Wedding Blog

I have a number of obsessions. One is stationery, paper products and an assortment of paper-related goods. So I developed a healthy obsession over invitations and more specifically, letterpress printing.

A few months into our engagement, we went to Invitations and Beyond in Oceanside, Long Island. The drill was to go in the store and browse through volumes after volumes of wedding invitations. They were all very nice invitations, but I never found THE ONE. A few months later, I went to Kate’s Paperie on Broadway. Went through the drill again only to find that the ones I love are all letterpress and are not feasible within my budget. Lastly, I visited Lion in the Sun (in Park Slope, Brooklyn; there is another store in Long Island). Same drill same result.

It was clear to me that I love letterpress. I love the feel of thick paper, the indentation that is created by the letterpress and the artsy feel to it all. But, the price tag did not like me, and vice versa. Lion in the Sun actually offered to flat print an originally letterpress invitation (see William Arthur invite below). But that wasn’t just right for me.

I started looking at online vendors that could possibly offer letterpress for cheaper than brick ‘n mortar stores. This is what I found.

• Marsville Press - Located in Canada. They were featured in Martha Stewart Weddings in 2004. The price is competitive - 100 invitations on Stonehenge paper, reply cards, and envelopes with return address is $636 Canadian Dollars. US residents pay in USD$.

• Superior Letterpress - Located in Wisconsin. No price information on the website, but pictures of samples available.
• Mercurio Brothers Printing - Located in California. 100 invitations on 110lb Strathmore white paper is $208, response cards are $150 (single color), matching envelopes are another charge on top of that. They are not letterpress designers -just printers. They’re great if you plan to design your own invites.

And then I found this one-man letterpress company called Parklife Press in North Carolina. Travis is the owner, the manager and the star employee there! I got my artsy sister to design a pink paper crane for me to go with our theme. Travis just sent me the first draft. I can’t show you what they look like just yet, but here’s a pic of the layout I demonstrated by cutting invitation wording by lines, and lining them on a sheet marked as A6 size and A2 size (for RSVP postcard).

To feed your letterpress obsession, here’s a directory of letterpress companies…by another letterpress obsessed gal ;).