It’s no surprise that here at Ananya Cards, we have an enduring love affair with details and personalisation – and it all starts with the first glimpse of a couple’s stationery. As we approach the start of a new year, we’re excited to share what we see and predict as exquisite trends couples choose for their weddings around the globe in 2024.

Cultural Motifs & Meaningful Colours

All weddings have a unique combination of traditions and new ideas – and none more so than cultural celebrations, which are typically full of rich, diverse heritage. Couples opt for palettes with deep colours like vibrant reds, shiny golds, joyous pinks, and rich greens – alongside elegant hues like purple and blue. We also love the comeback of vintage, retro colours like pale yellows, baby blues, and monochrome details. While minimalism had a spotlight throughout 2023, couples now want everything from their florals to their fonts to be bolder and louder – and LOVE it.

Bringing together tradition and modernity is something we are particularly proud of and excited by
here at Ananya Cards, we also adore all the opportunities to create 2024 wedding stationery with cultural motifs, henna patterns, paisley motifs, or subtle mandalas, all woven into contemporary suites to wow their loved ones.

Eco-conscious Alternatives

Sustainability continues to be a priority for our couples and – thankfully – retains its position as one of the top wedding trends for 2024 and beyond. Eco-conscious stationery alternatives, such as seeded and plantable paper, paper made from recycled materials and fibres, or even working with less resource and waste-intensive printing processes, have surged in popularity.

Clients want to create and personalise their wedding stationery in a way that is luxurious but aren’t willing to compromise on the effect that this has on the planet. Similarly, this trend sees couples searching for sustainable fashion for wedding attire, ethically sourced materials for their decor, and wedding vendors who share in their mission to turn a new leaf on waste.

Illustrations & Custom Monograms

As we’ve touched on a little bit already, the idea of hyper-personalisation is still at the heart of all the current major wedding trends, and we love that monograms are rising in popularity.

Couples’ initials, crests, and family names are transformed into works of art for their wedding stationery, adding exclusivity and sophistication. Some of our clients have expressed interest in bespoke taglines and phrases, which their tailors and seamstresses skilfully incorporate into outfits or accessories. One particularly romantic example is the idea of having your vows delicately embroidered into exquisite tulle bridal or love notes stitched into bridal veils or the groom’s shirt cuffs!

Another side of this personalisation trend is that more and more couples are working with artists to commission custom portraits, hand-drawn fonts, and hand-painted illustrations – all of which becomes artwork that is completely unique to their wedding. Hand-lettered menus, playful drawings, and miniature illustrations are all wonderful ways of weaving the couple’s story, personality, culture, or wedding destination into every element of their one-of-a-kind stationery.

Tradition meets Technology

Like everything else in our society and lives, technology is also playing an increasingly large part in wedding stationery.

Tradition and tech are coming together in the wedding stationery space with social media-inspired animations, digital invitations, and interactive online elements. We’re noticing a rise in using QR codes as an easy and stylish way to connect guests with digital resources – like wedding websites or RSVP forms, for example – thus making the experience even more seamless and convenient. And while paper invitations will forever be special, we’re also noticing couples choosing to complement that with paperless options too.

For example, having a gorgeous paper wedding invitation with fewer elements and directing guests to a URL to fill out their RSVPs online saves time, paper, and waste, too! Couples use online tools to coordinate their guest lists, RSVP responses, seating charts, and more. We’ve also had couples asking us to explore the use of interactive AR elements as another way to elevate their invitations. While still a little bit obscure, AR can actually be quite a game-changer, allowing guests to unlock hidden messages, personal videos, and surprise experiences.

Destination Aesthetics & Multi-Day Stationery

Wedding invitations are increasingly becoming gateways to the world – as couples are taking inspiration from their favourite destinations, holidays, and cultures. Imagine a romantic Tuscan celebration captured in Italian-inspired invites or a Greek soirée depicted through the Save the Dates adorned with the azure beauty of the Aegean Sea.

The world is your oyster! Here at Ananya Cards, we’re deeply passionate about travel and adore partnering with couples who share this passion. Together, we can uncover completely unique ways to make sure that their stationery is a delightful first glimpse of the international experience they are lovingly hosting for their friends and family.

As destination weddings gain popularity worldwide, the demand for stationery for multi-day celebrations is on the rise. From crafting event-specific invitations, itineraries, and menus to providing comprehensive paper goods for each occasion, like welcome parties, rehearsal dinners, or farewell BBQs and pool parties, couples ensure a seamless and aesthetically pleasing experience. Welcome boxes and bags become delightful carriers of essential stationery items such as illustrated maps, detailed activity itineraries, accommodation details, travel directions, cultural
guides and other memorable keepsakes for the wedding weekend.

So, what does 2024 have in store for the world of luxury weddings? We’re delighted to say it will be a gorgeous year of diversity, sustainability, and personalisation like never before. It will be an opportunity for multicultural weddings to shine with even more vibrancy and detail, showing off
couples’ love stories and personalities with bespoke monograms and hand-painted motifs and illustrations. As the new year approaches, we’re reminded that wedding stationery is much more than just paper – it’s your chance to tell your story and start a new chapter just how you want it
to be.

