You’re cordially invited to witness the much awaited wedding of the year!
The wait is almost over: Summit Entertainment’s Twilight: Breaking Dawn hits theaters today, November, 18, 2011.
One of the film’s most expected scenes is Bella and Edward’s wedding day. The first Twilight: Breaking Dawn trailers opens with moments of the couple’s close friends and family receiving superbly hand-addressed invitations in the mail; werewolf Jacob runs outside into the rain and dramatically throws his invite down to the ground. The camera zooms in and it reads: “Isabella Marie Swan and Edward Anthony Masen Cullen together with their families request the honor of your presence at the celebration of their marriage….”
When it came to creating the perfect wedding invitation for the vampire nuptials, director Bill Condon commissioned New York-based Connor Fine Engraver & Stationer.
“We were contacted because Bill was looking for an invitation that felt like Tiffany’s, but was cooler,” saidJustin Felber, co-founder of Connor. “From the get-go, the film team wanted classic but not over the top — just timeless and suited to the two characters. We provided dozens of samples and eventually they came back to us with the design that they felt most captured the tone of the wedding.”
Because the movie director wanted NO gold, a soft, shimmery silver was chosen for the invite’s lettering and custom features. Each invitation was hand-engraved on a steel plate and then stamped individually by hand into 100% cotton paper.
“There’s a thin hand border and if you look closely you can see Connor’s signature blind embossed dot on the bottom of the invitation,” Felber said.
The envelopes are hand-lined in delicate silver tissue and secured with a wax seal.
Brides and grooms-to-be can order their own bespoke Connor invitations exclusively at Barneys New York.
“All the work is done by hand so invitations start at around $25 each,” Felber said.
The fashionable stationer features January Jones, Blake Lively and Oprah Winfrey’s home guru, Nate Berkus, as clients.
While some wedding etiquette experts have noted the invitation’s lack of formality (they abbreviated the words “avenue” and “Washington”) and punctuation (the O in “five o’clock” was capitalized rather than lowercase), the less formal format works with a younger bride and groom. Plus, it was a custom order — meaning it was a stylistic option by the client — and extra-large lettering was necessary for legibility on camera.
Fun fact: The wedding location on the invitations altered at one point in the design/filming process. Same city (Forks, Wash.), but a different road address.