When a stationer and an illustrator get engaged, you know their wedding invitations are going to be spectacular. These retro illustrated wedding invitations by Rachel Dangerfield of Imaginary Beast certainly did not disappoint! Decked out with her husband’s vintage-inspired illustrations, these letterpress printed invitations are simply amazing!

From Rachel: My now-husband Dave and I met in art school (he’s an illustrator and I own the design studio Imaginary Beast), so naturally, when we decided to get hitched, we wanted to go all out on the details. Since I design wedding invitations at my studio, the pressure was on! We were married at an old stone pavilion in Mill Creek Park, near my hometown, in Youngstown, Ohio.

Growing up, every time we’d drive through the park, my mom would announce to my sisters and me, “Someday, one of my daughters is going to get married here!” After years of rolling our eyes, she was right! Since it was a spot so close to my heart (and beautiful, to boot!), we wanted to highlight the building on the save the dates. Dave illustrated a three-color illustration of the pavilion, and it was letterpress printed by our good friends at Igloo Letterpress.

For the invitations, we took a similar vintage vibe and designed a three-layer cake illustration, with each cake layer being a different stationery piece. The “cake topper” pulled double-duty as our monogram. Since we were going for a retro look, we knew from the beginning we wanted to design for letterpress, and once again Igloo Letterpress nailed the printing. To mail, each suite was stacked and enclosed in a translucent vellum envelope, stuffed with some confetti, wrapped in string, and sealed with wax. I wrote each address using a gold Sharpie and adhered 4-5 vintage stamps to each before sending them out.

Another “must-do” for Dave and me was brewing our own beer. We’ve made our home in Columbus, Ohio and are lucky to have an amazing brewery, North High Brewing, right up the road where you can come in, brew, bottle, and label your own beer. As an homage to our last names (his being Armstrong and mine being Dangerfield), we designed labels for the “Armed and Dangerous Brewery” and brewed up a tasty Octoberfest.

For our “guest book”, we wanted something we’d genuinely enjoy displaying in our home, so with a collection of tree ring imagery, I created a print for our guests to sign. It now hangs in our bedroom, as a reminder of that happy day back in September.

Thanks Rachel!

Design: Imaginary Beast
Illustration: Dave Armstrong
Printing: Igloo Letterpress

Check out the Designer Rolodex for more tal­ented wed­ding invi­ta­tion design­ers and the real invi­ta­tions gallery for more wedding invitation ideas!

Photo Credits: Rachel Dangerfield