Frequently Asked Questions About It's A Date Event Design

We have compiled a list of "Frequently Asked Questions" to best assist you in your event design and planning process. If you would like any more information on any of the following FAQ, feel free to get in contact with us via our Online Contact Form or by email.

Who are you?

It's A Date Event Design is a boutique invitation and stationery design studio. Lyndsay Meager Sann is the creative director of It's A Date, and the designer that clients primarily work with on their own unique event design. Lyndsay has a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) from La Trobe University in Bendigo, and has been creating graphic design and illustration for over ten years. It's A Date Event Design has been in operation since January of 2008.

Where are you based?

Our studio is in Bendigo, a city in Central Victoria, Australia, about two hours from Melbourne. If that is a fair way away from you, do not despair: our previous (and current!) clientele are all over Australia and New Zealand, and we have worked with quite a few international clients as well. If you're happy to consider getting your invitations shipped to you, we are more than happy to work with you, where ever you are!



What is "Event Design"? Are you an "Event Planner"?

No, although that does sound like lots of fun! An Event Planner, or planner, a term you may heard in the context of "wedding planner" (like the Jennifer Lopez movie, for example!) is someone who coordinates all the arrangements, vendors and services that go into an event - they talk to suppliers, arrange appointments, and generally manage and oversee the whole event from start to finish.

As "Event Designers", we concentrate more on creating all the artistic and creative elements of your event - the things your guests look at, feel, touch, get to take away with them. Things like invitations and cards, table favors, menus and place cards, decorations, signage. Anything that will make your event "yours", we can add our signature design to. We really enjoy creating a story - from the first invitation that your guests receive, to everything they see at your event, to the charming and gracious thank you card in the mail afterward. This story is told through the coordination of each piece of event 'collateral', no matter how big or how small, that your guests view: by everything matching and looking like it is part of a special set, made just for you. We feel that the key to making your own event truly unique is a very special attention to detail and how each piece works together to create a unified vision.

Whilst it's not a rule that everything should match when it comes to an event like a wedding, it does look great to have everything 'compliment' each other and work together to tell your story. As Joyce Scardina Becker mentions in her article, Countdown to Your Perfect Wedding, "It’s like making a fashion statement: All of the accessories in your wardrobe should coordinate and fit together nicely."



Hmmm... can't I just do what you do myself?

Absolutely, and we are always impressed to see so many beautiful, handmade elements created every day! However, there are some people out there who cannot easily create their own event design, and our services are geared to help people like these:

1. Very busy people. People who have not got a lot of spare time, and have priorities that make cutting out and pasting together 100 pieces of cardboard together, or designing a seating chart, or even putting stamps on 75 invitations, very difficult to complete to the standard that they wish they could, and this kind of gets them down. In the lead up to events, particular in the case of weddings, time can be at a minimum, and there are usually many different tasks that need to be completed all at the same time. We hope that our service makes this time a lot easier on you, as you can rest assured that your tasks are being completed to a very high level of quality and care, whilst you spend valuable time with your loved ones, or work on projects that you are REALLY interested in, like putting together the perfect play list or sampling that menu one more time!

2. Very un-crafty people. Because, not everyone gets excited about designing invitations the way we do, and there is nothing wrong with that! If invitations, or table favours, or anything graphic design, is pretty low on your interests list, then we are happy to step in and take this task off your hands! Often, people who feel they are un-crafty are actually very good at describing the feel of what they want to achieve, or may have colours that they would really like to use - so actually, they're not that un-crafty at all! The beauty of what we do is that we can make your vision a reality by filling the gap from "idea" to "the big day". And you can relax knowing that it will all be done for you without you having to stress yourself out or try to learn new skills.

3. Very un-inspired people, or very over-inspired people. We all know the feeling: at the start, your event was going to be easy, laid-back and simple: but now you've had a few chats with your friends who have all suggested great ideas, and you've read lots of different magazines with lots MORE ideas, and then there is The Internet - the source of inspiration overload! Now, you're not quite sure what your vision is anymore, let alone how best to express it. Never fear - this is where we can step in to ease your over-inspiration. We get that there are a million things that you'd like to try, and also how overwhelming that may feel. We can help you focus on the most important aspects of your own story, and how these aspects can be illustrated in your event design, and the best bit? We make it easy, achievable and fun. No more stress!

