever chapter it was where I'm sharing my e commerce site. If you look at those figures, all I did was say I want to make $1000 every time someone orders a sweet And if it's a four piece suite, that's where I started. And if you add an enclosure card that just it adds up. So I have a profit margin or a top out for each of those options. So my profit for save the dates, I think is at $800.1000 dollars for a four piece sweet and a little less for the map carded enclosure cord. And all I did was for each increment for 50 for 75 400 all the way up to 2 50 I calculated . Okay, I'm gonna need it's gonna cost me this much paper and this much printing labor to print 50 of these. It's gonna cost this much in paper and material to print 75 of these all the way to 2 50 So for a four piece suite, I'm not exactly sure what those numbers are because they're not in front of me. I Let's say it costs $250 to print a four piece suite for the paper, and the printing cost that is added to 50 to 1000 got toe $1250. And that's that's what I charged did that for each increment for each suite. So that's where I got my numbers. I know that if I get a few jobs a month at that's at least $3000 of profit a month. And let's be outsourcing the work. So it's a great set up. Um, like I said before, I wouldn't I wouldn't call it passive. It's still involved. I'm still sending revisions. I limit the revisions to three revisions per per per customer. Unless you get past that, you'll you'll be charged for it. So it's, um it's definitely been a great sort of parallel revenue stream to my custom work. So my custom work. Like I said, it's it's involved. I'm booking these brides in these couples often ah, year or more before their wedding day. I only book about, I'd say, about 6 to 8 custom rights here. I know some people that book like 50 custom brides a year or 30 for me. I I enjoy my collection work, and I enjoy how streamlined that is. And I enjoy Micah custom based clients as well. But because it's so involved, I'm often whatever their wedding month is, I'm often doing so much work that wedding month, because no matter how foreign in Vegas you plan a lot of it is sort of 11th hour work. So, for instance, I can't do place cards. I can't design and print place cards until all the RSVPs airmailed back. So I'm sort of waiting for that bride to meal there, station and get their replies back, and then make a list of people that are attending their wedding so we can work on table table seating charts and the menus and the place cars and all the things that really aren't decided until the end. So I charge a pretty big book. I charged about $3000 to just have me design your full suite from Save the dates to a wedding, stationery to day off pieces. And then I just add the cost of all those things on top of that. So it's it's complicated, but, um, what I do, it's for me. It makes it simpler, Teoh to know that I'm not pushing these clients to get, you know, fancy laser cut cake toppers. Of course, I would love that. It's so much fun. It's so pretty. But it's not gonna be a game changer for me because my profits already set. So when I talk about calculating your profit first, that's what I mean. I just mean securing not only like I said earlier, how many brides you're able to take on because I could take on more brides a month. Custom brights on uneven collection brights. But I don't want to. I'm comfortable where I'm at. I know how much money I need to make each year, and by doing the work this way, I know how many clients I need to book. So on the coming chapters, now that we've gotten all the technical stuff out of the way, I'm gonna talk about the actual wedding stationery, which is what the whole point of this class was, but I felt like I needed to do a quick overview on the foundation. And if you know me well enough or you've been around a little bit, you know, I'm never short on words. So I'm gonna happen to the next chapter and section of this course where we actually get into designing of wedding stationery. Sweet. Based on that information you've collected through your questionnaire or your website, former, whatever that is for you, so happen the next couple of chapters and get excited. 7. Etiquette Notes: so we're finally gonna get to designing for a wedding stationery. And on this quick chapter, I'm gonna go through some of the common etiquette practices that sort of pop up in my head as I design based on the couple, based on dedicated based on the formality and kind of touched on them here. But I have created a workbook, an etiquette workbook that you can download that's got everything that I'm about to talk about, plus so much more and some other useful things that you can use for yourself to educate yourself or to educate your client. So I'm just going to sort of quickly go through this part of the etiquette process before we hop in Illustrator and start to design our sweet in the course notes. You're gonna find sort of an A to Z guide. As's faras etiquette goes for both the wording on the invitation in different situations and the wording on the envelope addressing and your guest list etiquette. Um, I'm gonna go through some quick ones here. I would love to go through every single one of them, but I promise you would get bored if I do that, so I created that download for you. And also I've I've sent it along to my clients many times, especially the guest lists etiquette. So as they build their guest lists, usually in Excel, which is also a course, don't load on guest list sort of template that you can use for your clients. Um, anyway, having that guest list etiquette for your client is really great to. So as they build their guest list, they can sort of follow the rules as they go. So let's get started on the most common etiquette tips you may find yourself asking questions about as you design, So this may seem obvious, but the invitation essentials should include who is hosting the wedding, and that's probably the most important one. It's sometimes the parents of the bride. Sometimes it's the parents of the bride and the groom. Sometimes the couple host the wedding, Um and then, of course, the details of the event and who was being honored, Um, when and where the event should take place and whether or not your guests are invited to a reception afterwards. So when a bride's parents issued the invitation, that's when they are hosting the wedding they're paying for the majority of the wedding, and you know they're giving away the bride. Mr. And Mrs Anthony James Green requests the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter, Julian Fe to Andrew James Thompson. So a couple of notes I want to make the Mr and Mrs Anthony James Green is the most formal way you can prison an invitation like this. Traditionally, you would use the European spelling of honor, and that's why it's got the you in Ah, the word honor. And if you have a reply card, the same would go for favor. It would be spelled f a v o. You are, but you can spell it the American way as well. And that is perfectly fine in a situation where there is a step parent or a single parent or widowed parent, um or or divorced parents. But they're both hosting the invitation. All of that etiquette is in that download for you to go over case by case situation when the bride and groom's parents issued the invitation. So the bride's parents and the groom's here, and so the couples parents are both hosting the wedding, and they share the cost. Ah, you can word it this way. And it's real similar to what I just showed you. So Mr and Mrs Ronald J. Hoffman request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter, Amelia Jane and Landon Joseph Cotten, son of Dr and Mrs Marshall Tartan. So I put Doctor, and they're just to show you, um, how that would look when it's, you know, you're using, Ah, sort of the professional title, Um, or if it's a military title and I get all of these all of these Ah, more in depth notes or n that download. Then you'll have the situation where the couple is hosting the wedding, so that would just simply read