Paper products can be a tricky aspect of the wedding planning process. At first, you categorize it as an area where you can cut back, allowing other priorities to take a larger chunk of your overall budget. Any etiquette book will tell you, the invitations (and save the dates) set the tone for the wedding, as it’s the first item your guests receive leading up to the big day. Once you delve into the plethora of options available to you, you can quickly become consumed with paper weight, texture, foil, letterpress, calligraphy, adornments and the list goes on. There are so many ways to go about making, printing and ordering your paper products nowadays that it’s important to decide early on what your approach will be.
Will you design your own invitations and have them professionally printed? Will you print your invitations yourself? Do you plan to have them engraved or done by hand calligraphy? Do you want all of your paper products to match and have a common font or theme running through them? Would you prefer each item – save the dates, engagement invitations, rehearsal dinner invitations, etc. – to have it’s own distinct look? Once you answer some of these questions the next step is to determine whether your preferred style fits into your budget, if not, some selections may have to be reaccessed.
Shortly after we became engaged, I knew that my traditional and somewhat old-fashioned tendencies would have me favor a very “matchy-matchy” design, from china patterns and bedding sets all the way through to my paper products. All of the hip and modern stylists out there cringing as they read this, but, as with any part of wedding planning, it is not about picking what is popular but what speaks to you and your fiancee – if he has a preference. My future sister-in-law works in the marketing and advertising field and happens to be quite adept at design work. I immediately asked her if she would be kind enough to design our paper products and she happily obliged. We decided that something very classic and timeless would suit our taste and set out to select a font that could be continued throughout our printed items.
Once we determined how the invites and other paper goods would be designed our next step was to figure out how the design would be brought to life through printing. While some items can be done locally through Kinko’s or Staples, the wedding invites themselves required thicker paper and a letter press printing for which a professional service was necessary. We worked with Colorfast NY LLC located in Manhattan for our save-the-date and invitation suite printing. They advised us which designs would work best for letterpress and guided us through the process overall. From paper weight to inner and outer envelopes, Doug Bird, our contact at Colorfast, was able to handle it all. The best part was the finished product was exactly what we had hoped for. We printed a few extra, in case we found an error in the guest list and also for us to have a keepsake copy. We will bring an invitation suite with us on the wedding day for the photographer to commemorate and make part of our wedding album as well.
As with all things “wedding,” it does not end once you have the ceremony cards, reception cards, response cards and envelopes all in place. The next task is to determine how to go about addressing the invitations. Finalizing the invitation list is one of the most painstaking activities you must endure. While you may have done it months before your actual invites are ready to go out, it’s worth noting that you should review all of the address and titles as we’ve had many people move, get married or achieve degrees that change their salutation during our engagement. Traditionally, all wedding invitations were hand written. Now, with computers and printing capabilities being so vast, many people opt to print their own envelopes or labels. Whichever option you choose, it should fit with the vibe of your wedding.
Ever the traditionalist, I determined we would have our invitations written by hand calligraphy. The letterpress of our invitations is in a calligraphy style and so I sought out someone who would be willing to write the envelopes in the same font as the invitations themselves. Not knowing anyone personally who had perfected the art of hand calligraphy, I used etsy.com and after many private messages and a few samples found exactly what I was looking for. Audreey of Koi Kalligraphia was able to meet all provide everything I was hoping for stylistically and within our time frame.
Once everything is assembled together, make sure to weigh the finished product so that the proper postage is added. You certainly don’t want any delivery issues! Don’t forget to provide return postage for the RSVP card. Whether it’s a postcard or traditional response card with envelope, it’s expected that return postage be provided to the guests ready for mailing. Finally, if the invitations you have selected are bulky, have adornments that are raised, or if you just prefer to keep the envelopes as pristine as possible; you may ask your post office to hand cancel the stamps. Essentially, instead of having the invites go through a machine that may squish them, a post officer worker will hand stamp each invitation before placing it in the mail. I recommend calling ahead to see if the local post office will offer that service. Some of them require that you personally do the hand cancelling when you arrive. There’s a huge sense of finality to sending out the wedding invitations, particularly because it is close to the wedding date. It is recommended that invites are sent at least six to eight weeks prior to the date, but some prefer to send them sooner.