4. Very clever and talented people who just need a bit of a hand. You've got it all planned in your head/in your scrapbook, but you have realised that having an extra set of hands or brain may make your vision more attainable. We can work along side you, and you can delegate the projects you are struggling with to us. Teamwork is rewarding, refreshing and inspiring, and you may find that you enjoy yourself a lot more when you have someone to talk about and create all these special items with!

There is also the assistance we offer, as part of our holistic service, that you may benefit from: Our designers have degrees in Graphic Design, Multimedia and Illustration, as well as over ten years experience in Making Things*. We oversee all design, printing, trimming and assembly - meaning we speak fluent printer and can work out how to align double-sided printed pages, what paper stock to use, and what adhesive works best on it, and what papers to steer away from, because otherwise, you'll lose many hours of your life to translucent page smudging and empty ink jet cartridges! We have special tools in our studio which makes trimming and folding easy and look professionally-finished. This is our full-time job (and passion), and what we do every day, so we can dedicate quality and focus to your project without any time constraints.

* Not an actual degree, however, we do it all day, every day, so we get lots and lots of practice!



Can I buy a design from your previous portfolio?

Generally, no. All our projects are custom-made for a particular client, and we are not able to resell their design onto you. However, this is a good thing: as we can create a completely unique design for you and you can rest assured that your design is a one-of-a-kind. If you really really like a design we've already created for someone else, particularly in the case of 21st invitations, what we can do is use your own photos and details, and any interests or ideas you may like included, and use our previous project as inspiration for your design: meaning, we can use similar colors or elements, however the end design will still be unique. We feel that the 'custom' part of our service is what ends up making your project special, and hope you feel the same!

Every once in a while, we make an invitation suite or design for a fictional client - to experiment with a design idea, without a client in mind, and to stretch our designers' creative wings. In this situation, when we add this project to our portfolio, we label the project as "Available for Purchase": the first person that contacts us and is interested in the design is able to purchase the design, and we will then adjust the design to suit this client. We only do this once: to fit with the nature of our service, we want each invitation we create to be unique and one-of-a-kind, so once it is sold, it's taken off the market, so to speak.



How are your invitations and designs printed?

It's A Date Event Design specialises in digital printing: in this method, our computers are linked to a high end colour laser printer, and the image is applied to paper or another material directly from a digital file rather than using film and/or plates. An advantage to digital printing is the unlimited options when it comes to colours used, and also a relatively quick turnaround time for finished items. The cost of digital printing is also very compatible with most budgets for invitations and stationery.

Currently, we print most of our pieces in-house, however, we also outsource to a wonderful local supplier for our larger print projects, whom we have worked with for over five years and have received excellent support and service from previously. We are fastidious when it comes to print quality, and have no qualms to reprint should we feel a project is not up to our high standards.



Do you provide samples of your work?

At this time, we do not send general samples of our work. However, we bring our portfolio of custom projects with us to one-on-one consultations for you to view in person when you make an appointment to meet with us. Should you have an interest in the print quality and paper stock used for your particular project, we are happy to arrange a generic test print for a small fee. We provide complimentary test prints for all our clients once the design process is complete and before we go to final print.



Should I wish to work with you, what are my options for design, color, paper type, and fonts? What is the word limit for the text of my project?

There are no limits when it comes to design, colour, typefaces used, etc. bar one: we cannot create a design for you that we suspect is the original work of another designer or has been a paid project for another client. We feel strongly that there are enough design options out there that nothing should need to be directly copied or duplicated.

There is also no word limit for text used. Many invitations take on un-traditional formats these days and we can accommodate whatever text you'd like to include. If you are unsure what needs to be in your invitation, we have put together a few helpful documents to assist in writing your invitation text or 'copy', as it is sometimes referred to as.

