I thought it was probably a stretch to convince my fiancé, Brian, to splurge for a custom wedding invitation suite and signage, but we met with Ji in person and he was totally sold on hiring her after viewing her samples. She does such incredi...ble work at a very reasonable price!
There is something SO special about having something designed just for you and I promise you that Ji does exactly that. If you look at her work (check out her Instagram!), it's immediately clear that she does not duplicate designs and that each one is designed with special details about the couple in mind. For us, she did custom illustration of us drinking boba wearing Cal beast mode shirts, custom monogram + invite suite, custom cornhole illustration, custom acrylic sign, and more!
I also appreciated that she did not try to push any buy-ups on us, like: more expensive print materials, foiling, envelope liners, and more. She can definitely do all those things, but we didn't want to spend extra on the invitations so she didn't push it.
In addition to her exceptional designs, we also appreciated these things:
- Accommodating different languages: we needed to have guest names and salutations printed in Chinese and English, which she was able to do easily. She can also handwrite things in Chinese and Korean if you’re looking for calligraphy on your envelopes!
- Unified theme across signage and invitation suite: Ji's designs helped bring everything together between the different locations at our venue without being cheesy with excessive signs and goods. Example: our welcome sign colors were painted acrylic, which matched the colors of our invitation suite. The same color scheme was used on the border of the table menus, which was minimalist but a nod to the theme. The guest name tags contained the wedding suite colors used as meal indicators for our catering company to serve our guests. She also painted a custom illustration on a cornhole set that had symbols that were relevant to us as a couple. It was really just brilliant and perfectly and effortlessly beautiful.
- Creative practicality: we really appreciated Ji's ability to think outside of the box. We needed a way to hang signage on our escort display and threw out a bunch of crazy ideas before asking Ji. She suggested using strong neodymium magnets glued on the back of the signs to stick to the metal bookcase we were using. During moments like those, Brian and I were patting ourselves on the back for hiring Ji!
- Excellent collection of rentals: you can rent mirrors and stands from Ji to letter on for a really reasonable price. I think most of the items like menu stands don’t require rentals at all. Really, really appreciated that because the wedding industry nickels and dimes you for EVERYTHING usually! You can ask for her rentals inventory to get an idea.
Also wanted to mention a general learning:
Give yourself a timeline buffer for everything in your wedding, including invites. Ji was really upfront about her design timelines but we tried to push for more aggressive dates and it wasn’t possible. We hired her knowing this and kept stressing ourselves out by secretly hoping that drafts would be magically early (spoiler alert, they were on time because that’s what she committed to). Good work takes time and if you can't wait for the timelines then you should go with another option.
Anyway, we would absolutely hire Ji again and would 12/10 recommend her services!