Oh So Beautiful Paper

I love the concept behind this week’s real invitations a collection of individual pieces resembling vintage paper ephemera from the 1800s through the 1950s!  Hello!Lucky, the design team behind this custom wedding invitation suite, combined letterpress and digital printing to create a sense of romance and nostalgia:

From the Hello!Lucky team: We designed these invitations for our dear friend Erin and her fiance Jeremy for their upcoming destination wedding in Calistoga, California.  The bride and groom are both academics Erin teaches law and Jeremy is an astrophysicist so they wanted their invitation to have a book-ish feel.

We decided to use the concept of a collection of found paper memorabilia including a book-page invitation, a snapshot of the bride and groom, map and shuttle bus enclosures, brunch ticket, and RSVP telegram giving the invitation suite a vintage, romantic and nostalgic feel.

The wedding invitation is inspired by the opening chapter of a classic novel (think Jane Austen) and was letterpress printed on deckle-edged paper to emulate a page torn from an authentic book.  Wedding details are printed on a vintage-style postcard from Calistoga, the wedding’s location.

The RSVP card is a letterpress printed Western Union telegram and includes witty, mad-lib style blanks that guests can fill out.  We also designed a 1950′s-style “advertisement” for the free wedding shuttle, including a information card enclosed in a small coin envelope, as well as a vintage bus-ticket invitation to the farewell brunch.

A old-fashioned map of downtown Calistoga guides guests to their hotels and local attractions.  We also designed a state fair-inspired rehearsal dinner invitation for a Kansas City style BBQ (the groom hails from Kansas City), featuring a picnic napkin checker pattern and a blue-ribbon pig.  Finally, we included a small black and white snapshot of the bride and groom posing in a bookish manner.

Sigh… I love the romanticism of the novel page invitation, while the accompanying enclosures bring an overall balance to the full suite.  So lovely!

{image credits: Hello!Lucky}

*Hello!Lucky is one of my fantastic sponsors; for more on my editorial policy, please click here.

1. Michael and Anna Costa says:

   06/01/2010 at 12:01 PM

   We love the retro touch!
2. KnotAnja says:

   05/26/2010 at 4:23 PM

   OMG! So much fun going on here!