With our current printers, we are unable to print on anything above 300gsm card stock in-house, however, we can source this printing service for you for an additional fee. At this stage, we also do not offer letterpress, engraved or embossed printing.



Can I print your design myself?

Absolutely. We offer a "Design Only" service which means we provide a high resolution file for you to print at your own leisure using your own printing arrangements. Email us if you'd like to find out more about this service.



Do you offer a package or a discounted price if I order all of my invitation components at the same time?

Of course, and it's in your best interest to consider this if you are having an invitation design created for you for a major event like a wedding. As we use design elements from your invitation throughout your stationery, everything is quite easy to create and to "match". It will all be printed on the same stock through the same printer, so all your colour and print quality will match. Also, our best work is created when we are able to tell a story throughout all of your paper and decorative elements - this is what will give your project the 'wow' factor, so it's something we wholeheartedly encourage you to do! However, if you just want a simple invitation, do not feel discouraged - we love one-off projects just as much and will help you to get the best result on your project, no matter what the size of it.



If I want to include a picture or graphic on my save-the-date card or invitation, can you accommodate that? If so, does the image need to be saved in a specific format? Do you have photo retouching available, and if so, what is the price range? Can your photo specialist also convert color images to black & white or sepia? Is there an additional cost?

Photos have and always will be an important part of what we do - nothing makes a project more unique than the inclusion of photography. We have put many practices in place over the years to get the best result out of your photos, however, there are a few simple steps we recommend if you are planning on sending through some photography to use:

1. Make sure your photos are 300dpi minimum. We cannot stress this enough as this resolution gives the best print quality in your finished invitation. Photos need to be of a very high quality to print well. If you not sure how to check this, ask a friend or send us through a sample photo, we are happy to check this for you, nice and quickly. Photos taken with a recent model digital camera will probably be fine; photos that will probably not be fine are ones that you have saved from social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace, etc. or found on a search engine like Google. Even if a photo looks great on your monitor, it may still print out 'pixel-y' and in a very low resolution - and considering the amount of effort in the rest of your design, this is something we try to avoid!

2. Do not resize an image before emailing it to us, or put it in a document like a Microsoft Word document, etc. If you are worried about the size of your attachment, email us first and we can give you directions to use a file-sharing website like YouSendIt, or we are happy to accept CDs, USB flash devices, etc.

3. If you are not sure how to scan your photos, or you do not want to, email us and we can let you know about our photo scanning services.

Photo file formats can be high resolution .tif, .jpg or .pdf files. If you are not sure what this is, just email us and we can let you know how to check.

We are able to touch up your photos for you - we outsource this service to a photographer who works Photoshop magic with your photos for us to use in your design. He can do some basic touching up (such as the removal of a sticker, dust mark or perhaps the occasional blemish!), conversion from colour to black and white or sepia, and the most common service he provides us is turning your photos from normal snaps to vintage-look or artistic-look portraits, and optimizing photo files for printing and use in your design. All these little tweaks are usually included in your design payment. However, please note that this is very basic touching up - if you are after something a little more complex, we can provide you a quotation for this service.

We take the utmost care with your files, even if they are duplicates, as we understand these memories can be quite precious. We are also able to provide you with a CD of your scanned and touched-up photos for a small fee upon request.



Are there any new styles, trends and color combinations I might consider? Which are the most popular?

An answer to this question would immediately be out of date, so, in a word, "Yes!" We take our research very seriously. Lyndsay constantly researches the latest in design styles, typography, trends in decor and event styling, and materials that may be able to be incorporated into your creations, on the Internet, industry publications and design resources.

At any given time, there are certain 'trend' colours - colours that are prevalent and popular, particularly in the case of weddings. We have a running list of these colours and can advise you of what they are should you be interested in following these trends (or trying to avoid them!)

Our aim is always to provide you with original ideas and inspiration in relation to your project. We pride ourselves on our creative solutions to invitation and stationery design and take great delight in finding the most creative and interesting ideas possible for your designs. Life is far too short to settle for anything less!



