The Reading Bridal District website has just been updated for 2009. Click HERE to check it out and see the new amo-ink page. The district is pretty happenin' these days - there are so many fantastic stores to visit where you can check out cakes, dresses, caterers, accessories, etc. If you are getting married, the RBD is the place to be! Most the businesses are centered around Benson Street - but some also spill over near the intersection of Reading and Benson. There is plenty of free parking available in several public lots, or along the street. Come up this Saturday - I know amo-ink will have coffee and cookies to share!

I get the nice little 'google ads' on my gmail, and today an ad for THIS particular ad agency - specializing in hand addressed correspondence. In a nutshell, one of their firm's services involves addressing your mass mailings - by hand. Shocking? I know, its strange that doing things by hand these days has become a novelty. According to the site:

Your prospects check their mail the same way you do. They scan each envelope to determine if it's a bill, junk mail, or something worth their interest. Everything from the envelope, to the stamp, to the address determines whether or not your mail piece will pass this test.

When your envelopes are hand-addressed and stamped by real people, it is guaranteed to have the personal touch that makes the recipient curious and excited to open it. In a stack of their everyday mail, they will not just open it; they will likely open it first.
This just blows me away! I wish I had thought of it first... (I've mentioned before that I have always wanted to be a professional handwriter...) This whole concept, of course, brings me to the discussion of addressing your wedding invitations. Clients all the time flippantly say things like "when we print out our mailing labels..." and I cringe. I highly reccommend hand addresing your wedding correspondence - no matter what. Not everyone can afford to hire a calligrapher, however I would be thrilled if you would - but you should take the care and time to hand-write those addresses. Guests will know something special is inside when they find that you took the time to personally address the envelope. No excuses for bad handwriting either - find a generous family member or friend who would love to do the work for you!

Doodling has always been a favorite activity of mine - ever since my days in elementary school I always felt I could concentrate better while keeping my pen active in the margins... This morning on NPR I heard a story that proved my theory true! You can visit the NPR site HERE to listen to (or read) the article in full. Basically, the article features a study on the brain and what its doing when you're bored. To sum up the article:

Andrade tested her theory by playing a lengthy and boring tape of a telephone message to a collection of people, only half of whom had been given a doodling task. After the tape ended she quizzed them on what they had retained and found that the doodlers remembered much more than the nondoodlers.

"They remembered about 29 percent more information from the tape than the people who were just listening to the tape," Andrade says.

In other words, doodling doesn't detract from concentration; it can help by diminishing the need to resort to daydreams.

I have actually even incorporated a doodle into a custom wedding invitation! My client Rachael Jacobs had been doodling the same geometric pattern in notebooks since her childhood, and thought it would be fun to incorporate the pattern into her wedding stationery. She doodled up a page, we scanned it in, colored it in Photoshop, created a vellum overlay with text, and voila! We had an interesting background for their 100% unique invitation! (photo below)
The NPR article also included fascinating images of doodles from past US presidents. Check out the photos and captions below I took from their site. Looks like we had some talented president/artists!President Reagan took great pride in his doodling. He liked to draw babies and horses and often used gooey terms of endearment when writing to his wife Nancy. (Nancy Reagan is probably depicted in the center bottom of this page, which she had framed and kept on her desk).
Lyndon B. Johnson often doodled while talking with reporters aboard Air Force One. Many of his drawings have a distinctively aggressive and manic quality.
George Washington's math and drawing skills helped him in his career as a surveyor. Washington was "anxious... to appear neat and correct in his letters," wrote Philadelphia doctor and revolutionary Benjamin Rush.
President Obama's doodle, sketched as part of a "National Doodle Day" to benefit the charity Neurofibromatosis, contains likenesses of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Democratic colleagues Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles Schumer of New York.

Postage rates are getting ready to increase again! (I know, shocker!) As of May 11, a regular one ounce letter will require 44 cents - a 2 cent increase. Brides who will be mailing out invitations need to keep this in mind - not that the 2 cent increase is going to break the bank or anything, but you need to be aware of when you are mailing, and especially when your guests will be mailing their rsvps back. If you are mailing before the increase, a smart thing to do would be to affix a "Forever" stamp on the response envelopes. Those stamps can be purchased at any time, and mailed out at the current rate "forever!"I always encourage my brides to do custom postage for their wedding stationery. The post office has kindly designed a wedding invitation stamp set - however, the colors are pale pink and purple, which look hideous on any other color envelope besides white or ivory. Often the stamp options are slim pickins when you are ready to mail out those invites - custom postage is a great way to further personalize your wedding stationery set!

Often times when you begin wedding planning you may have a feeling, thought, idea, color scheme, theme or concept that you would like to become the main focus of your celebration. At amo-ink, we LOVE it when the couple comes to visit us early, because we can help define elements of design that can be carried throughout your wedding day. The invitation is the first piece your guests will see regarding your wedding - it's a great place to start establishing that concept. Take Jenny and Casey for example, we created a fresh green floral motif for their wedding stationery for their summer wedding. They then took the pattern to their cake vendor, Maribelle Cakery, who then flawlessly replicated the detail on their delicious cake!