In her own words, our founder and Creative Director Carol Vincent, describes how and why she started Pure Invitation and what continues to drive her all these years later…
“I’m Carol and I wanted to welcome you to my world. I founded Pure Invitation in 2004 after a disastrous attempt at creating my own wedding stationery.
When I got married, I planned it out meticulously, detailing everything I could think of. But when I put all the numbers in, it came as a bit of a shock: I was almost £2,000 over our budget! So I set about reducing our costs – but I didn’t want to compromise on style or quality. Does any of this sound familiar?
Our stationery quote came in at over £1,500, but my budget just wasn’t going to stretch to that. So I decided to make my own invitations. After all, how hard can it be, right? Off I went to the craft store and bought cards, decorations and pretty bits and pieces and created invitations that were… disappointing, to say the least. We’d chosen a beautiful wedding venue and our invitations, which would set the scene for our guests, just weren’t up to scratch.
But by this time, I’d spent a fair bit of money so I pressed on with evening invitations, menus, place cards, orders of service, table names and a table plan. I remember feeling utterly clueless about where to start and what to do. In the end, I spent a lot of time and money on stationery that just wasn’t what I wanted.
After the wedding (which was otherwise wonderful!) I reflected on our day and came back time and again to the naff stationery I’d been forced to use. It got me wondering how many other brides and grooms had the same problem I had. That day, Pure Invitation was born. I spent a lot of time researching and learning about craft and card making. I’d always loved fashion and interior design so once I found the right materials designing beautiful invitations became much easier.
Still, I wondered how to share my new-found love of creating beautiful wedding stationery. The obvious way was to sell my designs but I wanted to give you more than that. I wanted to give you the tools to design and make your stationery for yourself. My idea was that even as a complete card-making novice you can create wedding stationery that looks as though the professionals have made it, so when your guests see it you’ll not only be proud of it, you’ll enjoy all the compliments that come flooding in.
By choosing Pure Invitation, you won’t have to compromise on style and quality or send invites that don’t set the right tone for your day. After all, first impressions are everything!
We’ll help you achieve wedding stationery that your guests will never know you’ve made yourself (unless you choose to tell them of course). And if making your own invites is simply not for you, then we offer a handmade service, so you’ll receive your invites all beautifully made and ready to send out.
This is what Claire, one of our DIY brides, told me recently:
“I’ve had all my wedding stationery from you and I’ve received really good comments from friends and family about how professional they look. One of our friends commented that it was one of the best wedding invites he’d received, and that’s coming from a man!“
The business has been through a lot during the last twenty years or so. We’ve reacted to the changing consumer habits and updated our website to offer an online bespoke service like no other, we’ve expanded our product catalogue tremendously with the help of a bigger design team and we’ve invested in new machinery and equipment to ensure we can satisfy what the modern couple want for their wedding today. Invitations are just a part of what we offer now, with the addition of premium, acrylic signage that will create the absolute wow factor for your big day.
I genuinely love what I do, and I’m so proud of what I have created with Pure Invitation and the product and service we offer people. I hope to continue in the same vein for another 20 years!”