Based on the paper I select and the number of pieces involved, what would it cost to mail my wedding invitation?

You should always consider postage cost when creating your invitations. We often work on envelope sizes as the start to our design process. Certain envelopes are considered "Post Office Preferred", which means that they are relatively inexpensive to post. Factors that can affect the cost to mail an invitation are the size of the envelope, the thickness of the package and the weight of the project, as well as the location of the receiver and how quickly you'd like it to get to them. If you have a budget you'd like to stick to for your mailing costs, please be sure to let us know, otherwise, we're happy to provide you with quotes before starting the design process. We're also very open to the idea of adapting your design to make it economically-suitable for you to send, and will discuss this with you throughout the entire process.



Once I place my order, how long will it take to have the completed invitations delivered? Do you have rush-order available and what are the extra fees?

An expected time frame is always something we're happy to advise you on when you wish to commence your project - invitation design is very time-reliant, so it's important to get this sorted out, first thing!

The factors that most greatly affect our turnaround time from design concept to completion is the date of your event (as some dates, sometimes inexplicably! are incredibly popular, and we may be working on many different projects for the same weekend at any given time) and how detailed or complex your project is. Our design turnaround is usually a minimum of ten days to two weeks for a 21st or basic invitation design, and around 3-4 weeks for a wedding or complex invitation - and this timeframe is taken from the time a client makes a (cleared) Design Payment for their project, which is our 'go-ahead' signal to get started on the project. This timeframe can also be affected by our queue system (which sounds a lot more scary than what it is): at any given time, we have a basic running sheet, where we write you project details down in the order that it is submitted to us via email, and you slot in after the previous project we received, and just before the next project we receive after yours! Should we have the luxury to work on projects that need to be completed within a short deadline, we will give a reasonable amount of priority to these projects, just to make sure they get off to their client in a timely manner, but usually, it's first come, first serve and we do not accept a project if the event falls within five weeks of the design request - it's unreasonable to request such a quick design turnaround of our designers, and print/trim turnaround of our printers.

We do have a rush-order fee and procedure in place, but as of yet, have not needed to apply it to any projects. If we do not feel we can provide you with the standard of design and printing that we maintain, within your timeframe, we will advise you ASAP and let you source another option with a more suitable turnaround time. As each design is created from scratch, we need to allow this time in order to create the best result possible for each and every one of our clients.

In the case of large projects, such as weddings or major events, we book out the week leading up to the event for dedicated service to this client, mainly due to the amount of 'day-of' items that we produce in this week for the event. If you are the client hosting this event, this means you get completely focused and individual service leading up to your big day - which comes in extremely handy when you have lots on the go! We book a maximum of one major event per weekend for this very reason. These weekends get taken very quickly, so if you are considering us for your major event, be sure to drop us a line to see if your weekend is available!



If the invitation involves multiple pieces, can you assemble them? If so, is there an additional fee? How will the assembly affect my delivery date?

We offer all trimming, folding and assembly as either a complimentary service for basic projects, or included in the unit price for complex projects - in most cases, what we deliver is the finished product, ready to be sent out or given to guests. If for any reason you'd like to do the trimming and assembly yourself, we're happy to accommodate this request.

As with all things that require careful attention, trimming, folding and assembly do require a certain amount of lead time before your expected delivery date. When we are ready to go to print, we keep you updated via email of your project progress and if there will be any hold-ups and of what stage we're up to. We can also give you an estimate of how long it will take to print, trim, fold and assemble your invitations or project based on its particular requirements.



Do you offer an invitation addressing service? If so, what is the charge for this? What lettering style options are available? Will the lettering push back my delivery date?

Tradition favors calligraphy, hand-written lettering for invitations such as wedding stationery. This is something you may like to consider, however we are unable to provide in-house handwritten calligraphy services. An alternative to this is printing on your envelopes, on labels and liners for your envelopes, or for any packaging you may require for your project. We can create this in a typeface that matches your suite, and colours that compliment your project beautifully. Today, there are no rules when it comes to what materials are used for your addresses - it really just comes down to your own personal preference.