where you would put the names first. So in this situation, you would use the whole names. Where's the examples before you would not use the bride's last name because it's already listed with the parents unless the parents and the bride have different last names. Also in that download. So when the couple issues the invitation, it would read. Julie Ann Fe Green and Stephen Wyndham request the honor of your presence at their marriage . There are lots of different ways. You can request the honor of your presence. You can use different language there, and all of that is in that download. So the next thing I want to talk about is building the guest lists and the etiquette involved in that. So you have different situations. You'll have married couples with young Children. You'll have teenagers. You'll have older Children that live in the home. You'll have couples that are not married, but they live together and all the different, Um, all the different situations you'll need to know how to address those guest. So for married couples with young Children, um oh, and this is all based on using an inner and outer envelope. Traditionally, that's what you would use. I have some brides that use just a single envelope, but for the most part, my bride's use an inner and outer. If you do have a situation where you're just using a single envelope, I find that I just sort of treat each guest on a case by case basis based on what looks best, and I'll talk more about that in a second. So for married couples with young Children, you would you would use Mr and Mrs Matthew Warren Hoffman on the outer envelope, and the inner envelope is reserved for any additional guests. So this is where you would put the Children's names. And if you know the Children well, you can include the first names only on a single line. Like the top example under the parents names otherwise used the Children's full names on their own line with their last names. I want to make a note on ah, married couples with young Children and multiple Children and siblings in the home. So this is super formal, and in my six or seven years, I don't think I've ever had anyone used this. But, um, you know, never say never. So if there are so several siblings in the home, you could address the inner envelope. Teoh the missus. Hoffman's The Viz is Hoffman two, which is two or more sisters or the Messers Hoffman. Two or more brothers or both. Um, I find this to be super formal, and most my brides are formal. But typically, when kids were invited to the wedding, um, you know them well enough to use the first name or the first and last name, like on the previous example. So this is another question. I get a lot teenagers in the home. And should they receive their own invitation, Children aged 13 and over should receive an individual invitation technically, but I understand that that's not possible in all situations. Or you just may find that to be sort of overkill, so you could just include their name one by using the same rules as above or on the previous slide. If you're using formal courtesy titles, Miss Eyes reserved toward teenage girls between 13 and 18 and Miss is reserved for 18 and older. Teenage boys received the Mr Title. Once they reach 18 years of age, couples who live together may receive their invitation together. If you know both of the guest will and the outer envelope in inner inner envelope would be addressed as, ah, this example. So Mr and Ramsey and Mr David Coldwell and then the inner envelope would say Mr Ramsey and Mrs Cold will, I'm sorry, said that backward Mrs Randy and Mr Coldwell. So the inner envelopes, the most formal way to present those names would be the last name and the social title. If you choose to include one like Mr or Miss. If you know them well, you can include just the first names on the envelope. So an invitee in a guest. If you are using an inner and outer envelope, you would reserve the outer envelope for your main guest and your inner envelope as a place to allow your main guest to invite a guest of their own. So the outer envelope would read. Mr Colin, Lane McGee and Inner Envelope would read Mr McGee and Guest. You could put for less formal option Colin and Guest. So your guest with military and professional titles. Let's talk about that. So on the inner envelope, you should treat your military and professional titles as you would social tiles written in full. Along with this, their names. Only the higher rank titles would be listed first, regardless of whether it's male or female. And more on these details are in that download, so your outer envelope would read. Dr and Mr William Jack Smith in the inner envelope would read Dr and Mr Smith and just a quick guide here as you're stuffing your envelope, there's sort of a particular order, you would want to do that. So when you're holding your outer envelope, hopefully this isn't sound confusing. As I'm explaining it. If you're holding your outer envelope with the pointed flat facing the right, you would want to stuff the inner envelope to where the front of the inner envelope is what you pulled out. So the flap of the envelope would be facing down as you insert it in that outer envelope. And then I generally stack my invitation, of course, first with the pieces in the order of their size, although this graphic sort of demonstrates sort of a rule of thumb. So this is kind of how that would look as you insert it. That far right picture shows how the inner envelope should be turned around and facing down . As you insert it in that outer envelope, you want to be able to read the inner envelopes names as you pull it out. So that's why so that was an earful, I know. And that wasn't even all of it. I was reading you sort of the main ones that I come across when I designed, so be sure to download that workbook as a guide to educate yourself and your clients as they start to, you know, build their guest list so they can sort of follow those guidelines. Those etiquette tips along the way as they build that guest list, it'll make their job easier. It'll make your job easier when they send that your way for when it's time to print those envelopes. So on the next chapter, we're gonna talk about envelopes. We're gonna talk about paper sizes. We're gonna talk about paper material in printing mediums and all that good step, and we're just about ready to design. 8. Paper and Printing Notes: in this lesson. We're gonna talk about my favorite paper types, my favorite printing mediums and all of the things that will come into play as you make decisions and start designing for your client. So get ready to start thinking about that existing client of yours or that I don't client of yours and maybe what paper types, Uh, and printing mediums will best fit that job or ideal job. So I'm gonna share my top three favorite papers that I use most often. And I'm gonna give you some sources where you can find these in, uh, of course notes as well. So, crane let Tre is one of the first papers I started designing with this paper comes in two different weights. It comes in a £110 a £220 it comes in a few different colors as well. I love the heavier weight paper for for letter press printing so you can see in this photo the actual impression that it leaves in the paper. You can still get that impression with the lighter £110 weight paper, but it just really shows up on that heavier weight paper. There's actually a digital weight paper as well. Um, so this paper is great, really? For all printing types, it's made from cotton and just has a really great feel. The thing I love about Crane Lesra is that it's got corresponding envelopes. Not all paper does. So this paper has matching matching envelopes in the same exact color, which is going to bring me to my next point. So a lot of times out find that I'll love a certain paper, especially hand made paper. But it may not come with a corresponding envelope, or if it does, maybe it's really expensive. Handmade envelopes are very, very expensive, so to get that sort of organic can made look ah, lot of times I'll pair handmade