Looking for a person to do our invitations and all the other stationery has been a really interesting experience! We initially found 3 people we wanted to see for quotes, but after seeing just 2 of them, we knew exacty who we are going with.

1 person came with a decent recommendation – the other, a reputation…

Paper Garden

Funny enough the lady that runs Paper Garden in the “Cape Town” area runs it from her home right opposite our church in Strand! This at first we thought wasn’t really such a good thing, since how good could a person be in creating wedding invitations if they came from the Strand?

Well we were mightily impressed. We sat at her table that was covered in left-over invitations that we got to play around with to see exactly how our invitations would look like. Chop this, change that, use that colour, or maybe this insert… it really was a lot of fun. She went through the entire process with us from the invitations, to the ceremony list, to the seating arrangements and confetti ideas. We came away from her really having a sense that we knew exactly how our entire wedding would be branded – which is something I am big into. Verdict: Very chuffed, but we hadn’t seen anyone else yet – but the standard had been set.

Elsje Designs

We went to see Elsje after work one evening. This was an experience to behold. The following is my account of events.

Arrive at Elsje Designs. We are greeted at the door by one of her 3 assistants. She comes out of her studio to greet us and I am given a 3 page document regarding our wedding to fill in. We are told to choose a few – “Not more than 4” invitations up on the walls to start with. Elsje leaves us alone and I fill in the paper work and Karina start to look around. Eventually I am looking all of these other peoples wedding invitations and getting very confused. I don’t want someone else’s wedding invitation? She comes out and I explain to her that she is making us choose another weddings invitation and that we are slightly confused on how this works. She sits us down and goes through our documentation. One thing I made a grave mistake of doing was ticking box 2 out of 4 when it came to price we are willing to pay. Elsje then takes us as a cheap couple wanting a lot, but not paying much for it.

I eventually just take a boring invitation off the wall and say “well this is ok-ish, but its not the right colour”. After spending roughly 20 minutes with us going over the invitation – we have gone with this exact invitation in a white envelope and white invite. Everything we try and suggest gets the disapproval of Elsje so eventually I am sarcastically agreeing to EVERYTHING she says so we can get out of there!

So once we finished, she wants us to pay a R200 consulting fee, which I decline since no one even told us about it!

Anyway, the experience was extremely strange and off putting. Elsje comes across very cold and methodical about the entire process. Not once is she even trying to sell her self or a design. She also kept on bringing up words like “cheap” and “too expensive” which really puts Karina and I off even more.

All I can say is that after telling this story to a few people, Elsje designs seems to have quite a reputation for late delivery as well as some of her staff leaving because they cannot put up with her.

I am not knocking Elsje, all I am telling is our experience with her and that I cannot recommend her services. With regards to the R200 fee, I have a feeling that for her to charge a fee for a consultation means she probably has a high rate of people declining her services, thus the reason for the charge. If you were doing 10 quotes a day, and 8 of them were buying your services, you would never even consider charging a consulting fee, not so?

So, Paper Garden are now officially one of our recommended service providers. And expect something small from us very soon.