We customise each invitation with a guest name, should you like us to, free of charge, and we can also print addresses on your invitation in the case of a Post Ready 21st invitation, or on several items of stationery in a set, such as in a complex wedding suite. This can come in really handy in the case of wedding RSVP cards, which can already be printed with the guest's details - no fear of getting a blank RSVP card back and not knowing who exactly will be turning up on the day! We also feel that it's a lot more personal to incorporate your guest's details in your invitation - it makes the invitation more like a very special piece of correspondence to them, and less like a bulk mail out. As we individually print each piece, time does need to be allowed if you would like to take advantage of this service, and we can advise you of the expected timeframe closer to your printing date.



When is payment due? What's involved in the postage of my project?

Payment of your project is generally requested in either two or three stages, depending on your project. The first payment is a Design Payment, which covers the cost of creating your unique design and the preparation of your mock-up/s, a reasonable amount of changes and revisions, and a few other procedures that take place within a normal design project. We do not commence projects without this Design Payment, and you can find out a lot more about it in our Design Services document that we can send you if you wish to work with us. Should you wish to use our "Design Only" service, this is the only payment that you will make.

The second part is cost of printing, and associated services such as trimming, folding and assembly. This is usually provided as a "unit pricing" which means a dollar value per invitation, or per card, etc. and you simply multiply this by the number of each item that you require. We calculate this once we have had a 'test drive' of your printing process, and made sure it is perfect. If we know exact postage costs of posting your finished project to you, we will include this amount in your invoice. Once this invoice is paid, printing commences and your project is shipped as soon as it is completed.

If we are unsure of your postage costs and you do not have a specific postage budget in mind, we will advise you of a postage cost after printing has commenced by taking your finished invitations or project to the Post Office to be calculated in person. We can usually advise you of a cost of shipping your project via Express Post Next Business Day Delivery (in Australia), air mail or surface mail (generally the most economic option). We recommend insurance, and registered post, and anything that will generate a tracking number. We pack everything with the utmost care, but once it leaves our hands, we are unable to take responsibility for your package during transit.



I will have an opportunity to sign off on my invitation proof before you send my order to print, right?

Of course - in fact, we'll probably be rather annoying in getting you to check three separate times that you are happy. There will always be something that needs refining, so don't be afraid to point out a preferred spelling option or wording change during the mock-up process. However, once we go to print, we are unable to make any more changes, so we like to make sure (as sure as can be) that everything is perfect before ink touches card - changes after this stage can be rather expensive and we'd like to avoid these! We also recommend getting another person to check the wording - it's always helpful to have a fresh pair of eyes to read over it all.



What is your refund policy if for some reason I need to cancel my order?

We can refund your Design Payment, if you need to cancel, if we have not begun your project. Once a design has been commenced and you have seen a mock-up, we are unable to provide a refund but you certainly will not be charged anything more. We are also unable to refund any printing or postage payments once your project has gone to print or shipped, and we cannot offer any refunds or discounts on printing due to errors noted after you have approved your mock-up for print, as we still need to pay for your printing services regardless. If you have any concerns regarding this rather sensitive matter, please feel free to email us, we are happy to assist to the best of our ability if you do need to cancel your order.



When can I expect to receive my contract from you?

We send out our very own Design Agreement once you have established contact with the intent to use our services, usually within the first or second email from us! We get you to read it through, ask any questions and make sure you are happy with everything we provide, and then we get you to sign it, and we sign it, to make sure we're all on the same page, so to speak. This signed agreement, and your design payment, means it's all systems go for your design to start!



I've got a big project in mind ... Do you have any references available?

We have several previous clients' contact details to find out more about the It's A Date Event Design experience. Or you can read about our projects in further detail on our portfolio pages, or our blog, which often includes event photography of our finished projects.

Should you have a question that has not been answered on this page, or would just like a chat, please feel free to email us or contact us via our contact form on the main page of our website.

Labels: FAQ

More...