Ready to craft your dream wedding stationery?

Please contact Vaishali Shah at Ananya Cards for a personalised consultation at ananyacards.com
https://www.ananyacards.com/

Here at Ananya Cards, we are all about creating bespoke, sophisticated, and luxurious stationery that truly reflects the couples’ cultural and family backgrounds. We are always excited to discover what trends come in and out of the industry, and all the new ways in which we can enrich our client’s wedding stationery.

These are our wedding stationery trend predictions for 2023:

Personalisation of details: Customisation and personalisation continue to be at the very heart of our couple’s wedding stationery. We hugely enjoy the way our clients trust us to explore ways to weave in important details of their love stories! We also love uncovering ways to preview their venue, decor ideas, and wedding styling into their save-the-dates and invitations, so that their friends and family can experience the story in a cohesive way, from beginning to end. Finishing touches like handwritten calligraphy and custom wax seals continue to be very popular, adding that bespoke flair to couples’ invitations, envelopes, menus and wedding favours, for example.

Representing cultures: In the same vein as the concept above, we are also seeing a trend for next year’s stationery to be very culturally minded: couples are embracing their international, rich, complex legacies and finding ways to bring that into their stationery designs too. Particularly in light of the challenging few years that have passed, couples want their weddings to be more about family, and ways of expressing how much it means to them to have their loved ones join them on their special day. We’re seeing 2023 couples personalise colours and patterns, but also finding unique wording choices, bespoke texture combinations, and experimental printing methods that reflect their cultural backgrounds.  

Sustainability and mindfulness: Eco-friendly stationery continues to be a trend – and we hope to be able to say this every year! The challenges of the last few years have meant that couples are focussing on the elements of their wedding that mean most to them, and, more than ever, want their weddings to reflect their values; this includes wanting to keep the carbon footprint of their wedding as low as possible and finding ingenious and creative ways to leave a smaller trace within the environment. Our 2023 couples are really passionate about understanding the printing techniques, connecting with their designers, and exploring sustainable solutions that are luxurious but also intentional and mindful. 

Bespoke illustrations: Our hand-drawn illustrations continue to be very popular, and we are certain that this will be another key trend for 2023. Couples immensely enjoy incorporating within the stationery illustrations of their venue, their initials, their much-loved pets, or their favourite motifs  – and in so doing create a set of graphics that can easily be used in multiple ways all throughout the wedding decor. Those illustrations can be used again to personalise their wedding day signage, napkins, table numbers, bar menus, orders of service, and all the other elements of their on-the-day suite.

Colours and textures of the year: We have loved seeing lots of beautifully sheer, frothy, ruffled, and feathery details on this year’s designer catwalks, and we believe these will make their appearance in bridal fashion and wedding decor too. We believe we will see lots of rich greens, purples, teal hues, and rusty, burnt orange tones too. Many of our couples are choosing to elevate their decor with bold colour accents, and enriching their muted, nude palettes with a touch more vibrancy.

We have been receiving so many exciting enquiries for 2023 weddings, and we cannot wait to see how our couples choose to celebrate.

Please contact Vaishali Shah at Ananya for more information.

Here at Ananya we love creating bespoke wedding day signage for our couples, especially when we’re experimenting with something new! There are lots of ways of using signs, both aesthetically and practically, and we can always design something that ties in with your venue, with the rest of your styling, and with your stationery suite.

• Welcome Signs. Just as your invites were the first glimpse of your wedding day, a welcome sign serves to let people know they’ve reached the right place – and that you’re really excited that they have joined you for your celebrations! Place it where your guests first arrive, and think about how you can make a feature of it: you can use different materials for the sign itself for example (like card or acrylic), suspend it or rest it on a beautiful piece of furniture or easel, and decorate it with a floral arrangement. If your venue is a little off the beaten track, do consider adding a few more on the road itself and at key road turnings. You can also combine your welcome sign with some information about the order of the day, so your guests know exactly what to expect!

• Directions. If you’re hosting your celebrations in a wedding venue with many different areas or rooms, or an estate where certain parts of the wedding day are a walking distance apart, definitely consider investing in some practical signs to let your guests know what is happening where. Let them know where your ceremony is held, where the toilets are located (and baby changing facilities if applicable), where the wedding breakfast will be, where to go to find the dance floor, where the smoking area is confined to, where to leave gifts, and any other areas that you think might be useful to them. Your table plan can also be structured as a sign, and this will let your guests know where they’re sitting and where their table is in the room. Place multiple of these around the room where they’ll be having pre-dinner drinks, so that, by the time you get around to dinner, everyone knows where they’re headed.