paper, which is the traditional Matt Envelope appointed flat pointed flap Matt Envelope, which saves a lot own calls since handmade envelopes are really expensive. Um, but also I just really love the look of it. I even do the same thing with crane laetrile, take crane letter paper, and instead of pairing it with its corresponding matching envelope, I'll parrot with sort of a contrast ing envelope and this is just based on the design or the couple or, you know, just some inspiration on pulling from, maybe from a color palette. Um, so handmade paper. Of course I love and like I said, it's it's costly. Tim. Make handmade paper is an expensive process because it's very I mean, it's it's handmade. And if you've ever seen that process, I encourage you to just maybe YouTube video of how handmade paper has made. Um, it will surely make you appreciate it. But if your client loves it but might not know why, it's more expensive. Um, this will for sure educate them. So handmade paper. Um, it's just a great source for me. It's just something I've fallen in love with. Not everybody loves it. Not everybody likes to work with it, but it really holds toe letter press printing and gold foil printing. Really Well, this particular photo is paper from porridge paper, and I love he's got His name is Christopher. He's, ah, paper maker. He's a letter press printer, and he's got a couple of lines of, um, already colored paper. But what I love about Hiss work is that he can sort of match a Pantone color. And that's what these two colors were, um, this green in this burgundy were custom color matches in a handmade paper, and it was just a really a really fun project. Aside from your material cost. Ah, that you'll want a factor in. You'll also want to think about your printing costs, whether you do this in house or outsource it. And remember, if you do it in house, you have to pay yourself. That's still a cost. So the most economical way to print is too flat, print or digitally print your work letterpress printing and gold foil printing and laser cut and engraving. And all of that fancy stuff gets more on the costly side. I am a letter press printer by trade and my heart, so I only offer letter press printing and gold foil printing. And if you've seen my skill share video on letterpress printing, you'll understand why it is so costly. It's very, um, it's very labor involved, but digitally printing works best for some scenarios. Like when I print programs, um, often they are front and back, and so letter press printing can be done on paper that is front and back. Ah, printed front back. But I find that I just prefer the look of digital printing for, um, you know, my day of goods and things, you know, place cards and things like that. Um, and the other way around there are some situations where letter press printing is best like for handmade paper or gold foil printing for handmade paper. Because running handmade paper because of those Dekel edges through a digital printer, Um, can make your printer really angry. It could even ruin your printer. Those deck ALS can fall off in, get tangled up in your printer head, so nobody wants that. On the next lesson, we're gonna talk about sort of the second half of all the things to consider as you designed for your clients, which is accessories. I If you've been around a well, you know, I love wax seals. You know, I love silk ribbons and things like that and vintage stamp. So we're gonna talk about what is entailed in accessories, how that affects your design, how that affects mailing your stationery and wait, and the postage amount and all that. And then oh my gosh, I think of promised it like three times, four times. Then I promise we are hopping into illustrator and I'm gonna share ah, portfolio for an actual client of mine And how I built that. Ah, sweet and how I built that portfolio. 9. Stationery Accessories: for this chapter. I'm pretty excited about this chapter part. My favorite part of designing a sweet is wrapping it up in silk ribbon and greenery and putting the vintage stamps on the envelopes and the wax seals and all of those bills and whistles. So we're gonna talk about that. A. So far is the look of it, yes, but also how that affects your sweet, how that affects mailing your stationery and all that good stuff. So first I want to talk about postage so typically when you mail a one ounce letter, or at least currently when I'm making this video and let me make a note that I am talking about USPS postage rates at the time I'm recording this video, it changes and fluctuates. Uhm probably every year or so, or maybe a little more. But for the sake of math Italy explain. Just be sure not to go off of these rates and always double check the current day postage rates for a one ounce letter in each additional else or for your specific country. If you're not watching this from the U. S. So first I want to talk about a one ounce letter. Right now, one ounce letter cost 55 cents to meal. Most of my stationery ends up being more than one else, so I would pay a surcharge or an additional else, which is currently an additional 15 cents. So what's let's see 55 Bless 15 is 70 cents. So, ideally, or most of the time, it costs me. I'm not. Ideally, most of the time it costs me 70 cents to mail a wedding suite. There are certain factors that would cause an additional surcharge, and that's not necessarily the wait. For instance, if I had a wax seal on the outside of the envelope, which I'll talk about in a little bit, that might be a surcharge. If I had an envelope that was more than 1/4 inch thick, that might be a certain surcharge. But before I get into that, I want to talk about vintage stamps because if you've been around a while, you know I love them. So for vintage stamps, I get the question a lot on how does it work. And when I started using vintage, if I had no idea how I worked so back in the day, stamps did not cost 50 cents to mail a one ounce letter, it might have cost 15 cents, eight cents. Everything was super back in the day. The coast of living was cheaper back in the day. So what, you would dio say you needed a 55 cent stamp. And for current a stamp, that's what it would be. If you wanted to use vintage postage, you would simply curate a collection of stamps that got you at least 55 cents. Sometimes the math works out perfectly dependent on your stamp cost. Sometimes it ends up being a little more, which is okay, because vintage stamps are for the look anyway, right? So for this particular bride, she had, ah, one ounce letter with some surcharges, So it probably was more than one else, and she had a wax seal on the outer envelope. So she had a 55 cent charged for just the general weight and probably the excess weight. And because of the wax seal, she had two different a second surcharge. So in the Debian will see 55 cents plus 15 cents plus 15 cents. So 55 30 is 85. So she needed 85 cents this end up being 93 cents, so not that far off. So I found these stamps, and if you add up 32 cents an eight cents 15 34 and four, you get 93 cents, which is a little more than what I needed. A quick note to, um, postage. Vintage postage is vintage, and so is the glue. So I suggest you not lick vintage posted. That seems like common sense, but you'd be surprised. So, um, I take a glue stick and I glue each one. It's a very time consuming process, but, um, I haven't intern. That helps me out when I don't have the time to put five stands across, you know, 100 envelopes. So, um, it's definitely time consuming, but oh, my gosh, it's so pretty. It's so pretty when you're all done. Another quick note on vintage stamp. So vintage jams or price around 2 to 4 times their actual value. So your stamps elections may add up to 93 cents like this one, but you're paying more for that. So a 20 cents that may actually cost you 56 50 cents give or take depending on where you get it from which I'll give you some sources, um, in the course notes as well. So just keep in mind, I mean nine out of 10 times if you're If you're messing with vintage dams, you're doing it