A stylish save the date and invitation designed by Korissa Tsuyuki

We’ve worked with Korissa before – printing her business cards – so we new we were in for a treat! She designed this custom save the date and invitation using a perfect mix of patterns and typography. We had almost as much fun photographing the finished pieces as we did printing them. Check out the mix of foil stamping and letterpress after the break.

The first piece we printed were the save the dates, which had a really striking heart pattern. We used a 600 gsm cotton stock that was single ply, instead of 220# Lettra (which is just duplexed 110lb sheets). The thick paper allowed us to get a deep impression. The design was 2 colors: transparent white / orange-red.

Check out this 3D photo of the STDs:

The detail in the design is really stunning (see below). Ken & Korissa even included some of their favorite songs along each of the 4 sides (Yellow, I Believe In You, Crash Into Me, and You Are So Beautiful).

The invites take it up another notch. Printed on French Muscletone 140lb and then duplexed to a blank sheet to make the final piece 280lb. While silver ink done with letterpress on black stock looks nice, metallic foil looks amazing and her design really highlights that. We printed the background pattern using transparent white ink to add shading to the intricate design.

The text and border was done in a silver metallic foil, which really pops off the page. She continued the heart theme by including them in the background pattern, the border, and the text – just enough to tie the two pieces together.

Wedding invitations are always special to print, its something we really enjoy doing. If you have a custom letterpress project your working on, email us at contact@dolcepress.com for more information and pricing.

A special invitation booklet we recently produced.

Combining printing techniques isn’t something new to us but we think the use of digital and letterpress printing in these custom wedding booklets is really smart! The booklet was designed by the groom, Aramazt Kalayjian, as a way to keep all of the information neatly organized.

We’re no stranger to envelopes stuffed full for a wedding suite and sometimes it can be a bit much to keep all of the pieces together. A booklet is definitely a great choice if you’re having a destination wedding. This is our second post in our new series on Invitation Ideas (previous post: RSVP Liner), let us know what you think about this set after the break.

The finished suite is really gorgeous especially with the letterpress cover. The invitation suite definitely has a red theme, with the cover and inner pages, even the belly band all designed in red. It’s important when mixing techniques, to match the ink colors so that everything fits together and matches.

The booklet consists of 4 inner pages which were printed on a digital press. After printing, the sheets were scored, folded, and saddle stitched to create the booklet. We added a custom belly band also printed on a digital press to hold the booklet closed. The last piece were the envelopes, which were letterpress printed using the same red ink.

The cover itself was the only part of the booklet that was letterpress printed. We used 110lb pearl white Lettra and printed them on a Vandercook Universal III using a photopolymer plate.

The front of the cover features a phoenix clutching flowers and the back a full print of a lace doily. The pattern used on the cover is a common design found in armenian lace.

Letterpress printing is definitely unique in its looks and feel, which is why it’s so popular. But, for larger suites the cost can add up. That’s why we think this booklet, with the combination of digital and letterpress, is the perfect choice. We kept the cover to one color so that the front and back could be printed in one pass on the cylinder press. The rest of the pieces with the exception of the envelopes were all done on the digital press.

Now on to the inside of the booklet:

This is the first page of the wedding booklet, which showcases the armenian version of the invitation printed on a transparent vellum sheet. We opted for a transparent sheet so that the english version of the invitation would show partially through.

For the second page, we used a textured offset stock to tie in with the texture of the Lettra cover.

This page has the english version of the invitation, especially important for those guests that don’t know Armenian. The great part about digital printing is that it’s a 4-color process. As the sheet runs through the press, it lays down the right mixture of C/Y/M/K to create almost any color.

Normally, if we can’t run something via letterpress our next step is offset, but with so many colors and such a short run digital was the perfect choice. The quality of the digital prints are so good that they’re on par with most offset work.

Here’s the middle of the booklet. It’s always really important to us that the staples line up properly in the middle. Not only does it look clean but the books won’t fold properly if your not dead center on the score line.

To the right above you’ll see the accommodations card and the reply card. This sheet was scored and perforated to make it easy to tear off the RSVP and mail it back. See some process shots of the perforation at the bottom of the post.

We love the little icons used for the entreé choices! Each person who replies draws a line from their name to the meal icon. Some of these closeup photos really highlight the texture on the paper.

