The Green Kangaroo - Unique Wedding Invitations and Stationery

We love the free Wedding Websites on WeddingWire so much that we wanted to be sure to let you know when our new designs hit the site! You can now incorporate TGK’s “Josie,” “Floral Decor,” “Bird & Blossom,” “Sunflower,” “Hydrangea,” and “Fall Leaves” motifs into your own free wedding website to create a fully customized, one-of-a-kind Web presence. Just as with our invitations, each Website motif is available in numerous colors so you can make it your own.

Let us know if you choose a TGK WeddingWire Website design – we’d love to feature you here on our blog!

With Valentine’s Day just around the bend, we are preparing for an upswing in newly engaged brides interested in Save-the-Date cards! Love it or loathe it, Valentine’s Day is arguably the most popular day of the year to get engaged. So if you think your sweetie is gearing up to pop the question, we’re featuring some super romantic Save-the-Dates to get you in the spirit of the holiday!

The Josie Save-the-Date in Lipstick Pink and Grass Green ink combines classic elegance with a fun, modern color combination perfect for spring. Shown here with the background tinted Lipstick Pink just a few shades lighter than the type.

The Cari Save-the-Date in Chocolate and Cherry Red ink on champagne paper is a nod to vintage style that retains a modern feel with the brown-and-red color palette.

The Bliss photo Save-the-Date in Pewter and Cranberry ink with its flouncy flower is one of our most popular designs. Incorporating a romantic photo is a great way to personalize your save-the-date cards.

Keep us posted on how you plan to spend Valentine’s Day! We’ll be on the lookout for romantic engagement stories.

There is a lot going on in the studio this week! First, we have to alert our blog readers to our very limited time offer. Starting today, for 5 days only we’re offering super big, flat discounts on your orders!

From January 13th through 17th:

- Take $150 off your order of $1000 or more (coupon code TGK0110-150 at checkout)

- Take $100 off your order of $750 or more (coupon code TGK0110-100)

- Take $50 off your order of $500 or more (coupon code TGK0110-50)

Hurry, hurry! We know you made “getting organized for the wedding” your top resolution for the new year! This is our way of helping you kick that resolution into gear by getting those wedding stationery orders complete.

Also, be sure to check out Kristen and Melissa’s latest contribution to the Wedding Aces blog! They explore choosing a Cool Wedding Date (10-10-10 will be a popular one for this year!). We’ve done some creative invitations playing up eye-catching dates and would love to hear some of the neat dates our blog readers have chosen!

TGK’s designs are now available through Wedding Wire to customize their free wedding Web sites! Wedding Wire marks the second site that TGK is partnering with in offering brides handy, free, personalized wedding tools. (Our designs are also featured on OneWed.com, another site we love!)

Frankly, we think it’s just plain cool that brides can publish a free wedding Web site that coordinates with their overall wedding and stationery theme. (And the fact that Wedding Wire places The Green Kangaroo’s designs right next to the Martha Stewart Weddings designs has only gone to our heads a teeny little bit. Promise!) Check out the sites and let us know what you think!

Since we do such a large portion of our business online, we really enjoy opportunities to get out of our studio and meet brides and other wedding vendors. And this past New Year’s weekend, we did just that! The Green Kangaroo exhibited at The Wedding Show down the road in Raleigh and, as expected, we had a wonderful time schmoozing with brides-to-be and their contingencies of mothers, maids, and even the occasional groom. Not to mention the amazing group of vendors in attendance, like Southern Bride & Groom Magazine and Katie Hamister Photography. Top notch all the way!

Photo is courtesy of the amazing Christobal Azul of Azul Photography.

Our design team is a multi-talented bunch, and the exhibit booth they have created perfectly captures the TGK style of fun, whimsical sophistication. We thought our blog readers may enjoy a little behind-the-scenes peek at our fancy exhibit space!

We’ll keep you posted on other wedding shows we’ll be visiting throughout the season. Who knows? We may even have some special prizes for blog readers who stop by our booth at the next event!

In honor of our latest Save-the-Date giveaway, we thought we’d share a few tips for unique Save-the-Dates on the blog … to give our upcoming winner a little inspiration!

Dandelion Post Card Save-the-Date shown in Sky Blue and Pewter Ink on White paper.

1) Get on the calendar! Save-the-Dates have become a near necessity for engaged couples in today’s busybusybusy world. It’s common for families and friends to be spread across the country and even internationally, making advance notice for long-distance travel arrangements a priority. And even for local guests, crazy work schedules and other commitments can present conflicts with the social calendar!

For all these reasons, we recommend brides send their Save-the-Dates 12 months in advance, if possible, and definitely no later than 6 months in advance.

2) Get organized! One advantage of sending Save-the-Dates is that it forces you and your families to get organized enough to create a guest list, which is one of the first critical to-do items for kicking off wedding planning. If you’ve got a “deadline” in mind for getting your Save-the-Date cards ordered, it makes it a bit easier to encourage your future in-laws to track down the addresses of those long lost cousins on the opposite coast!