for the look, and the extra calls is just part of that decision. So just keep it in mind as you sort of curate your design for your venture stamps. And here's a helpful tip to save own cost. Mixing some current day postage since current a postage is priced at face value, meaning, ah, 50 cent Forever Stamp or 55 cents or whatever it ISS will cost you exactly that. So sometimes if I have, if I need 85 cents for my full postage, I'll spend 55 cents and exactly 55 cents on that sort of one ounce postage rate. And then I'll make up that surcharge that 15 cents and the vintage stamps since those air sort of over priced ones. And it's not a huge saver, but I mean it. Definitely. It definitely helps. So the next thing I want to talk about is wax seals, so there are wax seal. He sieves and drip sealed in a quick note. I once had Ah, one of my very, very first clients wanted wax seals, and I didn't know about thes two methods, and I dripped wax on these envelopes and sealed them by hand. I mean the same way like George Washington would have done it. So wax seal. It uses air. Great. They are basically stickers, and they have a sticky backing that you can peel off just like a sticker dripped wax seal. There's a couple ways you can do it, but the method I discovered that really blew my mind was it was basically a glue gun. So hot glue gun. But instead of hot glue sticks, you're putting wax sticks in there so you would, you know, sort of squirt the wax owing to your placement and seal it that way with a custom or pre designed wax seal. If one of the things you want to consider when you're working with wax seals are where they are going, if you want to steal the outer envelope with a wax seal, whether it's the adhesive stickers or the glue gun style or the old fashioned way. If you want to go that route, this will add a surcharge to your postage rate like we just talked about right now. Currently, that would be an additional 15 cents per envelope or whatever it may be in your country. Or at the time you're watching this video. Another question you want to ask is what material they will be applied. Teoh. There are some situations where adhesive stickers work best for my design, and there are some situations where the drip wax works best for my design. Wax seal adhesives air Not great for being applied over. Ah, thick ribbon. So these stickers, they are flat. So if it's going over sort of a bumpy ribbon, um, you may find that the drip seal so you can sort of make it a stick is you need it to be is best for that. But for the most part, the adhesive stickers are just really, really great. So the drip seal. Like I said, you conceal the outer envelope with a drip seal or a wax seal adhesive sticker. Um, one is just aesthetically different. I find that I really like the drips to like the process of it, and everyone is just a little bit different, and it just feels a little bit more handmade. But then I have some clients that, like the precision of the adhesive, So it's it's just a personal preference. And again, what material will they be applied to? Um, like I said, Cords either is great for, but if it's a ribbon or something bumpy that it's on top of having the drip seal gives you a little bit more control over the thickness of the wax of sort of cover up any bumps. And the rule of thumb is that one wax deal. If you're if you're using the glue stick. Ah, the glue gun method one wax seal stick will get me about 10 to 12 seals, depending on how large the seal is and what I'm ceiling over. I always order some extra wax seals for when I'm, um, ceiling over a ribbon like I mentioned. And speaking of ribbon, that's the next thing I want to talk about. I primarily use Thies, too. These two ribbons. I use silk ribbon and I use a cord, and I love this gold thread, and that's really all it is and it just gives ah, really dainty look where silk ribbon is just It's a heavier texture and is also equally as fun. So one of the things you want to ask you is how much ribbon or core do you need for each suite? So I'm a big math person, and I like to know exactly how much I need of everything. So we're sort of measured out the different ties and bows that I use for different clients that I, um, tie and I measured out how much of each material we need. So for a full bow, you need about one yard per invitation. But it's always best to order more than what you need. In case you, um, you know, just need some wiggle room for your hands to tie. That, though, for a not with a tail. And this is how I use wax seals a lot. You need about 1/2 a yard at least per invitation and for a zigzag rap, which is what I love to do with cords. And it looks really great with silk ribbon, too, if it's thin enough, but I really do this a lot with courts. You need, um, at least one yard per invitation as well. So now that we've talked about paper materials and printing methods and accessories and all the things you'll want to start thinking about as you start to pull inspiration for your course project for that existing or ideal client, of course I am going to share my ideal client. It was an idol client profile created a couple of years ago, and then I booked her. I mean, she literally had the same name is the ideal client profile I built for myself. It was really crazy. And she's been, um she was a gym to work with. And, yeah, I'm going to share with her permission, share her design process. I'm gonna share the question here that she answered, um, that I had submitted to her through honey book and how I pulled that inspiration and pulled her story into her suite and really made it super personal. Personable. And it was just a really fun collaboration. So I'm actually opening up. Illustrator and the final promise were getting to the design side of this course. So silk ribbon and hairline cords are just two of the many assembly options. I used to sort of wrap everything together. So there are all the materials you want to think about as you start designing for that existing or I don't client of yours. And speaking of ideal client, I sort of built an ideal client profile. And then I literally booked my ideal client, like, the following six months. And so this is the actual client of mine? Ah, that even had the same name as my ideal client profile that I've created. Ah, but anyway, I'm going to share her actual Sweet how I decided how I presented it and all of that good stuff that I pulled from her through that honey book questionnaire that I asked her from the very beginning. So hop in the next chapter, and I'm gonna show you that, and I'm gonna without illustrator And the final promise we're going to get to the design 10. Watch Me Design in Illustrator (plus inDesign portfolio sneak peek): Okay, I know in the beginning, we talked about Illustrator and how we were gonna use illustrator to designer Sweet. But I want to show you a suite of design for what was once my ideal client who literally turned into an actual client. It was the perfect fit. I designed her sweet and in design, Adobe in aside. So if you're familiar with in design or if you've ever dabbled with it, it's really similar Teoh to illustrator, just not as user friendly some of the tools or just harder to find. But the reason I like it is because it's, um, sort of made for this sort of layout, presentation and pages format, which is how I've been sending my presentations in portfolios to clients. And it's just really easy to, you know, pop through each page. I'm going to show you the same way you can do this, an illustrator using art boards in just a minute. But I just thought that I might go through what might finish portfolio look like for Jenna and Justin. This is a couple from 2018 and, uh, then show you how I got to this point. So when I present a portfolio or a design foundation, which is what I call it. I like to include everything from the day up from save the dates to the day of Good. And this is these are things that I know my couple wants based on that honey. But question here or whatever questionnaire you might use for your client. So I also like