This photo is a great closeup of the perforated reply card. The couple decided on a reply postcard, like we’ve used on other suites.

The three photos above show the back of the accommodation card and the RSVP postcard. Because of the full bleed on the postcard it was really important to get the perf. to fall right on the border.

The last page was kept simple with a small red graphic. The layout of the booklet meant that this page was also printed on the transparent vellum stock.

Here are a few photos we snapped while the pages were being scored and perforated on one of the Heidelberg Windmills. Because of all of the scoring and die-cutting we do on special projects, we keep one windmill dedicated to this kind of setup.

If you’re interested in wedding booklets or have questions on how best to mix letterpress with other techniques, email us (contact@dolcepress.com) to get the conversation started.

A letterpress wedding invitation with a custom reply card liner.

We’re going to start a new series of posts on new ideas for wedding invitations whether it involves a special printing technique or finishing method, or a unique design. Today’s post will be the first one in the series about new invitation ideas. What makes these invitations unique are the custom liner featuring the reply information instead of a traditional response card. Read the entire post for more information and photos of these invites.

The invitation was a traditional A7 size (5″ x 7″) with matching pointed flap envelope. We used Crane’s Lettra 110lb stock in pearl white. The suite was printed using a custom mixed blue ink for the invite, envelope, and liner. The invitation set was designed by the couple. More photos of the custom liner are at the bottom of the post.

The design uses two fonts for the layout: ITC Edwardian Script and Castellar. Both fonts belong to the Linotype family, with Edwardian Script created by NY type designer Edward Benguiat and Castellar created by UK based John Peters.

Edwardian script is a particularly memorable typeface whose connections do a remarkable job of simulating handwriting. We also love the negative space of Castellar, similar to the font used in our Dolce wedding invite suite.

They added this small abstract flower to the bottom of the invitation which took an impression quite nicely! The envelope flaps were also letterpress printed in blue ink with their names and address.

Here are the rest of the photos of the RSVP liner in action. The liner itself was offset printed using the same ink we used to letterpress print the other pieces. For white liners like this we use a text weight stock that matches the pearl envelope color. After printing, the sheets were die-cut and glued into the envelopes.

With lined envelopes we always use full size liners (see photo below bottom-right). To me there’s nothing worse than pulling out an invitation and seeing half an unlined envelope.

While a RSVP liner doesn’t work for everyone, its perfect for those couples that want an email reply. We have a bunch more invitation ideas posts planned for the coming weeks so stay tuned!

 We love the playful use of type as a background for these invites.

Fayna & James were getting married at the NY Botanical Gardens, a wonderful place filled with natural beauty. They worked with Mark & Stef (www.marketstef.ca), a design duo based out of Verdun, Quebec in Canada to create the suite of pieces. We really loved the combination of all the pieces, each one had its own style. The finished pieces were definitely something that anyone would be proud to hang up on their fridge.

This photo shows all of the pieces together (photo courtesy of marketstef.ca). We letterpress printed the invite and reply card on 110lb. Crane’s Lettra in fluorescent white. The bride and groom decided on a tea length suite (9.25″ x 3.875″) which are definitely becoming more popular. Check out this previous post about tea length invitations.

The wedding invite was printed in 3 colors. We first printed the transparent white ink for the bottle outline and the F&J type background. Next, we custom mixed a medium gray and purple ink to print the body of the invite. The arrow and heart graphic combined with their names was designed to be used and adapted throughout the suite, almost like their wedding logo.

We’ve notice more couples interested in designing wedding logos to use on the invites. They then extend this design to other things like napkins, wedding aisle runners, wedding party gifts, and even T-shirts. One consistent logo is a great way to tie in all of the parts of your wedding and give them a consistent look.

We used transparent white on the background pattern to add shading to the design and increase contrast with the paper. If this was a commercial, you’d be able to rip the top off the invite and pour yourself a glass of wine.

The other piece that was letterpress printed was the reply card. Printed on the same stock, the reply was kept to 2-colors, gray and purple. The style of the invite is mirrored in the RSVP card, but with a simple clean look.

We printed these pieces on one of the Vandercook cylinder presses to ensure a nice coverage and deep impression.

We love the way this wedding suite turned out, and have no doubt that the wedding itself was equally well executed. We want to congratulate Fayna & James on their wedding and wish them the very best of luck!

