The Green Kangaroo - Unique Wedding Invitations and Stationery

Over the weekend, TGK launched our brand new Website. We are so pleased (isn’t it pretty?)! But the main drive behind this change was our desire to make navigating the site even easier for you, our customers.

Among the new features you’ll see are a streamlined navigation system and better visibility of more products at one time. There’s also a super handy search feature within each product section allowing you to quickly narrow down your selections to see exactly what you’re looking for.

We’re still making changes to many of the “back end” functions, so bear with us as we continue “moving in” over the next few weeks. If you come across something that doesn’t work, or doesn’t make sense, we hope you’ll let us know! Feel free to leave a comment here on the blog or send us a message directly through the Website to alert us to the issue. Honorary beta-testers will be rewarded! We look forward to your feedback and to serving you better with our new Website!

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!

While obviously we advocate for custom printed save-the-dates, we were thoroughly entertained at the TGK studios last week with bridepop’s collection of “epic” save the date wedding videos.

My favorite is the quirky French couple, but there is a certain je ne sais quoi about the medieval / viking quest-themed movie trailer style video. Oh, it’s impossible to put into words – just check them out here!

We were super excited to learn this week that The Green Kangaroo has been chosen to receive the Bride’s Choice Award™ 2010 from WeddingWire! What an honor!

From WeddingWire:

“This award recognizes the top 5 percent of local wedding professionals from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, and professionalism. The Bride’s Choice Awards™ are determined exclusively by recent newlyweds (brides and grooms) through extensive surveys and reviews, which means your past clients have spoken on our behalf and selected you to receive this honor.”

Visit TGK on WeddingWire and check out some of our reviews there. There is nothing more gratifying than satisfied customers! We’re blushing!

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!

We are loving the new Ingroom site designed as an online wedding resource specifically for men. While we are a bit skeptical that any guys we know would proactively seek out this site, this great resource, written from the male perspective, is definitely on the list of things they should read.

From outlining the groom’s traditional wedding duties to articles on proposal ideas and ring purchasing tips, your guy can get an answer to just about any question he’s likely to have. And even if your sweetie won’t navigate away from espn.com long enough to check it out himself, it’s a worthwhile stop for you to get guy-approved ideas to make the wedding a bit more special for him as well.

If you’re looking for a whole lot of inspiration for the look, feel, style, and COLORS of your wedding, look no further than The Perfect Palette blog. This online gem is a treasure trove of design ideas to be sure. But it also gives brides a super simple starting point for thinking about their own wedding style based solely on the colors you like. It’s a great way to get the gears spinning and gives those of us who don’t live, eat, and breathe wedding style a basic touchstone for figuring out how to create a one-of-a-kind event from scratch.

We love the author’s thoughtful examination of the meanings behind an array of beautiful colors with incredibly helpful links to palettes pairing those basics with every color combination you can imagine! Oh, how I wish this tool was around when I got married …

Our loyal readers know Melissa and Kristen have been contributing bloggers as the Wedding Stationery Aces on the terrific Wedding Aces site. This week, they give a great designer’s point of view on how to select the best font combinations for your wedding invitations. Here’s a sneak peek:

Our invitation business was built on giving our customers the freedom to make their own design choices. That doesn’t mean they all make “good” choices! This quick guide should help pave the way for those of you who are a bit confused about the purpose of combining one font with another on your wedding stationery.

Just follow the link to read the full article on the Wedding Aces site – and be sure to leave a comment for our very own Aces while you’re there. It’ll make them feel awfully special and important!

Drum roll please! TGK designs are now available on OneWed!

We love the trend of creating a unique, personalized website to be your “online concierge” for your guests. Face it, these online tools make it much easier for busy brides to stay connected with friends and family throughout the crazy wedding planning process. Aunt Rosie can check your site for detailed updates on the plans, to triple-check the name of the hotel, and to scan through photos of you and your honey, (and maybe check out pics of the future in-laws!).

These days, brides have tons of choices for FREE wedding websites and TGK just partnered with OneWed, which offers more than 70 unique designs. They also have piles of helpful tools to make the design process super simple for those of us who aren’t techies. The photo above shows the first set to “go live” on their site. You’ll find more TGK-exclusive designs unveiled on OneWed, in the coming weeks. Go check ‘em out, and let us know if you select a TGK-designed site motif. We’d love to feature YOUR wedding Web site in a future blog!

Wedding Aces is a fabulous new online community dedicated to – you guessed it! – everything about weddings! It’s made up of some of the best vendors in the industry who provide scads of valuable advice, information, and ideas relating to their particular specialty. TGK’s inimitable owners, Kristen and Melissa, were recently asked to join the team as the “stationery and invitations” Aces, and TGK is supremely honored to be a member of such an elite cadre of wedding professionals! (You can read their introductory entry here. We are so proud!)