to include things they may not know they want, like maybe a guest book or, you know, personalized Thank you cards or something like that. It's just a whole lot easier for me to design everything in one place and revise those little revisions rather than, you know, tackle the save the dates, and then tackle the main stationery and then tackle the day off stuff because nine out of 10 times if you don't offer the day off stuff. Ah, with your the day of goods with your stationery, your bride's gonna ask for it anyway. But she's probably gonna ask for it last minute. So I like to include it. I just feel like it cuts out, Um, some some waste of time that, you know, I don't know. It just makes things easier and streamlined for me. So this is what my portfolio looks like. If you remember when I asked in that questionnaire a favorite quote of the couple's. I always like to include it here. And like I said, I don't always use it literally on the stationary, but I using within the portfolio just as a nice gesture. Um oh, no. Sometimes I just find inspiration from it, and I can tell a lot about the couple about that, and they always appreciate it. So I'm just gonna go through. I like to include the typefaces I'm using sort of the color palette I have in mind. Um, if I use any monograms or crust our illustrations or a venue illustrations or maps or anything like that, I'll go ahead and get those drawn. We ended up using this one right here. We'll show you what it looks like in the design. So those three vision words where I prompted for six words and then I asked the couple to narrow them down the three. I use those pretty subjectively and I just hop on Pinterest and look for inspiration. That just makes me feel a certain wakes. I mean this is a living. This is a living room. I have this coffee table. This is nothing to do with the wedding, but something about this living room and this particular bride just connected with me and maybe strange for that's maybe not, But I don't know. These three pictures just felt like they coordinated with what ended up being the final design. So it did something for me. This was the illustrated map that we actually wrapped the sweet end. Ah, it was custom printed tissue paper and it was really, really fun and finicky, but fun. So then I get to some more literal inspiration when it comes to stationary. Good. So I try to pull different different papers that I plan on using based on the design and show that actual actual samples or photographs of past work of mine just so they can get a feel for the materials will be using. So this was to save the date design with that crest that we ended up using. This was the design for the full suite. So we had the invitation with a handmade paper paired with just a mat, inner and outer envelope. Because if you remember me saying Haiming envelopes. I use them all the time, but they are expensive, and I just personally like the look of pairing, um, the conscious, the contrast and colors right here and using regular envelopes when I'm digitally printing the addresses. It's a whole lot easier to print when regular Matt envelopes versus the, you know, handmade, sort of textured envelope. And then we had a reply card, details, card, and then the map was just a fun little touch, and we sealed it with a wax seal. This was the inner and outer envelope design and the or SCP Design, and we went ahead and we went through the ditch dams in one of the things I want to point out this this bride of this groom. They were very sentimental people. Hey was from Canada. She's from Mississippi, moved to Louisiana, so we had a lot of vintage stamps that we found that just really sort of told their story in a really quiet way. And this is a great weight it to do that. This is a great way to bring in color when you want to keep the main sweet, pretty mutual, but You know, vintage stamps are just really, really fun. They just don't make them like this anymore. And then we had a few day of pieces, so we had a program design, and I sort of laid this out. She didn't have all of these things selected until the very end. But I used a past design, and we sort of went off of that because usually you're not gonna pick out your readings or you don't know who's reading or your songs or anything like that until until Ian. But it is nice to get it sort of laid out. So all you have to do is make some quick revisions. This was another really fun personal touch. She, uh, Jenna the bride. She has two dogs, and she named sort of a specialty cocktail after her dogs, which I thought was really, really fun. And we printed this one, um, whiting over a linen. Uh, kind of like this photo here that she found on Pinterest. It was really, really beautiful reception. And then she had a couple of barman used that basically said the same thing is the hanging menu. So this was the in design version And you can save this as a pdf. And I'm gonna show you pretty much the same way you can do this. Ask art boards and saved as a pdf and illustrator. So I'm gonna happen over the illustrator. I'm gonna show you how I built this sweet based on inspiration from honey book and show you how to make this same sort of portfolio look in illustrator. Okay, so now I'm an illustrator, and this might get pretty candid, so I'm just going to rule with it and show you from the ground up how I might build the stationary suite that I just showed you in and design. So I already pulled a couple of the assets you saw in, um, in design as far as my little color palette and the crest I illustrated and what I'm gonna do when I open, illustrator, all these colors immediately drop me crazy. So I just highlight and click them all and trash this because I like black and white. So these colors, I'm just going to add to my swatches panel, and I'm gonna do that by highlighting them all and just clicking right here says new color Group click on it. You can name it if you want. I'll name it, uh, Jena's color palettes. Um, and you'll see Well, this is a okay, this is ingredient. That's why you see all of those there. But I'm just gonna keep them right here in case I need to pull from them as well. But my black, white and oatmeal color, um, are all right there in my swatches panel. So if you have on creative market, you can probably get a ton of mock ups. I like creating stationary suite that. I mean, it's a digital design, and I wanna make sure that the, um, artwork in the computer looks digital. I'm just not a mock up fan, but there are some mock ups that worked really well anyway, so we won't get into Marcus. But I just wanted to mention that so for her, sweet um, she had a handmade paper and had deck alleges, So I just sort of drew roughly a decade. Etch and I will put that as a black stroke. Just that we can see it with no field. I'm gonna sort of copy and paste. That'll even rotate it. So it's not completely the same, please. That right there. And I'm going to draw it down as if this were 1/2 a piece of paper. And, you know, this is kind of makeshift, but it's worked, and it gets my point across, and I'll show you how I sort of connect these lines in just a bit. So if you right click, all four of you highlight all four lines, right click at press join, it will make it all one shape. So if I wanted to, I could fill this with any of these colors. Um, I'm gonna fill it with this sort of off white color, but my background is white. Sometimes I color my background to, um just if it makes the stationary pop. So I know that this piece is this particular paper is from silken willow. It's about six by eight. Um, which This this artwork is probably not large enough. But just to show you it's six by eat, so you can feel your shape and, you know, create the size that you needed to be by adjusting the width and height. So I just made a larger art board on this wins 30 by 18 Because the other one wasn't large enough for me to keep this paper at at its scale. And I like to design to scale. So I know, uh, really, just exactly what it's gonna look like. So I'm just going to copy and paste this because I