We also wanted to share some photos of the NY Botanical Gardens, it really is a beautiful place.

photos courtesy of NYBG.org

A custom letterpress wedding booklet we created for Kimberlee & Lemuel.

Letterpress invitations are gorgeous but sometimes it can be tough to fit everything on a single A7 invite. While some people choose to include additional pieces like accommodation and registry cards, we created this wedding booklet as a way to keep all of the information together. We first introduced this wedding booklet concept back in 2009 (Leah + Zeb’s Wedding Booklet) and couples have been customizing it ever since.

There are a lot of different wedding invitation design but finding something that fits your day perfectly can be hard sometimes. It’s one of the reason we really enjoy customizing our designs for each bride. Kimberlee and Lemuel choose the wedding booklet to organize all of their information for their wedding.

The letterpress booklet contains four 2-color letterpress pages with a perforated reply postcard and a matching envelope. The two colors they chose were lilac (light purple) and metallic silver. The lilac ink color was mixed to match the envelopes (below).

After all of the pages are printed and cut down to size, they’re creased (to make folding easy) and held together with silver grommets (eyelets). Each page is made 1/2″ longer than the next to create tabs that are labelled: invite, visit, and reply.

This page is the letterpress invite with details about the wedding and reception.

The accommodation info was put on the third page.Often, especially with destination weddings, the bride and groom will coordinate with a hotel to arrange for special pricing for the wedding weekend.

The last page is the reply card. To reply the recipient tears the sheet along the perforation and puts the postcard in the mail. Perforating cotton paper can be a little tough, too much impression of the rule into the sheet causes the card to fall off. On the other hand too little impression makes it very hard to rip off cleanly.

Looking for a custom wedding booklet for your wedding, contact us to get started.

Here’s a few quick photos of letterpress thank you cards we printed for a wedding invitation suite. A lot of people put emphasis on the quality and esthetic of their wedding invitations, mostly because they want friends and relatives to know how important it is to them that they’re a part of the wedding. Wedding invitations and save the dates are often the first thing people associate with your special day and its important to start off on the right foot.

More often than not though people don’t think about thank you cards until after the wedding is over. After starting your wedding off right, don’t your guests deserve a beautifully printed and personalized thank you?

There is quite a bit of etiquette associated with thank you’s, like when to send them, what to write, and what not to. Below is an excerpt from a great article by Emily Post. This list outlines the 10 Do’s and Don’ts of Thank You Notes, and it really applies for any thank you, not just for your wedding.

1. Do personalize your notes and make reference to the person as well as the gift.
2. Do remember that a gift should be acknowledged with the same courtesy and generous spirit in which it was given.
3. Do be enthusiastic, but don’t gush. Avoid saying a gift is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen unless you really mean it.
4. Don’t send form letters or cards with printed messages and just your signature; don’t use email or post a generic thank you on your wedding web site in lieu of a personal note.
5. Do promptly acknowledge the receipt of shipped gifts by sending a note right away or calling and following up with a written note in a day or two.
6. Don’t mention that you plan to return a gift or that you are dissatisfied in any way.
7. Don’t tailor your note to the perceived value of the gift; no one should receive a perfunctory note.
8. Do refer to the way you will use a gift of money. Mentioning the amount is optional.
9. Don’t include wedding photos or use photo cards if it will delay sending the note.
10. Don’t use being late as an excuse not to write. Even if you are still sending notes after your first anniversary, keep writing!

Don’t #10 is really important. No matter how late it may be, it’s never too late to say thank you for someone’s generosity. Read the rest of the Emily Post Article here: Wedding Thank You’s. Do you agree with Emily Post’s list? What are your Do’s and Don’ts for Thank You writing?

One of the biggest questions newlyweds have about Thanks You’s is often when to send them. There are two standards to compare against here, one is the experts and the other is what the average person thinks. Our expert opinion is that Thank You’s should be sent out as soon as you can. Certainly take a week or two to recover from the wedding, honeymoon, and possible move, but make it a priority to sit down and write at least a few thank you’s a night.

A poll from 2009 posted on Twiigs.com suggests that most people agree that it’s proper etiquette to send out thank you notes within 3 months and definitely no longer than 6 months. Check out the results here: How long should you wait to send out thank you notes after your wedding?

