Today I’m super excited to feature the wedding invitations from Whitney of Gus & Ruby Letterpress!  Whitney and Samantha are two seriously talented stationers, so when it came time for Whitney’s own wedding I was dying to see the invitations!  Whitney worked with Love*Jenna Calligraphy, incorporating Jenna’s beautiful script into a bright and colorful invitation suite inspired by dahlias and the bridesmaids’ wedding attire.  Cyd from The Sweetest Occasion is featuring the full wedding today, so check out all the beautiful details right here.  But now, time for the invitations and coordinating wedding stationery!

From Whitney:  The entire wedding was planned around the color of the bridesmaid’s dresses (a vibrant, warm purple shade) and shoes (a bright shade somewhere between peach and coral) and the invitations were no exception.  I felt strongly that while I wanted our invitations to be different, I didn’t want to do something so over the top that it didn’t mesh with my and A.K.’s personalities, which are laid back and fun, but not flashy.  This was a struggle for me as a designer, printer and owner of a stationery boutique, but I think I succeeded in the end.  Overall I wanted the invitation suite to set the tone for the wedding: a fun, backyard garden-party with saturated mid-August colors.

We used dahlias as our main flower and I created abstract versions of them to use as the design for the paper goods.  I didn’t want them to be obvious flowers so I spread them around the invitation at varying sizes and heights so they would feel celebratory – almost in the way fireworks do.  We chose Jenna Hein from Love*Jenna Calligraphy to write choice words for each piece because of her playful, whimsical style that also has traditional undertones.  The muslin bag came into play because I have never been a big fan of opening an invitation envelope and having numerous pieces fall into my hands.  The bag housed all of the pieces and also tied in to the numerous textures we used throughout the wedding.

The biggest challenge aside from the number of runs through the press (most pieces were 4-color) was hand-mixing the inks to match the fabrics.  None of the colors I ended up with were actual PMS colors!

In addition to beautiful wedding and rehearsal dinner invitations, Whitney created several coordinating day-of stationery elements, including letterpress ceremony programs that honored the memories of family members, beautiful table numbers, and fun cake menus.  And of course, as a stationer, Whitney couldn’t forget to print herself some matching thank you cards!

So pretty!  Congratulations again to Whitney, and don’t forget to check out her beautiful wedding right here!

Design and Letterpress Printing: Gus & Ruby Letterpress

Calligraphy: Love *Jenna Calligraphy

Photo Cred­its: Brea McDon­ald Photography