The Bride’s Cafe — Ideas for Wedding Stationery

Hi everyone!  Today I'm guest posting over at The Bride's Café — Janie graciously invited me to stop by, so I'm sharing a few ideas for wedding stationery, from ceremony programs to marriage certificates.  Here's a sneak peek, but you'll need to check out the full post over at the Café!

Ceremony-program-ideas{top photo by Sarah K. Chen, bottom photo by Simply Bloom via EAD}

Fabric-wedding-invitations-vintage-handkerchief-save-the-date{top photo by Max Wanger via EAD, bottom photo via Bird and Banner}

Paper-rosette-flower-wedding-decorations{top row: sweet paul, emersonmade; bottom row: jen curtis via design sponge, kate headley}

Elizabeth-messina-papercut-ketubah{the most amazing papercut ketubah, photo by elizabeth messina}

Check out the full post — and lots more photos — right here!

{images from their respective sources}

Wedding Invitations — Anemone Letterpress

I’m a huge, huge fan of the lovely letterpress work of Anemone Letterpress, so I was just about jumping up and down when I saw that Anemone Letterpress had released a wedding line!  Carrie from Anemone Letterpress has been gradually sharing each design on her blog, but was kind enough to send over a bunch of photos so that you could see the full line all at once!  So let’s get started…

Anemone-Letterpress-Yellow-Gray-Modern-Wedding-Invitation{modernist}

Anemone-Letterpress-Blue-Brown-Vintage-Recency-Stripe-Wedding-Invitation{regency stripe}

Anemone-Letterpress-Tiffany-Blue-Wedding-Invitation{gifted — doesn’t this design remind you of a Tiffany’s jewelry box?}

Anemone-Letterpress-Red-Green-Garden-Party-Wedding-Invitation{garden party}

Anemone-Letterpress-Mustard-Blue-Swallow-Wedding-Invitation{capistrano}

Anemone-Letterpress-Gray-Green-Sprout-Wedding-Invitation{sprouted}

Anemone-Letterpress-Red-Purple-Marquis-Pattern-Wedding-Invitation{marquis}

Anemone-Letterpress-Bamboo-Wedding-Invitation{bamboo}

I love the range of color and use of pattern throughout the collection — and Carrie is always happy to customize ink colors to match a particular color palette or theme.  Stay tuned to the Anemone Letterpress blog for additional details on the inspiration behind each invitation design, and you can order samples of each invitation from the Anemone Letterpress etsy shop!

{image credits: Anemone Letterpress}

Modern Bat Mitzvah Invitations

As I discovered last year, while helping my sister research invitations for my nephew's Bar Mitzvah, finding fresh and modern invitation designs for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah can be a huge challenge.  Invitation designs are often either a bit too far on the traditional side (ahem, boring) or are so theme-centric that they border on tacky.  So I was totally thrilled to see this fantastic custom Bat Mitzvah invitation by SeeSaw: 

Modern-giraffe-bat-mitzvah-invitation
Giraffe-bat-mitzvah-invitation
Giraffe-bat-mitzvah-invitation2

I love the balance of the modern design elements with the giraffe illustration by Rebeca Raney, which along with the illustrated foliage ties in perfectly to the Bat Mitzvah venue of the American Museum for Natural History without coming across as too childish.  So pretty!

{image credits: Seesaw}

Wedding Invitations — Porridge Papers

I first came across the work of Porridge Papers on the Clover & Bee blog – and was instantly smitten with their eco-friendly letterpress wedding invitations, many of which are printed on plantable and recycled papers.  Based out of Lincoln, Nebraska, Porridge Papers creates completely custom invitations, working with each couple to create a suite that captures the mood and style of their wedding or event.

Samantha and Christopher from Porridge Papers were kind enough to send over a few examples from their custom wedding invitation portfolio, so let’s take a look:

Porridge-paper-autumn-acorn-wedding-invitation
Porridge-paper-autumn-acorn-wedding-invitation2{acorn}

Porridge-paper-black-white-damask-wedding-invitation{pfeffer}

Porridge-paper-blue-flower-wedding-invitation
Porridge-paper-blue-flower-wedding-invitation2{marroquin}

Porridge-paper-blue-seaside-wedding-invitation
Porridge-paper-blue-seaside-wedding-invitation2{marilyn}

Porridge-paper-blue-starfish-wedding-invitation
Porridge-paper-blue-starfish-wedding-invitation2{shayla}

Porridge-paper-elizabeth-letterpress-wedding-invitation{elizabeth}

Porridge-paper-green-nature-leaf-wedding-invitation{jessica}

Porridge-paper-jewish-traditional-wedding-invitation{ruth}

Porridge-paper-red-orange-modern-wedding-invitation
Porridge-paper-red-orange-modern-wedding-invitation2{andrea}

Porridge-paper-simple-modern-wedding-invitation{cindy}

From Samantha and Christopher: Many of our invitation packages are printed on our 100% recycled handmade paper that’s made right here in our shop. Our most popular papers are our plantable papers that have seeds embedded in the fibers. Once the invitation is sent, recipients can plant the invite and grow gorgeous wildflowers or delicious herbs. Customizing is really our specialty, the designs we use are all unique and we can customize everything down to the paper color.

For more from Porridge Papers, you can check out their wedding invitation gallery right here, read more about their plantable seed paper here, and follow their blog, pulp obsession.  Thank you so much, Samantha and Christopher, for sharing your beautiful work with us!

{image credits: porridge papers}

Julie + Spiro’s Bilingual Greek Wedding Invitations

Today’s real wedding invitations come to us from an incredibly adventurous bride, Julie, who was willing to not only learn how to letterpress print her own wedding invitations, but also to print the invitations in both Greek and English!

Greece-Bilingual-Gray-Yellow-Wedding-Invitation-Suite

Julie fell in love with the tactile feel of letterpress invitations and decided to explore letterpress printing the invitations for her summer wedding in Greece.  Julie chose a beautiful color palette of yellow and gray for her invitation suite:

Greece-Bilingual-Yellow-Gray-Wedding-Invitation

From Julie:  I was a DIY bride in almost every aspect of planning my wedding, which happened on July 25, 2009 in Greece.  When it came to creating my wedding invitations I desperately wanted letterpress, but it was out of my price range.  So I decided to take some letterpress classes at a local printers museum.

Greece-Wedding-Itinerary-Enclosure-Yellow-Gray

I designed all of the elements of my wedding suite (with a total of 5 pieces).  With the help of my instructor, who was kind enough to allow me to use her Vandercook presses at her print shop, my husband and I cranked out all 220 invitation suites in around 7 hours.

Greece-Gray-Yellow-Wedding-RSVP-English

Greece-Gray-Yellow-Wedding-RSVP-Greek{above, the rsvp card in english; below, the greek rsvp card}

It was exhausting, but such a great experience for me that since then I’ve started up my own side business of creating letterpress invitations specializing in bilingual invitations (similar to mine, which is half Greek and half English).

Greece-Letterpress-Wedding-Map-Gray-White

Not only did Julie create beautiful wedding invitations, but I love that she had so much fun in the process!  You can read more about Julie’s letterpress adventures on her blog right here, and check out more of her bilingual letterpress wedding invitation designs on her website, Cartoules Letterpress.  Thanks Julie!

{image credits: cartoules letterpress}