Modern Lace Letterpress Wedding Invitations

March 04, 2013

Today’s lovely, lacy invitation crush comes to us from Margaux Fraise of Harmony Creative Studio, whose concept for her own wedding invites, a modern take on a vintage lace design, was translated beautifully by Shayna from Steel Petal Press, who designed and printed the gorgeous gray and peach letterpress wedding invites. Details like the textural, blind debossed lace designs, vintage postage stamps, unexpected vertical envelope orientation, and playful vintage Los Angeles save the date turned RSVP card make this beautiful suite a true standout.

Margaux shares:

When I started designing my own wedding, I had a very clear vision: ‘Modern Vintage’. I had dreams of lace, kraft paper, and vintage elements with a modern twist.

We held our wedding at the electric Smog Shoppe here in our hometown of Los Angeles, but the bulk of our guests are my husband’s large family from Iowa. I wanted to incorporate a vintage Los Angeles postcard with the invitation suite and decided to take what is normally a cute save the date and turn it into the RSVP card. Ginger from Serendipity Beyond Design was able to customize the original colors (blue and orange) in the Los Angeles postcard to our soft color palette of mint green, peach, and grey.

As an event designer, I love to come up with concepts but often a great graphic designer takes my ideas to a whole new level! I sent Shayna from Steel Petal Press a photo of a concept for the main invitation, incorporating a geometric lace pattern, and she was able to turn my vision into beautiful reality with a design that incorporates blind debossed elements. We incorporated the geometric lace theme throughout the wedding, using it as a backdrop for our candy buffet and in other decorative elements.

I had only ever come across one example of people turning the envelope vertically, and I fell in love. It was a perfect way to showcase the vintage stamps I had been collecting since getting engaged.

image source : Margaux Fraise (Harmony Creative Studio)

letterpress printing & design : Steel Petal Press

vintage postcard : Serendipity Beyond Design

Karen + Francesco’s Bilingual Letterpress Wedding Invitations

September 03, 2012

This completely crush-worthy letterpress wedding invitation suite was a custom creation by DC + Chicago-based design studio, Ruby the Fox, for Karen + Francesco’s Italian wedding celebration. The gorgeous, duplexed (English + Italian) wedding invitations feature rich, aubergine ink and blind debossed botanical imagery and a magpie motif, which represents the bride’s Chinese heritage and gives the design depth and texture.

Also included in this elegant suite are a letterpress printed information card and a flat printed reply set. Soft pink envelopes compliment the aubergine text on the invitations and give the suite a warm feel, while the typography is a beautiful mix of soft, feminine script and a bold, masculine sans-serif face.

image source: Ruby the Fox

Ali + Gary’s DIY Letterpress Wedding Invitations

February 15, 2012

I was so excited to find these wedding invitations in my inbox because 1) they’re beautiful – I love the embossed and blind debossed flowers and the rich, yellow ink, and 2) they were made using the L Letterpress Machine, a contraption which I want to love so badly but with which I haven’t had great success. It gives me much hope that such a gorgeous letterpress wedding invitation suite can be done on the L; I may have to go dig mine out of the closet and start playing again.

This lovely suite was designed and printed by Ali Crouch of Lowercase a Design Studio for her own wedding. Ali loves letterpress printing but knew that she wouldn’t be able to fit it into her wedding invitation budget, so the L Letterpress was the next best option for her. She received one from her fiance, Gary, for her birthday and got to work on her plan to print her own invitations. She studied a great post by Boxcar Press about getting good results from the L and splurged on Crane’s Lettra paper, a favorite of letterpress printers. The project was a wonderful success, and Ali ended up printing her entire suite, including the main invite, a response card, a reception card, and a small card that directed their guests to their wedding website for more information the big day.

Because Ali had never printed using the L Letterpress before this project, she decided to stick to a one color design. Inspired by the gorgeous embossed floral paper that she used for her envelope liners, she used blind debossed flowers throughout the entire suite. This allowed her to use only one ink color while giving additional depth and interest to the design.

The pieces in the suite were tied together with ivory ribbon embellished with a paper disc (printed in blush pink) that contained their wedding logo. Envelopes were hand calligraphed by San Antonio-based calligrapher, Jennifer Lavin.

image source: Ali Crouch