Weddingbee Blog

According to my wedding checklist, we need to start thinking about invitations. I’ve been thinking about invitations for a while now, but I haven’t found anything that fits the bill. Here is what I want: letterpress invitations on ivory paper with some kind of vine motif, in autumn colors (I tend to like brown or plum the best). Here is what I’ve found so far, starting with some designs from Wedding Paper Divas:

“Vibrant Vineyard” invite from WeddingPaperDivas

PROs: I love the color, the vineyard motif and the writing. They’re also affordable, which is always a plus!

CONs: I prefer a vertical layout, and this is horizontal. Also these are digital offset printing (so, they’re not letterpress), and they seem a little informal to me.

“Rustic Print” in Cabernet by WeddingPaperDivas

PROs: Vertical layout which I like, cool fading watercolor-like design

CONs: Digital printing, a little plain

“Modern Whimsy” in Cinnamon by WeddingPaperDivas

PROs: Vertical layout, elegant design

CONs: The design isn’t that unique, digital offset printing (do you see a trend here?)

Letterpress “Vintage Pattern” by WeddingPaperDivas

PROs: Nice design, letterpress

CONs: Not 100% sold on design, it’s pretty expensive

Letterpress “Winery Gate” by WeddingPaperDivas

PROs: Unique design, letterpress

CONs: I don’t like the fonts (but they can be changed for free), and again, letterpress is expensive.

Wedding Paper Divas has a lot of pretty designs, and I’ve heard they’re great to work with. The website is also very easy to use and you can even enter all your information and see a digital proof of what your invite would look like. I’ve also looked at Invitations by Ajalon, which is a small letterpress printer in Sonoma. They have pretty reasonable letterpress prices.  They will also take any PDF you give them and make custom letterpress invitations. This would be appealing if I had ANY design ability, but sadly, I do not. I don’t even own Adobe Photoshop. Anyway, here are the designs I liked from Invitations by Ajalon:

Kourtesis invitation suite

Close-up of Kourtesis

PROs: I love the look and feel of their letterpress (got some samples in the mail and they look great!). I also like this design because it looks somewhat vineyard-y.

CONs: I’d have to pay extra to get the cardstock backing, which I really like. I suppose I could DIY that, though. I think I’d also change the fonts a bit; I think the font they show is a little hard to read. I’d also change it from horizontal to vertical.

Savannah Invitation Suite

Close-up of Savannah invitation

PROs: Pretty, swirly vineyard-y motif, delectable letterpress

CONs: The motif has birds in it. I’m not into the bird trend, so I don’t really like that. Also I’d obviously change the colors of the invitation and just do it all in one color, probably a plum.

The last set of invitations that I liked come from Hello! Lucky:

Vineyard invite from Hello! Lucky

PROs: Nice, simple, elegant design in scrumptious letterpress

CONs: Pricey. They’re $3.61 for each invitation, and that doesn’t include the RSVP cards or anything else. It’s not bad for letterpress, but it still seems like a lot to me.

Those are basically the front runners at this point.

Which do you like best? What was the determining factor in picking out your wedding invitations? And more importantly, can anyone talk me out of my love affair with letterpress?