In 2009 they were proud to have been commended by “Print Week” as Social Stationery Printer of the Year”. They were also winner of the VOWS Award (Voted Outstanding Wedding Stationery Supplier)

The look and luxurious tactile feel of an embossed or letterpress image into a thick high quality card, speaks for itself. These cards, mainly hand fed and printed in small runs are far different from the mass production of so many cards.  The finish and boards used really do have to be seen to appreciate their superb quality.  Whether letterpress, thermography, engraving, diestamping, blind embossing, plate sinking or foil blocking,  you can be sure of exceptional quality wedding  invitations and stationery.  If you are confused about all of these printing techniques, and which to choose, we will be publishing a handy guide tomorrow with the help of Tim Honnor from Piccolo Press.

Piccolo Press offer an entirely bespoke service, so if you have an idea for a design, they will work with you to see your ideas transformed into beautiful wedding stationery.  Contact Piccolo Press directly to find out more about how thay can help you to design your perfect wedding stationery.

It seems that more and more brides and grooms are looking for custom made wedding stationery, incorporating their own unique ideas and style.  Working with a great graphic design or print studio can really make your wedding invitations that extra little bit special and can often be worth going the extra mile, particularly if you are looking for something truly unique!  Very well done guys – we LOVE them….

CARD FRONT

INSIDE SPREAD OF CARD

Shelley – “Originally my plan was to make these myself – I have a decent printer – know my way around a computer and am known to be a little crafty – but after researching other peoples invites on flickr I came across some beautiful examples of Letterpressed invitations by Bella Figura.

This led me on a search to find a UK based Letterpress company – it wasn’t long before I came across the wonderful Blush Publishing! The ever diligent and eternal night owl Mark Moran was extremely helpful and patient whilst I dithered about what design I wanted. Originally I had planned a funky square invite with motifs representing myself and Wayne. Wayne would be easy – an xbox controller (!) and maybe mine would have been a pair of scissors or a needle or a mouse? But as the wedding plans took shape and the vintage element really kicked in I just had to work this into the theme!

Quickly I decided on a 1950′s postcard style and used an example from the fantastic resource which is deviantART to use as my inspiration. I really wanted to incorporate my own artwork for this and knew deep down that computer graphics would look too stiff so I dusted off my sketchbook and got to work . .

Once the artwork was finished, I scanned it, tidied it up in Photoshop then turned it into paths for Illustrator where I could work on the text. I have always loved the look of old fashioned typewriter fonts, they remind me of my art school days when I used my old Olivetti to create many a bizarre text based piece! But I also love the trendy carnival style fonts you see a lot these days. Every waking minute I spent trying to get the look and the wording right – I even sent what I thought was the final proof off to be printed with several errors in my haste and bleary-eyed state!

But shortly after everything was finalised Mark and the clever bunch at Blush turned my design into the loveliness which is below. Even the cute wrapping added to the wonderful experience which is letterpress!”

Mark: “We recently printed this gorgeous wedding invitation. Letterpress printed onto 638gsm pure cotton board both sides, 3 colours front, 2 colours on the back. A6 postcard with a summer bunting theme designed by our customer.

Shelley took inspiration from vintage pattern and summer themes and got to work in her sketchbooks. Her drawings were scanned into the computer and “tidied up” in Photoshop. Then she added old typewriter and carnival style fonts into the mix and came up with a design full of nostalgia.

Shelley emailed her artwork to us and we got to work. We colour matched the inks to Pantone refs and a print out from her computer as it had the tone of colour she liked. Considering the weight of board used the job ran smoothly. First we printed the fuchsia and grey, front and back and finally the green on the front then trimmed to size. Packed and dispatched before the weekend for Shelley to start sending out.”

Read how Shelley came up with the design in our next post. If you are a bride or groom, or a wedding invitaiton designer, and would like to share your unique wedding invitation designs please do get in touch – email us .

From James at Beanswave:“Wedding invites are not something Beanwave have been asked to do before, but when the brief was “we’re getting married… in the Ice Hotel in Swedish Lapland… there’s also a second reception/party in England a week later for those that can’t make it to the Arctic Circle… we need invites… and they can be as creative as you like”, then that’s the kind of job that gets the juices flowing at beanwave. And the client? Well that was me and the soon-to-be Mrs Bristow, so they had to be good.

An invitation to any event should set the tone and give recipients a sense of anticipation and excitement. Our idea? Let’s create an invite that reflects a ‘wedding of two halves’, and post it in a box of snow. Simple.

So in October 2009 each of our guests received a box through the post. The outside address label contained the quote:

“A snowflake is one of nature’s most fragile creations, but look what they can do when they stick together”

Upon opening the box, each recipient received an avalanche of snow-like polystyrene balls over-spilling from the box. Then inside, under the ‘snow’, they found an invitation card with a photo of a heart carved from ice.

On first opening, the card revealed two sides – one for the Ice Hotel Wedding the other for the Woburn reception. The card then opened out again to reveal a montage of bride and groom photos from childhood through the years.

The other detail was using appropriate lyrics from Beatles songs. These were subtly printed on the cards using spot varnish so they could only be seen when light catches at the right angle. The reason for this was that we had booked a Beatles tribute band for the reception, but wanted to keep them as a surprise. (This theme was also carried through to the reception where the table names were Eleanor, Sadie, Rita, Lucy, Prudence & Martha!)

Although they cursed us when still finding little balls of snow for weeks later, the reaction was great, recipients really loved this unusual, modern wedding invite. Both days were fantastic occasions, the Ice Hotel was an amazing place, and the Upbeat Beatles were a massive hit. Happy days indeed.”