know her reply card was the same paper, and it was 3.5 by five. And to sort of set that aside, I'm going to create an envelope now. So for a six by eight, um, I think it's actually five gonna changes. This paper is not quite six. The envelope that we use, um, was six by nine. Well, the other way. So I'm just gonna rotate that. And the way I feel my envelopes, all all we're really building here is a bunch of shapes that we will then, um, designed from design on top of So we're sort of building our materials. I guess you could say so. I'm building the triangle top of number to make this look like a an envelope. So I'm highlighting this. I'm going to go to my direct selectable or shortcut. Um, a warning back. Anyway, um, right click average. Both okay, is gonna short. Not a little bit. All right. I'm actually going to group this together by pressing command G on the back, our control Gee, on a PC and envelopes tend tohave sort of those lines. Just sort of to find my middle. I know that this is my middle point. I'm gonna drag a guide mark before I draw this line. Just so I know we'll make you just a little bit there. So now it kind of looks like I haven't envelope here that all together. And this if you remember back on that design was that oatmeal club color. So I just opened my eyedropper tool by pressing I, um, to color this and I'll go ahead and give it a stroke. Just that we concede a little better. You Nice thing When I wanted to look too harsh, bring this too. What? So now we have sort of a little mock up that we can use Teoh design our main invitation from I'm gonna rotate this this way. Actually, I think it was this way. She had a separate handmade peace. Um, you know, these two pieces were from let's say it was from silken willow. And she had a details card that was sort of corresponding with the oatmeal paper from porridge paper. Much of indigent earlier. And the course And he was out for best six. I'm sort of going up over here. I'm gonna bring the eyedropper tool by pressing I and match that color. I could have just selected it. Um, from here. Didn't add these to my swatches panel. I think like it when I made that Newark word. So these are the pieces. Let me go ahead. Copy and paste this envelope? Actually, no. We used a corresponding handmade envelope, so I'm just gonna just build it. It was C silken willow. It was a coordinating envelope, and I know it's about 1/4 inch larger than this. I also know that it's square flaps. I'm just gonna build that flat here. Just like that. Just like we made these little lines here to sort of mimic that, um, little opens lot. I'm gonna do the same thing. This is really just Teoh. So get Belykh what we're going for. And if my bride is not local, um, I'll always send paper samples Or she could meet me in my studio and we so I mean, it's hard to, you know, picture This is paper if you've never seen it as paper. But if you've seen it as paper, then you know well enough, Um, and have probably a good imagination, too, what the final design will look like. All right. And I'm going Teoh sort of go in isolation mood and grab this original first rectangle that I selected because I want to showcase with the outer an inner envelope will look like Has it still not designed for the addressing? And just copy and paste another one of these to stick it in the bag, Just like everything you move. It almost didn't make this are board big enough, But we're gonna make it work. Nothing's ever notice. The and tedious now. Okay, So the typefaces I used and what I'll typically do it's really small. Has have their names. Um, and the typefaces I used typed up somewhere sort of on off the are poor. Second to sort of pull from him. Um, Bell Mt. Is just I want to say it's a standard bond, at least in the back. And I just particularly look it's I I have a preference for Koerting, which is just the space in between each letter. I don't like things to look too crowded, so I always add a pretty big Kerney, especially if it's going to be letter press printing. I just feel like it letterpress printing. I just feel like it gives you some breathing room. The script front I use used, Um, apparently I can't site and talking with passion. Uh, this group front I used was called Rare Bird, and that was specimen, too. She's a calligrapher, the artist that made this and don't ever put turning on a pot of script fund that was like , really Terryl. He would separate the letters. That's if they were connected. So we don't want that. Um, she's a calligrapher, the artist that made this spot and has a wedding stationery. Linus will and I just find this handwritten font really, really beautiful. Sometimes I have to add a hairline stroke to it, especially if I'm letter press printing. Um, just to get up, give it a little bit more by n print onto the paper, so I believe I used to the spot as lower case option two. So I just secondary typeface in a tallix you're gonna. But that turning up on both of those. So this is would where we just start pulling the information in the language that my couple has state made through honey book, and I'm going to make up names. I'll use my parents name my main A crew. Bl could be on to been an impure speaking Cajun French or not apparent. Louisiana. So this is where I would just start the design process, Um, a state man and really get things just sort of laid out like I like it we're gonna use This is Tallix. I like sort of the boldness of having the parents name sort of in all caps and then keeping everything else stopped. I go by my middle name, I guess I could use Jennette's. We're gonna find hits the middle name. Just touch on etiquette here as well. I don't remember. Amounting. Please go with this. Uh, so I know this is not her parents name. This is my parents names. But if Jenna's last name is the same as her parents, you wouldn't put her last name here. But if this were a step parent or a situation like that. And the last the last names were different. You would put her last name here as well, so we'll just pretend and, um, missing with sort of the line height. Now, always like to make my to just a little bit smaller. All right, I'm just going to sort of continue my same format down. Some funds are tricky, their numbers or sometimes just smaller. So I'll go in and just kind of minute. Really? So a note here. This isn't all caps, but typically, the only thing if this were written out like this is probably the most formal way. And you would only capitalize Saturday in October and the only punctuation you ever uses a comma after, um, the day of the week when you are listening out the date this week but always go by your personal preference on the design and this is how I like it when you write out a year 2018 you would not include. And that would be, um, etiquette. Speaking and correct that were on the half hour, you would write it like a at half past 60 clock. All right. I like the form, and I've been using us in the first. The first line is sort of like the main number information. Um, see, I don't remember no fish. Sometimes I like toe bottom. Wait. The venue information, Um, or especially if the reception venue is listed as well, cause this would be a really great place for, um, an illustration of the church or an illustration of the video or I'll bottom wait the entire design and perhaps will put her crest here. Think that would look really nice. You could sort of find that middle and again before you know, sickness to the printer. All this would be double check, but for the sake of the design, sometimes you have to alter things to make it look right. Um, and sort of your presentation. Okay, so then I would just go through the same process, and I'll often just copy and paste the formatting I used. Um, that way everything is the same size, and I'm not, You know, those are recreating each text box and formatting. So when your invitation, you always want to ask, what's your brides? Clyde? By Davis. And often this is dictated by the venue. The reception may want a head count for catering purposes. By a certain time. I like to