Holiday-Inspired Invitation...the nose knows

Holiday-inspired invitation (Photo by Derek Wong Photography)

If only my blog came with a scratch-n-sniff feature.

This invitation was for a winter wedding back in December. There were so many fun elements to this wedding, that I decided to cover them all in multiple posts. (When you've taken a break from writing as long as I have, you gotta ease back into a little at a time. I don't want to sprain a muscle or anything.)

So, back to the invitation shown above. My clients, Erin and Matt, wanted a festive piece that tied in with their Christmas themed extravaganza. (I refer to it as an "extravaganza" because, well, you'll see why after I'm done writing about it.) A color scheme of red and white and touches of silver worked seamlessly with the printed Christmas ornaments that festooned the invitation and response card. The outside of the invitation was wrapped with a red and white striped paper band and a little "no peeking 'til Christmas" sign...the "no" was crossed out, so technically it was a "NO no peeking 'til Christmas" sign which gets a little confusing when you think about it too long. So don't think about it too long.

The hidden gem of the invitation, though, was the scent. Yes, I said scent. Erin and Matt's uber creative wedding coordinator, Mona Hirata from Weddings by Grace and Mona, suggested that we add a holiday scent to the invitation to drum up even more excitement for their guests. Why not? I love trying new things and scent was definitely a new thing.

Erin and Matt's scent of choice was pine. Great! Little did I know that finding pine-scented anything in the month of August was near impossible. Sure, I could order something online but without the benefit of sniffing something firsthand (first nose?), online shopping was my last resort. I decided to hit up some local stores in search of essential oils. Bingo. The very first store I visited had pine...too bad it was too earthy. (It actually smelled like a rotting tree, but I think "earthy" sounds classier.) The second store I visited also had pine...well, they had an empty slot reserved for pine but they were sold out. Lots of other tree scents like sandalwood and eucalyptus were perched in their slots, but no pine.

Out of desperation, my husband and I took a spin by an auto parts store. Yes, the idea of shredding the hanging Christmas tree car fresheners sounded ridiculous, but how awesome would it be if that worked? IT DID NOT WORK. IT WAS NOT AWESOME. Lesson #1: Christmas trees that dangle from your rear view mirror do not smell anything like Christmas trees. Lesson #2: Don't tear open the package of Christmas tree air fresheners in a confined space (like your car) unless you're prepared to go rogue and toss it out of the window while driving down the highway (for the record, I didn't litter...but I did hang my arm out of the window the whole ride home).

Scarred from the whole pine fiasco, I suggested to my clients that we go with a peppermint scent. A nice, refreshing, easy-to-find peppermint scent. This was my first custom invitation that smelled as good as it looked.