One of our favorite parts of our work is getting to know some amazing couples. Kristyn and Roger came to us right before Melissa took her maternity leave in 2013 with an amazing vision for their destination wedding. They were our first customer after Olivia was born, and it was great to catch up almost two years after we first got to know them. They were kind enough to sit down and share their story with us, and we’re excited to share it with you here! (All photos courtesy of the amazing Pawel Bebenca. Find his work at pawelbebenca.com)
PT: Tell us the story of Kristyn and Roger!
Roger and I met in Seattle when we started working together in 2009. One of the things I love about our story is that we were friends for awhile before we started dating. We knew everything about one another, and really valued each other as friends first. Our first official date was Halloween 2010, and from that point on we were inseparable. Roger proposed on the beach in Westport, WA where we had our first kiss. We have been together for five years, and the adventure keeps getting better and better.
PT: What was the vision for your wedding?
We were looking for vintage romance and intimacy; we had a total of 27 guests. Our whole wedding spoke about who were as a couple, and gave our guests a glimpse of our personalities. We wanted to enjoy our guests as well as our wedding. We’ve both been to many weddings where we hardly saw the bride and groom, or where the bride and groom where so busy talking with people they didn’t get a chance to enjoy their wedding. We didn’t want to plan a wedding for everyone else, we wanted to plan a special day for us and invite our family and close friends to share it.
PT: What brought you to one little m/Paper Truly?
I spent hours looking online for a unique wedding invite. We didn’t want a wedding website, and, as we were having a destination wedding, we really needed an invite that included a lot of information.
PT: What made the invite suite you chose “The One”?
When I came across the Daily Proposal invite, I had to have it. I fell in love with it immediately! We contacted Melissa right away, and found out she wasn’t taking orders at the moment and getting ready to go on maternity leave. We had initially planned on sending our invites out very early and not sending save-the-dates. I had my heart set on the Daily Proposal, so we changed our plans. We sent out save-the-dates, and waited for Melissa to come back from maternity leave to create our wedding invitations.
PT: What was it like working with Melissa?
Melissa was fantastic. She had just returned to work from having her first child and we were her first customer. As we now have a 6 month old I have a very new appreciation for how amazing she was, and how crazy I might have been! 🙂
Honestly, looking back I am not sure how she managed to be so fantastic through the whole thing! She was very responsive to our emails. We had a handful of revisions and proofs with a tight deadline that Melissa worked with us to meet.
One of the things I really loved was the box that we received in the mail. The box itself was special! I even took a picture of it and posted it on Instagram 🙂 She made the whole experience very special, all the way down to the moment you opened the box to see what you had created together.
PT: What did your guests have to say about your invites?
We had so many compliments on our invites!! They set the tone for our wedding, which was really important to us. We wanted the whole thing to be vintage and romantic, and our invites gave our guests a small glimpse into our wedding day. The RSVP card on this invite was so special. We kept all of them, as people sent us lovely comments and thoughts along with their RSVP, and plan to create a keepsake. We even took one of our invites with us to Ireland for our photographer to use in pictures.
PT: What’s the story of your wedding day?
Our wedding was about love and family: We asked Roger’s dad to become ordained and marry us. The entire bridal party was made up of our siblings and their spouses. My dad participated in our hand fasting ceremony. Roger’s brother introduced our ring warming ceremony. I designed and wrote the ceremony and all of our vows. In addition, we also wrote personal vows that we shared with one another for the first time at our wedding. It was really important to us to have vows that weren’t cookie cutter. We handmade and wrote each person a personalized thank you card, and we both took the time to write in each card and had them placed at our reception table.
We did a seated dinner at one long intimate table. The guests were seated and given time to sip their wine and read our notes before we made our entrance. It really set the tone, and gave us the opportunity to thank them for coming all the way to Ireland. We asked our parents and siblings to bring their favorite picture from their wedding day, as well as our grandparents wedding day and used them at our reception. We wanted to emphasize love & family and how important they are in our life together. We love our families and we love where we came from. We wanted to highlight the great generations of examples we have in our lives, and really embrace what love looks like all around us.
PT: Did you use Paper Truly for any day-of materials or thank you notes?
We brought our invite with us to Ireland to be photographed, but that was all. As we were traveling from Seattle to Ireland we were limited on how much we could pack. I wish we had thought to order thank you cards! Looking back it would have been a fantastic way to end the wedding adventure.
PT: What’s the one thing you want other brides to know about working with Paper Truly?
It is unique. You aren’t going to find anything like it. Trust me, I tried. We weren’t sure we wanted to wait for her to come back from maternity leave to start the order. I spent a long time trolling the internet to find something I loved as much, but we came up empty handed. She has a style all her own, and she adds a personal element that many others do not. We didn’t want something mass produced. You work directly with Melissa and it shows. She takes pride in what she creates, and it was a perfect fit for our wedding! Our invites were one of kind, and made me glow when I opened our very special delivery box. You just can’t go wrong, her work is beautiful.
Thanks to Kristyn and Roger Long for sharing their story with us, and thanks again to Pawel Bebenca for the amazing photos of their day. If you’re a Paper Truly bride that would like to have your story in a featured wedding blog, contact us!