Because it allows you to create the blueprint for your perfect invitation!

We like the term Blueprints for our process because creating your invite in this way is a lot like building a new home. In house-building, you first specify the features that are important to you, and then work begins on creating the perfect plan for your house. Once the size of the rooms, layout, and finishes are all set, the builders then put the actual house together, following your blueprint.

Same with our Blueprints – you use our well-oiled machine to specify the fonts, colors, and elements that you like, and then our graphic designers (Jessica, Vanessa or Christina), create your actual invitation from the Blueprint you've specified. Together, you and Blustery Day Design create the perfect design team to give you professional, customized invitations that are exactly what you want.

In short, a lot! We're DIY woman ourselves and understand the desire to be creatively involved in your invites. With the Blueprint Machine, we can give you the opportunity to do what most people find to be the "fun" parts of invite DIY, without the parts that are the most time consuming or unfamiliar to someone not in the stationery business professionally.

Using the Blueprint Machine, you retain the “designer” role you are likely looking for, and are able to play (or obsess, as it may be!) over all the finer details of your particular Blueprint creation yourself. And then you can send it on to us to do the heavy lifting of getting your pieces laid out, prepped for printing, printed, and cut.

Once we then get it back to you, your DIY urges can go further wild with any amount of embellishment or extras you want to add to the mix — you can add ribbon, punch a shape cutout, attach a backing card(s), slip it into a pocketfold, make your own additional inserts, apply gems or glitter, tie on some twine, round the corners – your creativity is the only limit!

They're shortcuts to get you started. If you think of the Blueprint Machine as creating a blueprint for your invites (that we then execute to your specifications), then the Floorplans are your starting points. Similar to starting with a particular model of new home plan and then adding an extra bathroom, you could start from a Floorplan that catches your eye and make it yours. For instance, add a monogram, change the colors, or pick a new font!

We are always adding new Floorplans to keep up with current trends, to expand the diversity of possible styles to demonstrate, and as we add new images and fonts. Most people seem to appreciate a little visual head start of certain combinations that look good together – but you're certainly welcome to just start from the “Blank Slate” as well! Even all the Floorplans cover just a small sample of the possible options you can create.

That's a good question! Let's start with a brief overview of catalogs and custom design.

Catalogs can offer a pretty big, set selection of invitations, with a low price point, because they are prepared and ready for mass-production. With a catalog offering, you search through the listed invitation styles to find one you might want. The selection is usually fairly traditional with a few possibly more trendy styles in there too. If you find one you like, you then may have the option to choose from a few (usually 1-4) available “colorways”, and then place your order with your specific wording. On the other end, the stock file for the template & coloring you chose is opened, your wording is adding, and the final invite printed. Sometimes the graphical elements are even preprinted previously, and then your wording is printed onto those in a separate pass.

With custom invitation design, the sky (and your budget) is the limit. You are not limited to any particular size, shape, paper color, or printing type. You work with a graphic designer to refine your vision over several rounds of ideas, and eventually hone in on the final invitation that you desire. The higher price point of this service is from all of the designer's time involved – maybe meeting with you multiple times or creating multiple design ideas, as well as researching and coordinating any new products, techniques and vendors your vision may require to produce. The result is highly customized invites that can be as elaborate or as unique as you wish.

With our Blueprints, you are creating a unique design that our graphic designers then produce in a small batch just for you. The Blueprint Machine provides a huge degree of flexibility, within a standard format (for size, paper color, patterns, etc.) that we've found accommodates the majority of the invite styles desired by couples. You are not limited to the “Floorplan” selections we have created and are free to experiment to your heart's desire! This lets you create a much more non-traditional invitation design if you so desire, still within the options the Blueprint Machine includes. (Into muted pink, bright yellow, stripes and dragons? We have you covered!)

With Blueprints, you are also not limited to a certain few colors or combinations. Once you create your own personal Blueprint, one of us will individually create your actual invitation from the Blueprint elements (fonts, colors, wording) you've specified, using our professional knowledge to set up the invitation perfectly with your details and making any tweaks needed to perfect the design graphically. Since using the Blueprint Machine puts the power to immediately see different combinations in your hands, it removes a lot of the back and forth design work and communication time from the process, allowing us to offer our Blueprint service at a reasonable price point in between catalog invitations and a traditional custom design process. In the end, your Blueprint invites will truly be one of a kind!

Ah. We thought you might ask. Well, we originally snuck a “Randomize Everything” button into the Blueprint Machine code for ourselves, because it was quite amusing to see all the various combinations it would spit out. We had so much fun clicking it that we decided to share the joy! We do NOT promise that all of its creations will look nice. In fact, we can guarantee that a whole lot of the outcomes will be hilariously atrocious. But hey, that's why it's crazy.