Celebration Designers - Review & Giveaway

When planning your wedding, invitations in one of those things that sets the whole feel for your wedding!  It is the first thing that announces your wedding to your guests and invites them to be part of your celebration.  For me, I took a lot of time trying to find an invitation design that I liked and that meet all the aspects that I was trying to portray.  Luckily, when I came across Celebration Designer's Etsy Shop, I knew I had found 'the one'!


Founders of Celebration Designers, Tara and Dana, started their business after putting a great deal of energy into DIY projects for their own wedding (and enjoying it)!  With that, they collectively decided that they wanted to help others make projects for their special days.  They originally started offering wedding products and their inventory quickly grew to cover all special occasions. 

Tara and Dana pride themselves in offering beautiful custom work to their customers.  They love ensuring that their customers receive a unique product that suits their vision!  On the Celebration Designers About Us page, they state, "Every little detail of your special occasion is important to us and Celebration Designers can create your personal touches for aisle runners, favors, centerpieces, and all event stationery to make your event unforgettable!"


At Celebration Designers, you will find a variety of products, including the following: Invitations, Save the Dates, Place/Escort Cards, Wedding Ceremony Programs, Table Numbers, Menus, Aisle Runners, Baby Announcements, and Custom Designed Monograms.

*REVIEW*

First of all, I'd like to thank Tara and Dana for allowing me to doing this review.  They were kind enough to offer to design and create all my wedding invitations (40 total) as part of this review.

The first thing that caught my attention with Celebration Designers was the gorgeous and unique designs that they offer.  First, I came across their Etsy shop but after speaking with Tara more, I found out that they have a wonderful online store as well.

The wedding invitation set I chose is called the Single Knot Satin Ribbon Wedding Invitation Suite.  This Suite sells for $4.25 per card and includes a customized invitation with envelope, an RSVP card with an addressed envelope, reception (accommodation) cards, and a meal choice card.  The set I received included everything except the meal choice cards.  After speaking with friends about invitations and looking online, I realized what a great price Celebration Designers products are.  If I went to a local invitation shop, there is no way I could get all this for the price this review package equaled out to.

When Tara and I started the process of designing my invitations, I was immediately impressed with how professional she was.  She had everything so well orgainized and was always ready to answer any questions I had.  Tara started by sending me a questionaire to fill out.  The questionnaire asked me questions such as, names, dates, times, and locations, wedding colors, themes, etc. This questionnaire lead me to a site where I was able to look through card swatches to find the perfect colors and style for my invitations. The questionnaire also sent me to a site that prompted me to pick out the wording for each piece of my invtation suite. For me, this was the best part. I read through 100s of invitation wordings to find one that captured my feelings and the theme for our day, which just so happens to be fairytale. Even though there were tons of wordings to choose from, I didn't find one that met all my requirements; I liked bits and pieces from several. Tara made it easy for me by allowing me to use parts of all the ones I liked to really make the invitation suite unique to my preferences.

Shortly after sending Tara my completed questionnaire, she sent me a digital draft of each piece of my invitation suite. I was blown away by how she was able to bring my ideas to life. I also thought this was a great way to see what I liked, didn't like, and things that needed to be changed. Personally, I think I was a bit picky about somethings but Tara always seemed to be happy to accommodate my requests. After each alteration, Tara sent me a new digital draft reflecting the changes.

After all the changes were made and I approved of the design, Tara sent me a physical draft in the mail. I was pretty well speechless (and a bit emotional) opening up the card - the invitation was absolutely stunning! I knew they would be beautiful based on the online picture, but I never realized how beautiful they would be and how happy I would be with them.

Each piece of the invitation suite is made with high quality papers and ink. The ribbon used on my invitation card is thick (high-quality) and definitely elegant (the look I was going for).

When I received the invitations, I decided to make one more change and once again, Tara was more than happy to oblige (this time it was something really simple). Once I told Tara I was happy with the suite, she sent me all my invitation sets in the mail. When I received them, I was so excited; each was just as beautiful as the sample of received previously. It is evident that Tara and Dana love the work that they do and they put 110% into each piece they make!

The only thing I noticed when I received the package was that a couple of the invitations had dog-eared edges. This may be because of the long haul from the US to Canada. For future shipments, I would suggest wrapping each piece of the set separately in a foam sheet packaging material to reduce the risk of damage. From being a review blogger, I've found that package damage is much more common than you may think!  Although some of the edges were bent, I was easily able to flatten then out and no damage was visible.

After sending out my invitations and hearing back from my guests, many of them mentioned how beautiful the invitations were. And, when I told a few friends about the price of Celebration Designers, they said that they'd definitely be recommended them to friends who were planning their wedding.