Let us know what you think is an appropriate amount of time to wait in the comments below.

The cards were letterpress printed on pearl white Crane’s Lettra (110lb) with brown ink. The cards were cut down to A2 size (4.25″ x 5.5″ – folded) and scored for a clean folded edge. We tailored the design of the cards to match the other pieces in the wedding suite.

Going to be placing an order for wedding invitations? Because the setup for letterpress printing is time consuming, it’s more affordable to order additional pieces like thank you cards with your wedding invite order. Based on the size and type of press being used, sometimes we can gang all of the pieces together and run them at once on one of the cylinder presses.

The colored edges make the invitation really pop!

Today we wanted to post wedding invitations that we printed for a great couple, Francesca & Robert, a while back. Pulling samples yesterday for a slew of new customers, we stumbled across these invites and loved how great the edge coloring looked on them. Their invites were based on our Feathered Flourishes wedding invitation suite. More photos of these wedding invitations after the break.

The invitation was letterpress printed on our 220lb 100% cotton stock (~0.05″ thick!) in two-colors. The flourishes were printed in blue and green to match the envelope and liner. Green is also used as an accent in the ampersand between their names on the invite. The invitations were a traditional size – A7 (5″ x 7″) – and were round cornered using a 1/2″ radius die.

The final touch for these invitations was the edge coloring done in the same green to match the letterpress ink and envelopes. For couples that are interested in using edge coloring for their wedding suite, we suggest the 220lb stock as the thickness of the paper provides a nice “shelf” to display the color.

This project was one of the first pieces we printed on our newly acquired 12 x 18 Chandler & Price Craftsman press. Four form rollers plus more than a ton in weight means this bad boy can print nice solids with a deep impression!

The last piece to the set was the envelope. It was letterpress printed with their address on the flap and then lined with this graphic print in blue.

We love wedding invitations not only because of what they represent, but also because they’re like mini-posters! Whether your interested in one of our designs or have a design of your own, to get started on your wedding project get in touch with us by phone or email.

A new letterpress design perfect for your nautical-themed wedding!

We thought it’d be nice to mix it up a bit and take a small break from the barrage of business cards we’ve been sharing. We’re happy to announce a new addition to our wedding line, the Hamptons Save the Date. The design is available immediately and for those interested in a sample, please contact a wedding coordinator.

We originally designed this save the date for Meg and her bride to be Claire, a great couple from Boston, Massachusetts. The card was letterpress printed on 110lb cotton paper in a soft-white color. A lot of people ask why cotton paper is so common, and the simple answer is that takes a nice impression and allows for a nice coverage of ink (like the full solids in the sailboat below).

Meg and Claire knew that they wanted to use our Anchor wedding invitations (which we shared a while back on the blog: Tea Length Wedding Invitations) but wanted something with a little more flair for their save the dates. A custom design is a great choice for couples who want to create something unique. One of the great features of our letterpress line is that everything can be customized with an existing design (from the fonts, layout, graphics, colors, and paper).

The full solid of navy blue required a double hit to get a nice coverage and to make the color pop!

The envelope was also letterpress printed in navy blue with a matching mini sailboat.

If you’re looking to design your own wedding ephemera or want us to create it for you, please contact us by email to get started.

We have been showing a ton of business cards lately so we thought that we would share a wedding invitation that we recently printed for Marybel and her now husband Carlos (They got married on July 4th 2010!). Marybel loved the anchor wedding invite, but didn’t want the traditional invite size (A7 – 5″ x 7″).

We decided to go with a tea length or 9 1/4″ x 3 7/8″ sized invitation. The invite was letterpress printed in one-color, Navy Blue, and then trimmed down. We matched the ink color to a navy blue #10 envelope with side flap. An anchor was letterpress printed on the envelope with metallic silver ink (below).

We recently printed this anchor-themed A7 invitation with a hot pink liner which we really loved!

In celebration of Valentine’s Day we wanted to share a new wedding invitation suite with our readers. The Dolce suite is letterpress printed in purple and silver inks on 110# cotton paper. The set shown here consists of a cover sheet, invite, and reception card. We love the look of the line art in the solid purple on the cover page. The invite was die cut to match the scalloped border. The outer envelope was finished with a custom sticker for the addresses which wraps from front to back.