It’s cool to be different. And this wedding invitation is probably different from any wedding invite you’ve ever seen. Since my client went for a more formal look on these invites, I decided to write a tutorial on how to make this neat card.

Here is the image we will be creating:

Step 1

Start with a blank document (File > New…). I used an 800×600 pixel canvas for this tutorial, but obviously if you were actually printing these, it would probably be bigger. But then again, maybe not. Double-click on the Background layer and rename it to “texturebg”. Then paste a picture of a brown paper bag texture on that layer.

Step 2

Create a new layer and name it “call mom”. Select the brush tool (B) and press D to set the foreground color to black. Paint in the words “Call Mom!” with a 5px hard-edged brush. Set the layer’s blending mode to Overlay. Reposition the words at the top edge of the image.

Step 3

Next, create a new layer and name it “newsprint”. Paste a picture of a news column into this layer and resize it as necessary. Make a rectangular selection (see picture) with the marquee tool (M) and press Delete.

Step 4

Select the bottom half of the news column with the marquee tool (M). Switch to the move tool (V) and drag the bottom half of the news column up to meet the top half. Use the eraser (E) to trim any edges that don’t line up.

Step 5

Now, you could use the Drop Shadow filter to create a shadow for the objects on this invite, but I’m going to show you a method that gives you a lot more control, and actually looks more realistic too.

Rotate the news column image counter-clockwise into position. Then Command + Click (Ctrl + Click in Windows) on the “newsprint” layer to select its pixels. Press Command + J (Ctrl + J in Windows) to duplicate the selection. Name your new layer “shadow” and press Alt + Delete to fill it with black.

Step 6

Press Command + D (Ctrl + D in Windows) to deselect. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur… and set the radius to 5.0 pixels.

Step 7

Now press Command + T (Ctrl + T in Windows) to use the free transform tool. Make the shadow slightly smaller and rotate it a little bit counter-clockwise. Then press Command + [ (Ctrl + [ in Windows) to move the shadow layer below the news column.

Step 8

Using your favorite font, type your text onto the newsprint. To make the text that is cut off on the bottom, rasterize your text layer (Right click on layer > Rasterize Type) and use the eraser tool (E) to erase the parts you don’t want.

Step 9

Repeat the same method as above for the newspaper in the bottom-left hand corner.

Step 10

Now we will create the polaroid-like pictures. Make a new layer and name it “picture 1″. Paste the first picture of your lovely couple onto this layer and resize it as necessary.

Step 11

Command + Click (Ctrl + Click in Windows) on your “picture 1″ layer to select its pixels. Go to Select > Modify > Expand… and type 5 as the value for pixels. Click OK.

Step 12

Without deselecting, create a new layer below “picture 1″. Press X to switch the foreground color to white. Press Alt + Delete to fill the selection with white. Then press Command + D (Ctrl + D in Windows) to deselect and Command + J (Ctrl + J in Windows) to duplicate the layer. Use the arrow keys to nudge the new layer down about 10 pixels.

Step 13

Select the layer called “picture 1″ and press Command + E (Ctrl + E in Windows) twice to flatten the image. Then move and rotate the picture to the left side of the invite.

Step 14

Repeat the method above for the other two pictures. From here on out, most of the steps are pretty repetitive.

Step 15

Use the same method you used for the news column to insert a picture of a notepad. Once again, type your text onto the notepad and use the brush tool to write “Invites” and some other random text on the bottom pad.

Step 16

Paste the image of the sticky note onto a new layer and create a shadow for it. I’m not going to write out how to create the pencil drawing effect from a picture of the temple because there are a million tutorials on the web that will teach you how. I think this is the one I used: link

Step 17

Okay, so now you just have to paste in the crumpled ball of paper and the pencil and create shadows for them. And you’re done! If you like this tutorial, please leave a comment below. Also, if you use this tutorial for any of your own invitations, I’d love to see what you come up with, so send me a link! And don’t forget you can download the .psd file below. Thanks for reading!

Download the PSD

invite.psd