• Locations, Activities, and Menus. You may want to consider commissioning some signs to label the focus points of your wedding as well – for example the bar, the disco cellar, the video guestbook, the rum and cigar bar, the doughnut wall, or the photobooth! Letting your guests know that you have some exciting entertainment or surprises in store for them is a great way of directing them towards areas where they can mingle and regroup, and also to make sure they don’t miss any of these lovely elements you’ve invested in to make their experience extra special. If you have special cocktails available, a grazing menu to choose from, or different flavours on your dessert display, you can use signs to let your guests know what’s what.

• Decorations and Quotes. Signage can also be a lovely way to incorporate quotes, lyrics, or poems that are meaningful to you – or even to let guests know whether there is open seating for the ceremony, or mischievous rules for the dance floor. Using them tactically can also mean giving your guests useful information, such as letting them know there are flip-flops, glow sticks, sparklers, or blankets to help themselves to – or maybe there’s a hashtag for sharing images on social media! If there are any areas of your venue that are a little empty, why not commission fun signage backdrops for some great photo opportunities and adding that extra personal touch.

Here are some examples for some fun wording you could use around your wedding:

• “Let love sparkle” – near your sparkler containers
• “Love is sweet” – near your doughnut bar or dessert table
• “To have and to hold, in case you get cold” – near your crate of blankets
• “Oh Snap!” – near your guestbook or wedding hashtag
• “Choose a seat, not a side, we’re all family once the knot is tied” – near your ceremony seating
• “All you need is love”
• “Welcome to our beginning”
• “Be our guest”
• “Better together”
• “Best day ever”
• “And so the adventure begins”

We hope this overview has helped you brainstorm on whether signage might be right for you! Whatever your venue and wedding style, we’d love to help you enrich your stationery with some bespoke signs, so please do get in touch with us if you’d like to discuss.

Please contact Vaishali Shah at Ananya for more information.

Website: www.ananyacards.com

Tel: +44 (0)20 7242 1877

Email: info@ananyacards.com

Designer, Vaishali Shah of ANANYA says, “Our designs are inspired by elements associated with love, passion and romance; using reds and pinks, hearts and roses.

A monogram designed specifically for you as a couple is very special and everlasting, especially at Valentine’s. Your very own symbol of your love, it can adapt to your evolving needs and be used in a variety of ways on your stationery, from save the dates and invitations to your signage and favours. Once created, the monogram can be added beyond wedding invitations to personal stationery, thank you cards, labels, ink stamps and wax seals, announcement cards and anything else that requires a personal identity stamp. It can be a wonderful keepsake – something to look back with pride and show future generations. 

And then beyond the wedding, it can be used from luggage and linen to accessories and interiors.

Although traditionally the monogram uses initials, people today are also choosing symbols such as a flower or animal. The creation of a personal monogram gives a sense of stability, of solidity, of consistency and also harks back to more settled times”. 

Vaishali Shah, multi-business owner of Ananya (https://www.ananyacards.com/), Creative ID (https://www.creative-id.com/) & Culturally Minded (https://culturallyminded.com/).

If you would like any further information, please contact Vaishali Shah at Ananya for more information.
www.ananyacards.com
Leading, luxury, multi-cultural wedding and event stationery specialist ANANYA has pulled together exclusively for 5 Star Weddings an inspirational-style gallery of Valentine’s Day-themed stationery designs to give our readers some gorgeous ideas for your own wedding or special event stationery designs.

Ananya know that classic blue has long been associated with the corporate world to reflect reliability, responsibility and longevity.

In wedding stationery, the enduring nature of a marriage can be beautifully captured by the timeless elegance and simplicity offered by classic blue. It’s equally appealing for a traditional wedding or as a foundation on which other hues and tones can be layered to suit a bridal couple’s taste and personality.

Classic Blue becomes sophistication exemplified with metallic touches of gold, silver or copper – or the epitome of soft and demure with watercolours and monochrome tones.

We love seeing Classic Blue with bright and blush pinks as well as orange.

Whatever colour combinations you choose, whatever background colour you start with, Classic Blue will not let you down – it is dependable and adaptable with an enduring appeal. It’s a great choice!

More information at ananyacards.com

Use the leaves

A classic choice, you can be clever with your use of the leaf emblem. Use a mixture of vibrant reds, oranges and browns as well as a few greens, to lift the colour palette. I love the left hand invitation – the circular wreath is so cute!

Go rustic

Dark woods and kraft paper somehow scream autumn to me, but rustic can still be effortlessly luxurious. Incorporate lavish calligraphy and embellishments for the prettiest invitations.

A splash of colour

If you want to keep a white base for your stationery, add a pop of autumnal colour. I love the orange and red palette, but navy and burgundy works really well. I do love the simple cherry script on the centre stationery too!

Fun foil

Take inspiration from the low sun and sparkling dew – foil is a gorgeous way to inject the season into your stationery. Choose a burnt orange or rust colour. Rose gold is also an excellent choice – incorporate the metallic into your colour palette as well.

Block colour

Not content with a splash of colour? Go for a block colour to really make an impact. Indulgent plum, amber or blue make really striking choices. I love the wax seal on the centre image – such a fun addition to a special letter.

Have a look at our invitation and stationery pages for more inspiration.