have, um I'm drawing a text box. Meant to just click. I don't like textbooks. Is an illustrator. Oh, no. What did you Yeah, I like to recommend that stationary is mailed out 8 to 12 weeks before the wedding and that your RSVPs are usually, um, at least a month before the wedding. So this is the sixth of October. Please reply by the first of September, you'll have people that will send them late. Um, but requesting them early never hurts. It was gonna draw. Don't get up. Take this. Formatting Norris. VP's can get crowded. I like to keep it simple. This is a good place. Um, Teoh have a little fun. If you have the room, you can always do a larger or is BP size. Um, but just so I could make a note on the size. This is 65 and 75.758 I like oversized stationary. Five by seven is a completely normal place to start, but when it's a wedding, I don't know. I just like to go. I just like to go up a little bit. Um, I think it makes it feel more grand, more formal. Um, but really, you can use whatever size you want. RSVPs are often 3.5 by five, which would be paired with what is called a four bar, um, envelope. And I also want to make a note that some European style envelopes refer to their envelope sizes, you know, in a nine envelope or a six and all these letters and numbers that I'm spitting out may mean something different. But what I'll do is I'll create a cheat sheet in the download section for different sizes and combinations of those sizes that would be considered standard. So because I know that I wanted this to be 3.5 by five, because this is handmade paper, so it kind of is what it is. I wanted the details car just to be a little bit larger. So this is four by six, just knowing how they'll how they'll stack. So this was her reception card, and you could put with many details see what I'm gonna takes about script. Bring it back, see more on wedding website. You never want to include any type of wedding site information when the main stationary always include that. If you have to go in a separate, um, separate enclosure card centering that back up, that's it. Its own text box. This is a little clothes, and I'm just going through, um, just in time or Jenna was there hashtag and which is always a great place for Dumaine. Which brings me to a point I want to make. Um, not all of your clients will do this, but encourage your clients to purchase a domain name. You can get them for about 10 bucks for a year. Well, and go, Danny, and link them to whatever you use for a wedding website. Because if this war, you know the knot dot com slash us slash in numbers Last, Justin angina. That doesn't hut. That does not look pretty. So always encouraged. My couples, if they have a wedding website to purchase, um, purchase a custom domain, it just It just looks better. Something's gonna keep this like this. Um, I like the top and bottom weight of this. And if this is boring, by all means, Skip ahead, But I just kind of want to go through the different ways. I would think out loud and design. I have a weird personal preference. I like all lower case, even when it's, um, proper noun and pronoun such be uppercase, Just me. So we're gonna make follow this a little bit bigger. I like to put a pretty big occurring on my the codes to make sure the post office seeks them. Gonna bring that guide. And I'm just dragging the rulers from the edge. If your rulers or not on you can press control or command are and it will talk a toggle them one and off. I like Teoh. Also bottom. Wait, My address is because I know I'm putting putting a lot of vintage teams are here, and so this would be the inner envelope, which is a little bit smaller. So here, all showcase. The more formal way to use an inter envelope would be to say, Mr and Mrs Johnson, you would use the last names only. And let's say my little ones were invited to this wedding and she knows that well, so we're just gonna put their names sort of matching the format that we used about and some people hate that this is all lower case. Um, that is just a personal preference. This is a good situation where you could break the rules if you want to. That is just completely up to you and your clients. But let's say that I am Jena's aunt and uncle. You could also be completely casual on the inside of your envelope and say, Um and who have been I'll go, Michael. And typically, I just go by case by case. Let's say she's, you know, blood related to Uncle Michael. He can come first. So that's just also a personal judgment. One your clients. So there you have it. That's sort of a rough, quick illustration of how I would design. And I like to include, like, little notes and the ditch diem selections that I would go through. Um, maybe what I'll do is group this all together. I'm gonna group this together to second, usually copy and paste this in just a second, I'm gonna pop over to the side, some kind. Sometimes I like to showcase what this would just copy and paste in all the things that I just did. I like to showcase what it would look like. Um, all assembled. So if you remember, this was two pieces we just sort of built. Someone's gonna take the bottom half of this coffee and pants to over here. It looks like I didn't grab that little handle. That's okay. No. In her slit, it's gonna get covered up and actually needs to go the other way. And this is on that, um, that slide that had Thea how you would step your envelope for the r S V P. This is how you would want it to lay. You wouldn't want the flat on the left side. So when you close the flap over this, you wouldn't stuff the RSC you would just sort of fold it over together like this. So I just kind of like to copy and paste everything I've done. I didn't copy everything, um, to showcase what it might look like. What if I looked like a simple So I don't know if we'll be able to squeeze that on here, bringing these two fronts you get, get me. So again, you know, if this had ribbon, we can sort of draw that, Um, maybe that's exact ribbon and gold would have been really pretty for this. We ended up wrapping this sweet and a, um, cause some printed tissue, which was really pretty. It's just pretend this this gold copy and picks that rotate it reflected. You get the right size and a really pretty wax seal will be. I'm right here, and I have images of wax seals that have images of vintage stamps just sort of as a stunk in a folder that I can pull from and sort of build with my design. But this is a pretty good understanding of how you could build straight from illustrator, um, sort of build your material this way as just different shapes based on when the sizes and the colors are close to the colors that you'll be designing from, and then just start. Start your typography and the layouts based on your client's preferences from what they gave you from what you prompted them through honey book or your website. Or however you collect your language. Okay, so I want to show you sort of the way you can use art boards the same way you can use pages in and design. So an illustrator if you want to get that same sort of portfolio. Look, um, here's how you would do it. So this was my original. This is my original file that I set up and it's let's see, 30 by 18. I believe so. If I wanted multiple pages, that sort of have the same layout and I could have different inspirations and different, just different context on each one. You can make a narc board and I'll show you how to do that. I'm just going to trace over this box. Um, zoom out. Although I could have just drawn this box knowing what my dimensions are, you know, they're 30. I could have just type them here. So now I just have this square. But I went this. I'm gonna make it white because I want all the back of my documents to be white. Um, I want to make this an art board, so I'm just going to click it, go to object. Art boards convert to art boards. So now illustrator is reading, and I just did this One illustrator is reading each one of these. What was once just a square as almost like a page or an art board. So when you go to save this is a pdf, it will save