One of the coolest features about the site is that brides can write in specific questions to be answered by the Aces themselves and other members of the community. The site is updated constantly with new material from the panel of Aces and it’s super-easy to browse with its simple category-style organization.

We think you’ll love this exceptional resource for wedding planning! Please visit the site and let them know how happy you are to have Kristen and Melissa as contributors. And let us know if you have questions that you’d like to see them answer on the site – or here on the blog!

Calling all Fans & Followers!

The Green Kangaroo is now on Facebook and Twitter and we’re preparing a special promotion, just for those of you who become a TGK fan or follower! (Just click on one of the links or images to the left and become a fan/follower.) We’ll post the details on how to receive a special discount just on Facebook and Twitter on August 17th, so be sure to sign up before then. We’ll be planning additional special promotions and discounts for our followers down the road, and you can keep up with what’s happening at TGK. We’ll see you there!

For many brides these days, ordering online is as easy as tying your shoes. But there are still many brides out there (and many mothers-of-the-bride!) who remain leery of ordering from a “site unseen,” pardon the pun. Especially for items that represent a significant portion of the wedding budget – and are critically important to get exactly right, like invitations and programs – the idea of working with a vendor you haven’t met face-to-face can be intimidating.

Whether you use the Internet simply to find local vendors, or if you orchestrate every last detail of the big day from behind your laptop, you should research and interview every person and company you hire with the same diligence. There’s no reason to shy away from an online vendor if you’ve thoroughly vetted their qualifications and examined their previous work, just as you should do with a local provider. If a company has been around for a while, has clearly defined policies and procedures outlined on their Web site (including policies if things don’t go according to plan), and can provide references from satisfied clients, you should feel comfortable hiring them.

When Kristen and Melissa launched The Green Kangaroo, they never imagined that 90% of their business would soon be through the Internet! Their vision of an intimate, studio-style shop (which still exists today in all its pink and green glory), quickly transformed into a booming online operation with clients from across the country and overseas. They’ve found at TGK that providing exceptional service and products isn’t so much about the medium in which we interact with our clients. It’s about conveying TGK’s sophisticated style, and laid-back ease to each and every customer, whether she’s right down the road in Cary, North Carolina or across the pond in jolly old England. To make your relationship work with any of your wedding vendors, strong communication is the key!

We’ll be talking more on the blog about specific questions you should ask wedding invitation vendors. In the meantime, for a great resource on interviewing all different types of vendors, check out blueorchidblog.com where they’ve developed a free e-book called the “Wedding Vendor Hiring Guide” with tons of helpful tips for ensuring you’re hiring a consummate professional, whether online or around the corner. To find vendor ratings, reviews and to other helpful info, we also recommend the following great online resources:

• Wedding Wire
• One Wed

As is so often the case in the Internet surfing I call “business research,” I’ve come across another idea of something I wish I’d done for my own wedding all those years ago.Wonderful Graffiti Wedding produces designs, monograms, meaningful quotations – pretty much anything you can think of – on very thin pieces of matte vinyl that can be easily attached to (and easily removed from) smooth surfaces. I love the idea of customizing a focal wall in a reception site with the new couple’s monogram! Or carrying an element of your wedding theme (a customized graphic from TGK of course!) even further by enlarging and posting it where guests enter. You can even have your menu printed and displayed on the wall behind the buffet! Endless possibilities …

Check out Wonderful Graffiti Wedding and let us know if you decide to “tag” your wedding with some graffiti of your own!

Last week we mentioned the idea of including a small accessory card in your wedding invitation packet directing guests to your wedding Web site. And while the idea behind creating a personalized wedding Web site is certainly appealing, many brides view this project as too daunting to add to the never-ending list of wedding planning must-dos. That’s why we love the amazing–and free–wedding Web site templates at mywedding.com! TGK is an official partner with mywedding.com which means that many of TGK’s most popular design motifs are available as templates for the free wedding Web sites. So you can carry the theme of your wedding invitations and stationery through to your own online site!

Unlike most of its predecessors, mywedding.com makes creating your very own, highly customized wedding Web site an unbelievably simple process. It took us just a few minutes to get our own sample site up and running and it really looks like a professional Web designer created it from scratch! We love the streamlined organization of each site that makes it super simple for guests to find exactly what they are looking for while showcasing even the most mundane details with style and beauty. And for those of you who love sharing photos online, mywedding.com allows you unlimited photo storage, which is great for sharing photos with guests after the big event.

Let us know in the comments section if you’re using a mywedding.com site or if you’ve had luck with another wedding site host. We want to feature a few of our customers’ sites in a future blog series with ideas to help other brides make their wedding Web sites both unique and useful – and we get our best ideas from you!