3) Get inspired! While the design you choose for your Save-the-Dates doesn’t have to dictate the color scheme and themes for your entire wedding, browsing your stationery options at this early stage is a great way to get ideas and inspiration for when you’ll need to be making these decisions down the road. We find that, while many brides carry the same themes and motifs from their initial Save-the-Dates down through their invitations and wedding day place cards, just as many opt to have a little more fun and whimsy with their Save-the-Dates while choosing more conservative styles for the rest of their wedding invitation suite.

4) Set the stage for the upcoming event! Your Save-the-Dates can reflect the season, style, level of formality (or informality!), venue, and even the time of day. They are a great way to give your guests a teaser of what they have to look forward to!

5) Customize and personalize! Reflect the unique personality of you and your fiancé as a couple. Incorporating a special photo of the two of you is a popular way to personalize Save-the-Dates. Couples may also choose a particular motif that has a special meaning; we’ve designed dozens of graphics for couples based on symbols or items that hold a particular charm and we love incorporating these designs into unique Save-the-Dates!

Bliss Holiday Card in Cocoa

While The Green Kangaroo is best known for our wedding stationery, we also have an extensive line of festive, personalized holiday cards. Nearly every one of our holiday designs incorporates a photo image, making them extremely popular with brides wanting to share a wedding-day photo with friends and family during the first holiday season following their wedding. These cards are also a great choice for save-the-dates, enabling you to save money by sending a holiday greeting and informing guests of your upcoming nuptials at the same time. Snowflake Holiday Card in Green

Throughout the month of October, we are offering a FREE set of holiday cards with any purchase of $750 or more (a set being the same number of holiday cards as invitations ordered). Just use coupon code free-holiday09 during check out. Think of it as an early Christmas gift courtesy of a large, green marsupial!

Josie Holiday Card in Festive Red

I recently spoke to a bride who was s-t-r-e-s-s-e-d about getting her registry completed, though her wedding was still 12 months away. Turned out, she thought she needed to get it completed before her engagement party so the hosts could include her registry information on the invitation.

What?

Engagement parties are not – I repeat, not – showers. Gifts are not expected, or appropriate for engagement parties. The reasoning behind this etiquette standard is likely because traditionally, “engagement” parties were simply parties at which an engagement was announced as a surprise to the guests. Though this surprise factor is less common today (but such a fun idea!), the no-gifts policy remains in effect.

Now of course it is a possibility that a few people will bring gifts to the engagement party, and that is their prerogative. But brides shouldn’t feel pressure to get a registry together so early into the engagement (if the party is in actuality soon after the engagement).

If asked about your registry in advance of an engagement party, simply reply, “Oh please don’t feel like you need to bring a gift! We just want to get our close friends together to celebrate this time.”

And if a few guests do bring presents, by all means show the rest of the party due consideration and wait to open those gifts until everyone’s gone home. Or at least slip discreetly to a more private area, if the generous giver insists on seeing you open their present in person.

After all, your guests will be shilling out for a wedding present, not to mention a shower present (or two), on those forthcoming gift-giving occasions. So don’t jump the gun by expecting (or requesting!) gifts at your engagement party.

We featured the Trash the Dress site a few months ago where brides make use of their wedding gowns for one last photo shoot. And while I still love the idea of re-using your own dress in such an unusual way, the idea behind Bravo Bride is certainly more practical! It’s an online marketplace specifically for buying (and selling!) wedding items. You can find everything from gently used dresses and engagement rings to centerpieces and even stacks of old wedding magazines (I guess for “vintage” ideas.) Some of the savings on this site are too good to pass up! I’d love to hear if any TGK blog readers have used the Bravo Bride site …

I’m a sucker for the cartoon It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and LOVE to watch it every year. (or a few times through out the year!)

It always makes me laugh – especially the part when Sally threatens to sue Linus because she realizes that she has missed tricks-or-treats. Love is so complicated . . . Speaking of love, Halloween is definitely a surprise day to get engaged. Check out this Halloween engagement video on YouTube.

My favorite idea for a Halloween engagement was found on The Knot:

“This past Halloween, a bunch of friends got together for a barbecue at our friend’s house. Toward the end of the night, they told us we were going to have a pumpkin carving contest, boys against girls. Once we were done carving them, my friend told us to go stand at the end of the driveway to see the pumpkins. When the pumpkins lit up, they read: ‘Will U Marry Me.’ Right then Craig got on his knee and proposed. All I really remember saying was, ‘I’m getting engaged in an Afro wig!’ It was great!” —Alaryce, Overland Park, KS

The Knot also has some great Stylish Ideas for a Halloween wedding if you are considering it . . .

Haven’t watched The Great Pumpkin? You can order a copy at Amazon.com. Happy Halloween!!