Weddingbee Blog

Yes, two weeks-ish ago, my invitations made their journey out into the world (or more specifically, to our guests since sociable as I am, I’m still capping my guest list at 300– sorry, world!). Since they were pretty simple–an invitation card, a reception card, a response card + envelope–it was not the most difficult thing for me to assemble them. (Not that such a trivial fact hampered me in my quest to make *everything* wedding-related into a complicated procedure, believe you me.)

After making him wash his hands multiple times (with soap!!) prior to any opportunity to touch the invites, I immediately relegated Mr. Daisy to stamp duty. Shortly thereafter, I benched him as I decided his stamps were not the exact perfect distance from the corner of the envelope (and weren’t exactly straight either, if I’m being honest. Which I am. Those stamps were crooked!)

Here is what my dining room table looked like as I assembled the goods:

Outer envelope calligraphy:

Inner envelope calligraphy:

Invitation in the box:

Scanned in: (the color is really just off of white, though the scanner washes it out to white, it’s actually more the color shown in the photo above)

Reception card:

Response card + envelope:

Random details:

• My calligrapher was William at Rose Calligraphy and I used a copperplate font. Even though I booked on the late side (in August for a September delivery) Harriet Rose was able to accommodate me and the work turned out beautifully. I was so so so pleased! I had it in my head to do hand calligraphy rather than “machine calligraphy” because I thought my invitations had an old-fashioned style about them and the hand calligraphy just fit. It is a bit pricier than machine-done print, but I think it was worth it. ($5.50/envelope or $6.50/envelope when there were 5 lines)
• I ordered my wedding invitations from the Wedding Library, where Shana helped us with everything. For our letterpress, we used Julie Holcomb Printers, which is a traditional letterpress that uses its own special blend of artisanal paper rather than a composite of many sheets glued together. (not sure why this is a selling point, but it’s been mentioned to me numerous times so I’m figuring it’s something good.)
• I used the purple “wedding” stamp for the response envelope and the green one for the outer envelope. Despite the assholery confusion of the postal employee whom I sought out to tell me how much postage my invite would require, I was eventually able to discover that it fit within the realm of the 63¢ stamp. Hooray!
• My invitations had this incredibly cool gold edging, which was definitely a factor in considered in choosing Julie Holcomb as my letterpress. Just a very subtle way to bling out the invite without tackifying it.
  
• For inner envelope and outer envelope addressing, the outer should include the first name, while the inner need not do and can use an ampersand. Example:Mr. and Mrs. John Smith
  123 East 60th Street
  Apartment 6F
  New York, New York 10021

  Mr. & Mrs. Smith

That’s it! Now I just call my mom nightly (on speaker so Mr. Daisy can hear the scoop too) for response updates. So far, so good (if over capacity = good)– 80 responses (40 couples) and only four people/two couples have sent regrets.

You’re gonna need a bigger boat ballroom!