each one of these as a separate each art board as a separate A separate. PdF. So this is great for Justus. An example. Um, what? I'll do what I do. What I'm going to do is a pulled Jenna's inspiration folders up, and I'm just going to show you. Let's see, It's with a pretty packed This may not have been what I used. I'm just gonna pull an image here, um, size it towards just a little bit bigger than these little boxes I've created. Sent it to the back. Highlight both of those impressed. Make clipping mask. So all this did a Clinton mask just sort of blocks out everything that's outside of that square. So if I needed toe move this around, I could go in isolation road and just sort of move it around to wear it. Showcases what I want to showcase. Um, so this would be great, Teoh. You know, if you wanted Teoh, pull those inspiration words from the honey, but questionnaire or your, you know, stationary inspiration. Whatever that is for you. Maybe you can showcase the typefaces you want to use or your color scheme. Whatever. However, you want to present your invitation, uh, invitations. However you want to present your presentation, um, art boards or in design is a great place to do that. And you can get that same of back using art boards that I showed you in and assign. So there you have it. That's two of however many pages you want to create and which you could do afterwards is just popped those and, um, you know, Adobe Acrobat, where you can sort of compress those into one document So you're not sending her, you know, 20 different pdf's. We are coming to an end of this course, and on the next chapter, I wanna talk about probably the most important part off designing your stationery, which is mailing your stationery and the careful handling you'll want to ensure happens when either you or your client brings that pretty paper to the post office. So everyone designs differently. Some people use Adobe Illustrator. Some people use photo sha Ah, I use sort of a combination, actually between Adobe illustrator and in design the way. I just showed you how to build portfolios using art boards. You can also do in in design, actually much easier. Sometimes I just bounce back and forth. So in design was sort of made for, um sort of the presentation, the book building and things like that. So you can have different pages all in one document and do it that way. I just started out using illustrator when I started my business, So I'm just I'm used to it. But however you design spending some time really connecting with your clients on the forefront of your collaboration and then bringing all of that into your design process will really create an amazing presentation. And your couple will feel like you're so invested because you are and you're telling their story through stationery. And that is why we stationary designers love what we do. And, um, yeah, it's just a really great opportunity, Teoh to collaborate with your client on something really, really special. The invitation is the first thing their guest will see. So it's almost I always call it the preface of the story. It's kind of my thing. My word. I use a lot so I always call Call the invitation Sort of the preface to the whole story where the wedding is Chapter one and all of your seasons afterwards that follow our the remaining chapters of the story of you. 11. Mailing Your Stationery + Final Thoughts: on this last little lesson. I want to talk about probably the most important step when it comes to designing Wedding Station, which is mailing the stationary whether it's you mailing the stationary for your client, and especially if it's your client mailing the stationary because you're used to this. But they're not so mailing wedding stationery or any fine stationery. Really, they're really important stationary, that's you. Spend a ton of time putting vintage stamps on. You'll want to take a careful handling of that station your to your post office. So I'll just candidly talk about some experiences I've had. So number one you want to ask your post office to hand cancel your stationery? I have written numerous block post about this for myself. For other companies, it's so important. So he and canceling is literally just before there were machines that could do this for you . The cute little circles stamp that said that the date that changed every day and you would stamp the the stamp you would stand him up. The postage stamp with this circle stamp and all that did was sort of cancelled the stand from being killed off and used again so it sort of market is used. You could say so. One of the things this does or avoids is machine canceling your stamps, which is, if you ever gotten a letter. Probably most of your bills would come this way. You have that barcode on the bottom of your envelope. So if you are a calligrapher and you just hand addressed 100 envelopes and it's beautiful and there are vintage champs across it, the last thing you want to do is see a really ugly barcode at the bottom of that piece of artwork, and not only the look of it but machine running wedding stationary because it's usually thicker, you might have liners. You might have ribbons, especially if you have vintage stamps, or especially if you have wax seals on the outer envelope of your your piece machine. Canceling those envelopes machine running on a machine sorting or different terms that may be used, um, would probably ruin them. So you would be you would be really sad. You would have really one really, really upset client. Um, and I've heard some some pretty horrible stories about that. So hand canceling number one most post offices around my area are pretty nice about it. Sometimes they look at me like I'm crazy because they don't want to do it because it does take a lot of time, especially if it's vintage stamps and you have five stamps. Um, you know, you have to stay up five different stamps across, however many envelopes. So a note to make about that one offer to help. There have been many of times where it's maybe a holiday season or just a busy time, and I offered to do it myself. So I'm there at the post office with the little stamp and just made myself comfortable, and I hand stamped, ah, hand canceled all of my envelopes myself. Another good note. To make, um, if you're dropping them off to the post office to hand cancel, allow a couple of extra mailing days because, like I said, it's a time consuming process. So it's just, um, something that they usually do in between customers coming in to mail letters and buy postage stamps and all that. So it's always good to allow a couple of extra days Teoh half them hand. Cancel your stationery so another. If your meal in your stationery to your clients, and maybe they're taking care of the assembly. I've had clients that really just enjoyed that process, or they wanted to put on the vintage damps. Or they had the ribbon already, and they wanted to tie all the all of the ribbon. It's just best to guide your clients not only on the mailing process, but it he assembly tips you can give so anything you can educate your clients on, um, early one and as you deliver their stationary just really mix makes the whole process smoother. So from etiquette from the design from all the things that we have talked about, I hope that this course has been super helpful, like upset in this course. I'm never short on words, so all my courses in Nepean longer than I intended them to be. But the first half of this course sort of recaps part one. But if you haven't had a chance toe to watch the part one version of this I recommend going to watch it, and I hope you, ah, leave a review or find me on instagram or ask any questions. Be sure to download the, um the class notes stuff that I've created for you. The etiquette guide. I've also created Excel spreadsheets that you can use for your clients to use as their, uh, guest lists build and excel, which is compatible with numbers as well. Um, anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the course, and I look forward to seeing your course project come to light.