All in all, I have been extremely impressed with Celebration Designers and I will continue recommending their products to anyone I know who's getting married. The quality of their products is superb and their pricing is unbeatable! If you are looking for paper products for your special occasions, I would highly recommend checking out Celebration Designers first!

Invitation Suggestion for Brides:
Start planning your invitations ASAP!  Designing, going through invitation drafts, printing, shipping (if applicable) and sending out your invitations is time consuming.  Since we have had a relatively short engagement (only 6 months), we were in a bit of a time crunch, even though I started working on our invitations as soon as we got engaged.  I suggest that brides start the process of picking out their invitation style as soon as they know their theme, colors, etc.  And, brides should order their invitations as soon as they know their venue and the timing for the big day!  Nothing is worse than being stressed out last minute over something as important as invitations! 

 *GIVEAWAY*

How many winners are there? One (1).

What can you win? One winner will receive 50 Save the Date cards from Celebration Designers.

More examples of the Save the Date cards that Celebration Designers offers can be found on their blog and in their Etsy Shop.

To enter, visit Celebration Designers (website, blog, or Etsy shop), then come back here and tell me the name of your favorite product/design, or leave a link to the item. This question must be answered to gain an entry in the giveaway.

Each of the following will give you one extra entry in the giveaway (unless stated otherwise). Please make sure to leave a separate comment for each thing you do:

- *NEW* For each $1 you donate to my Wedding Fund (through ChipIn at the top right hand corner of this page), you will receive two (2) bonus entries for this giveaway.  Please make such to leave two extra comments along with your PayPal email so that I can verify your entry.

-Following the Celebration Designers Blog with Google Friend Connect.  Please state the name that shows up on your Google Profile.
- 'Liking' Celebration Designers on Facebook.  Please leave your name (First name and last initial) that is shown on Facebook for verification.
- Subscribing to the Celebration Designers Newsletter.  Please leave me a comment indicating the email address you used to sign up with.
- Following Celebration Designs on Twitter.  Please leave your Twitter name in your comment.
- Entering one other giveaway on Everything Up Close, then leaving me a comment hear indicating the name of the other giveaway you entered (Maximum of 1 entry).
- Subscribing to my blog via email or RSS feed (Maximum of 1 entry - please tell me how you subscribe in your comment).  SUBSCRIPTION METHODS HAVE CHANGED!  In order for your subscription entry to count, you must resubscribe.  For more details, please visit my post: 'Are you an Everything Up Close email or RSS subscriber?' 

- Adding my main button to your blog sidebar.
- Adding my 'Everything Up Close Bridal Shower' event button to your blog sidebar.

- Following me on Twitter (@ihchicky). Please leave your Twitter name in your comment.

- Following me on Blogger / Google Friends Connect (publicly).
- 'Liking' Everything Up Close on Facebook. Please leave your name (First name and last initial) that is shown on Facebook for verification.

- Tweeting about this giveaway with a link to this page. Please leave a link to your tweet or your twitter name. You can do this once a day.

- Blogging about this giveaway on your blog. Please leave a link to your blog post in your comment. 2 ENTRIES! Please leave 2 separate comments if you blog about this giveaway.

- Talking about and linking to this giveaway in any public forum or on Facebook. If you do this, please leave your user-name and a link to the post. 2 ENTRIES! Please leave 3 separate comments if you blog about this giveaway.

Important Entry Details: The above entries (main and bonus) can only be submitted once per person (except for the tweet entry, which can be done daily). Please do not use more than one blogger account or add additional anonymous comments to gain extra entries. This is not fair to everyone else and this practice is strictly prohibited. If a person is found to be using more than one account to enter the same giveaway, they will be disqualified from that particular giveaway, as well as all future giveaways.

This giveaway will end on Thursday, September 16th at 11:59pm (Central Standard Time). After the giveaway has ended, the winner will be picked randomly using random.org. EMAIL RULES: In order to win, you must provide a valid email. I will be notifying the winner by email only. Please make sure your blogger profile includes your email address and make sure that it is visible. If you do not have a blogger account, please make sure you have included your email address in your post. If there is no email address provided, to contact the winner, another person will be chosen. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to the winning email notification with their complete mailing address (I will be forwarding all this information to the sponsor), If this information is not received within 48 hours, a new winner will be chosen.  

This giveaway is open to everyone Canada and US only!

Good Luck!

**Disclaimer** To complete this review and post this giveaway, Celebration Designers designed and created all my wedding invitations free of charge (a total of 40).  Receiving these items did not in anyway alter the information which I discussed in this article; this review is 100% my own opinion.  I did not receive any other type of compensation for this review/giveaway.