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Let your wedding invite be a teaser for the fun and frolic to come Ravish Kapoor Innovative Invitations He shot to fame with Shilpa Shetty’s wedding card design and things have only gotten better for the Delhi-based invitation designer. His clientele is from all walks of life—industrialists, Bollywood celebrities like Karisma Kapur, or just people with discriminating taste who wish to make a statement with their invitations. “Of course, when we do something for Bollywood celebrities, it always gets the staff excited,” says Ravish Kapoor. Gone are the days when weddings were seasonal—they now are a year-round routine. And Kapoor isn’t complaining. “We try to design to suit each client’s preferences and needs—the budget is secondary. We have designed cards that have had mobile phones and iPads in them, and some that required us to make mini movies of each function as well,” he says. But it is the new and challenging that keeps him excited in the process—from design to delivery. “Recently, we designed a serious of elaborate wooden boxes with crystal inlay, which was fun and different,” says Kapoor.

Pro tip: Decide on one person in the family who will take a call on initial design. “Often people come with six to eight family members with different ideas and end up getting confused,” says Kapoor. “And always order more cards than you think you need—you are bound to forget people and it will then be costlier to make those ten-odd pieces after the initial order.” Ravish Kapoor’s out of the box include a pole dancing card for a bachelor’s party thegoodlife 138 August 2014 One of India’s leading wedding invitation designers, Shah has a Masters in Graphic Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design, USA. Her unique style and wide repertoire of innovative materials such wood and canvas blended with a contemporary design approach, make her a hit with celebrity clients like Imran and Avantika Khan, the Mittals, and the Khu bch and an is. What we love is that no two invitations are alike and the style is never repeated. She easures each design represent the emotions and style of the client. So there is very close interaction between her and the client throughout the entire process, which can Puneet Gupta Invitations Nobody marries fashion, art and design quite like Puneet Gupta. “The high point of my school days was when I got selected for Generative Art Conference 2004 by Poli technico Di Milano, Italy,” the NIFT fashion graduate recalls. “I was among the ten finalists, making me the youngest artist amongst other presenters from across the globe.” Puneet Gupta Invitations started 5 years ago. “I was doing a lot of event invites those days and a designer friend told me to do a set of invites for him, and apparently we got a good response—that is when I decided to launch a brand of my own,” says Gupta. Luxury is all about making it exclusive and unique, and with material sourced from Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, England and Malaysia, you shouldn’t expect anything less. “We are a bespoke label, so you just need to let us know what you want and we can design it for you… We have even designed in-flight services for weddings,” he says. Gupta has catered to big names in Indian royalty, business, politics, film, fashion and art. According to Gupta, the key trends for invitations this season would be Lace Affair, Indian Weaves, Lavender, Classic Uttara Shah Glamour, and Floral fête. He has also recently launched India’s first trend book on invitations.“You will get a detailed insight into prints, colours, embellishments, fonts and materials that are going to be in vogue in 2014-15.”

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Pro tip: Custom-made gifts and favours are the way to go. “Recently we did a beautiful sarong for a Goa wedding,” says Gupta. “A recent addition to our list of services is bespoke silver art for gifting and limited edition pieces for connoisseurs.” take around two months. The typical invitation design process starts with the client visiting her studio at Lower Parel, Mumbai, to understand various design possibilities. The by-appointment-only designer then spoils you for choice with design options after two to four weeks of the initial meeting. Since wedding invitations are the first point of contact for potential guests, Shah feels that they should be wowed by the design and concept and it should set the expectation for things to come.

Pro tip: Glitzy or elegant accessories could accompany the invitation—bags, favour boxes or photo frames. If it’sa destination wedding, the guests can be presented with cases for travel documents, baggage tags, and photo books along with the invites, says Shah. The accessories usually follow the same theme as the main invite, retaining the same look-and-feel. Uttara Shah’s cards are more about outstanding art and less about theatrics Puneet Gupta’s bespoke are a blend of materials, fabrics and techniques August 2014 139