Happy Fall, Y'all! Or something like that… haha. It is still in the 90's here but I am so excited for Fall to be here. I love cozy sweaters, boots, football and cooler temps! I ended the Summer with a bang!

Beach Inspiration Shoot | Victoria Austin Designs

CONS:
Yikes, let's see here! I suppose the one thing that stands out to me is time management. It's really tough for me to stay completely productive throughout a project. Especially when there are so many distractions. I am getting better at this with each order, as I keep learning my time is my money. But there are still days when I make the conscious effort to work slower, with more distractions, knowing that will cut into my time "off" after five. I ultimately want to work 8-5 (with some variation obviously) but that requires a lot of self discipline! I know so many creatives can relate! I am always eager to try new tricks for time management/productivity that others have learned so please share!

PROS:
As my ladies from High School would sum it up, "best month evaaaa"! But really it was great, and as always, I have learned so so much. I mailed out two more suites, both really different and I loved them so! I will share photos soon. I was featured on 100 Layer Cake for our beach inspiration shoot! Still my favorite shoot ever (photo above).
Jane, of Southern Calligraphy, and I collaborated a BUNCH! And made many brides so happy with our final products. We also provided some goods for a shoot with Weddings and Events by Jenna Laine! I love working with vendors in our area!
I GOT A BUSINESS BANK ACCOUNT! Woop Woop! :) It feels SO good to get that done and stay organized. If anyone is thinking of taking the leap, DO IT! And for locals, I highly recommend Hancock Bank! They were super informative and helped me throughout the process.
Mary and I provided florals for a wedding and we had fun with the design aspect and learned a lot about different types of blooms, supplies, traveling with flowers, and assembly! They turned out beautifully and the couple had the most romantic evening (I have shared a few photos on my FB page). Congrats to Ashtin and Cameron!

My best friend, Jenna, got married! She has been dating her man since our freshman year of college and we were so happy to fly out to California and finally see them tie the knot! They had the most beautiful ceremony and reception at Mariner's Church and Shady Canyon Golf Club! Jenna asked me to do some paper goods for their wedding, some sneak peaks are below (iPhone)!

Details Details Wedding Planning and Events

As always, I CAN'T WAIT for all the professional photos to show y'all! For now I hope those sneak peaks from yours truly will do. A special congratulations to two of our closet friends, Charlotte and Ryan, on their engagement! Let the celebrations begin, again!

xo,

I am THRILLED to share the details of Anne & Garrett's letterpress wedding invitations! Anne has been so fun to work with from the very beginning, and I can't praise her style enough. She has a clear vision for her and her fiancé's wedding aesthetic and it has been so valuable learning from her during her planning process. I couldn't love an invitation suite more! Now that these pretties are landing in mailboxes all across the United States (and Norway, Spain and Sweden), I wanted to take a moment to style a few photos and give a shout-out to all the creatives who took part.

A wise woman, Rhiannon Bosse of Hey Gorg Events, recently spoke at Pursue the Workshop and I was all ears. She touched on the idea of outsourcing for aspects of any process that, as a business owner or designer, you may not be the very best at, or simply aspects you don't enjoy. Overall, I love the final product, I love assembling, I love designing and styling. I do not trust myself calligraphing 167 envelopes, nor do I own a letterpress machine (bummer, I know). Rhi was honest in her discussion about taking a chance on others when outsourcing and this SO gave me the extra push to do so, and in turn, producing these gorgeous invitations! Thanks for the kick in the butt, Rhi!
I can't thank V.A.D.'s summer intern, Amanda, enough for helping me assemble! Amanda got more talent than any "student" I have met and has passion and drive to get her hands dirty while home for the summer. Which is great because this was her first project with me and I was terrified of boring her with the assembly process! I am so happy she reached out to me! More on Amanda later. :)

These suites were mailed using beautiful Vintage Stamps from Verde Studio, who was unbelievably helpful to work with. Virginia kindly did the legwork of adding enough postage to each set so I could mail these heavy letterpress invites! With the wax seal, each postage cost a total of $0.81, a whopping 5 or 6 stamps per envelope! Brides, be sure to look into this before heading to USPS to ship a unique suite! Better safe than sorry when it comes to our postal system. We chose cool, earthy tone stamps (not shown above). But I do love that these girly tones work great with the suite as well!

Jane, of Southern Calligraphy, out of Fairhope, AL, did a fabulous job addressing each envelope perfectly! I love her style and know that Anne and Garrett's guests will too! An extra special thanks to Kara Anne of Kara Anne Paper for giving me some of her experienced tips and tricks when ordering letterpress. After seeing her beautiful work right here in Alabama, I had to reach out! She is so kind and generous, among TALENTED, and gave me helpful pointers and referrals which saved me a few headaches when creating these!
With some extra stamping, Paper Phine and coordinating wax seal, these were designed and assembled by me and I am oh so happy with the results!

| Envelopes are "Gravel" from Paper Source. |