Weddingbee Blog

Early on in planning our invitations, I set my heart on a beautiful, embossed return address. The fact that etiquette books told me that it’s “the most traditional” definitely helped point me in this direction. I made sure to check out other options before committing:

• return address stamps (check out Ms. Pain au Chocolat)
• address wraps (Minted—sigh)
• having our stationer pre-print the return address

I didn’t find a stamp design that made me love it more than embossing, so I moved on. I scrapped the idea of wraps for the invitation because it felt too casual for me, but I might revisit them for the thank you notes. I also contacted our stationer about having her print the return address, but that would have added $80 per address (and we needed two). Even if we had chosen this route, I would have worried that we might not have had the right number of envelopes with the right return address should there be a second round of invites.

My embosser journey started with contacting the embosser companies’ customer services—I suspected that my German last name, which includes an umlaut, might create problems. I wrote an email to the embosser companies’ customer service. And I was right. My first inquiry was sent to Paper-Source (which was featured in a Martha Stewart Weddings magazine). They don’t do umlauts.

Next, I contacted Wilshire Graphic Press (webpage), which has received a lot of good feedback on the hive (see Mrs. Plum, Mrs. Lemon, and Mrs. Dahlia). They were more than happy to do umlauts for me! Cue happy dance! They have a great selection of styles as well as stock images, and they even do custom work if you send them a decent black & white file.

{image via Wilshire Graphic Press}

I ordered two embossers (each comes with one free plate), one with each of our parents’ addresses on it. The American invitations use Mr. Bracelet’s parents’ address, while the German and international invites use my parents’ address in Germany. I ordered them with “The [Grooms]” (US invite) and “Familie [Bride]” (German invite). This way our parents get to keep and use the embosser in the future—and the embossers therefore aren’t a strictly wedding-related expense.

Clear and deep embossing (sorry for all the blurring)

{personal photo}

I also got a plate for me and the mister. Seeing as how our post-wedding address is yet to be determined and that we will probably move several times in the next few years, it didn’t make sense to get a return address embosser plate for us just yet (but we will!). I decided to get one with our names, so that we can use it till the day we…er…stop writing letters.

Proof received by email

{personal screen shot}

To anyone considering an embosser, I highly recommend Wilshire Graphic Press. Upon placing my order they sent me a PDF proof within three days. The customer service was great and the turnaround was very quick.

What kind of return address are you using?

Catch up on our wedding invitation details:

• The Reveal
• Finding the Perfect Invitation
• Finalizing the Design
• Wording
• The RSVP
• Numbering the RSVPs
• RSVP Envelopes