I started Nicety in April of 2017, however I’d dabbled with the idea for quite some time before that! I was always being asked to design people’s wedding invitations - one client was the marketing director of the company I was designing for at the time, and he saw that I had a keen eye for print design. After doing his wedding stationery, his friends contacted me, and then their friends contacted me, and so on!
After attending Falmouth University I started working at a small design and art direction agency. I was lucky enough to work on accounts such as Graff Diamonds, De Beers, and Peninsula Hotels, whilst spending my week days with my fantastic and inspiring creative director and art director who are still very close friends now! I then spent the next 3 years freelancing in-house for companies and brands like Selfridges and Hotel Chocolat until deciding to start this new venture in luxury stationery. I come from a family of designers, my grandfather and both of my parents being graphic designers, my older brother is a character designer for video games, and now my younger sister is in her final year at Brighton studying graphic design. As you can imagine it’s wonderful having the support system of being surrounded by creatives always cheering me on.
I got married in August 2017 and my husband and I had decided to do a DIY wedding as we had been planning to relocate to America a month after our big day, which in itself is a very long story! We got married in the Cotswolds after months of trying to find the perfect venue. We really struggled finding somewhere that fit the kind of day we wanted to host for our friends and family, being slightly naive in what a modern wedding costs and what they entail. Corkage fees, venues that had specific vendors they wanted you to use (with menus starting at £40pp) our idea of keeping our budget at £10-15k was moving further and further away! We then began looking at holiday rentals that could host a wedding and we were lucky enough to discover Burcombe house in the Cotswolds, allowing us to do what we wanted, use the vendors we liked, and most importantly have an OPEN BAR!
One thing I obviously couldn’t cheap out on was our wedding invitations! For me, it was something I could design that represented us as a couple, whilst doing something I was passionate about and almost being a portfolio piece. This is what really kick started my small business. I wanted to create something that was modern, clean, elegant, and different to anything I’d seen. Unfortunately I’m not an illustrator or a calligrapher but with a background in luxury design and a keen eye for typography and fine details, a lover of everything bohemian, I decided to look at pressing my own flowers for my invitations. This worked out better than I’d expected, and I loved the balance between this very basic craft and a luxury product.
I began buying more and more flowers to press, understanding what worked and what didn’t, whilst creating designs that I loved and hope others will love to! I’ve had so much support and positive feedback, including being asked to create a custom pressed flower suite for the Spring 2018 issue of Martha Stewart Weddings Magazine!
I never really thought it would be possible to be a full time wedding stationery designer so I always pushed it lower on my priority list, but in the last year I’ve played with my brand and vision, trying to create a consistent visual language that I think represents me and what I want to stand for. It’s been a long process and I’m constantly learning about things that might come naturally to others, such as how to create a consistent and beautiful Instagram feed! But I’m confident that eventually this adventure will provide me with the creative satisfaction I’ve been looking for.
Love, Anna