It's ALL About Design...
You would expect the photographer/designer to make the monogram, but I was annoyingly persistent about it not being too masculine (he was incredibly compromising here) and when I showed Delyn a few of my original designs in photoshop he was pretty surprised with what I came up with. We went through a series of designs, testing out colors, fonts, designs, and combinations until we landed on our final design. The cool thing with this concept is the amount of creative freedom that comes with it-- you can literally do whatever you want. Your new initials, your names, your last name... you pick... you design it.... and then slap it on whatever you want! And it can be totally FREE!
A few quick tips for anyone interested in designing their own:
-Fonts can make ALL the difference. I LOVE pretty fonts. There are tons of sites out there with free fonts for personal use. A great roundup can be found here.
-Explore cheap graphics you can purchase on sites like etsy. This is where I bought the floral "S".
-Make sure that any graphics you use are high resolution files for best quality. There's nothing worse than wasting time on a design to find out that it prints pixelated.
-Create your designs on a transparent background. This will give you more flexibility in adding your design to whatever medium you desire. Also, if working in photoshop, be sure to save the workable version (photoshop format) of your design in addition to the final product (Delyn taught me that .PNG worked best for this transparent background).
It was fun to use our monogram throughout the planning process. I will post a photo of our invitations soon, as this was one of the most personalized applications of the design. Our planner suggested ideas of incorporating a monogram into details like pillows, aisle runners, and acrylic stickers but we decided to keep it relatively simple (despite the fact that these ideas sounded super cool!). I LOVE that we have such a special memento from the wedding (our framed monogram from the altar) to commemorate our special day. We also considered converting the framed design into a "guestbook" for friends to sign, but ultimately decided we would rather have it as an altar decoration for the ceremony.
Bottom line: for us, our monogram was an amazing FREE design that we were able to use for more inexpensive and creative projects and decor. Two thumbs up.