Abbi + John’s Rustic Summer Wedding Invitations

Happy Monday everyone! This is my favorite way to start the week: beautiful wedding invitations! These beautiful rustic summer wedding invitations come to us from Samantha and Whitney of Gus & Ruby Letterpress. The invitations combine bright summer colors like yellow and aqua with animal silhouettes to represent the New Hampshire farm wedding venue. So pretty!

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From Samantha and Whitney: This custom suite was designed for an active fun-loving couple who were married at a farm in New Hampshire. The bride and groom wanted the invitation suite to reflect the bright colors of summer and the casual and rustic feel of the farm.

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Each invitation was mounted onto a bright yellow backing paper and featured a pairing of whimsical, casual and classic font. A color palette of aqua, sunny yellow, and charcoal gray set the summertime tone for their outdoor event.

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All pieces were wrapped in a belly band featuring a variety of animal silhouettes letterpress printed in two colors and tied with twine and a hang tag directing guests to Abbi and John’s wedding website.

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A graphic yellow envelope liner completed the invitation suite and z-fold ceremony programs tied the day-of paper goods all together. As always, the pieces were lovingly letterpress printed by hand on our antique press on beautiful, textural, super thick 100% cotton paper.

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Thanks so much Sam and Whit!

Design and Letterpress Printing: Gus & Ruby Letterpress

Gus & Ruby Letterpress is a member of the Designer Rolodex – check out more of their beautiful work right here or visit the real invi­ta­tions gallery for more wedding invitation ideas!

Photo Credits: Brea McDonald Photography for Gus & Ruby Letterpress

Happy Weekend!

Happy Friday everyone! I’ve had a busy week behind the scenes both personally and professionally. My dad came to visit and helped us check a lot of things off our pre-baby to do list (yay!), and spent a lot of quality time with Sophie. She’s finally at the stage where she can remember and recognize relatives that she doesn’t see too often, and my heart pretty much burst every time she greeted my dad by exclaiming “Grandpa!” in her tiny little voice. We’ve also been busy preparing for the next installment in our summer cocktail series – coming next week! But in the meantime…

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Photo by me via Instagram

…a few links for your weekend:

This week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:

Check back soon for this week’s cocktail! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you back here next week! xoxo

Carolyn + Dave’s Traditional Romantic Wedding Invitations

Sarah from Banter & Charm sent over these beautiful traditional wedding invitations that she created for a recent client – I love the subtle gray and white color palette paired with pink edge painting! Sarah decided to keep things simple with a typography-focused design letterpress printed on super thick paper. Always a classic combination!

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From Sarah: A self-proclaimed paper snob, Carolyn was looking for a traditional, yet romantic design on thick, luxurious paper. She shared her inspiration board with me, and after a bit of brainstorming we decided on a classy, typographic design with letterpress printing in gray ink on thick 220# cotton paper. For a subtle pop of color, we added pink edge painting to the invitation and RSVP. The return address and rsvp address were letterpress printed to finish off the invitation suite.

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For Carolyn’s day of stationery, we went with a similar typographic design, and used pink again to add a romantic touch. For the menu and program we went with flat printing to stay within budget and on schedule. The meal choice illustrations made another appearance on the dinner menu to tie everything together.

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Thanks Sarah!

Design: Banter & Charm

Letterpress Printing: Rohner Letterpress

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

Photo Credit: Banter & Charm

Wedding Stationery Inspiration: Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea’s bright pops of color made it an instant hit on blogs and social media. It naturally worked its way onto the wedding scene in every piece from the alter to the dinner table. While bougainvillea is a beautiful vine that can be incorporated into many spaces of your wedding day, there is also a lot of inspiration to be pulled from its vibrant colors. – Lauren

Bougainvillea Wedding Inspiration

My initial inspiration came from this gorgeous bohemian wedding on Green Wedding Shoes. Taking a cue from the various tones of coral and pink, here are some fun ways to incorporate bougainvillea into for your wedding day.

dessert signage

Dessert and food labels via Style Me Pretty

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Ombre escort cards via Ashley Gain Blog // Translucent escort cards via Martha Stewart Weddings

cocktail napkins

Custom cocktail napkins via Style Me Pretty

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Escort card display via Style Me Pretty

ombre menu

Hand painted menu via Shannon Kirsten

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Coral Chalkboard Favor Tags via Kraft Stash on Etsy // Watercolor table numbers via Style Me Pretty

Whether you decide to use the plant itself or find color inspiration in the beautiful blooms – there are so many different ways to incorporate this summer trend into your big day!

Where To Find Vintage Stamps

As you probably know by now, I’m a big fan of using vintage stamps on milestone stationery like wedding invitations and baby announcements. I used vintage stamps for my own wedding invitations, moving announcements, and for Sophie’s birth announcements almost two (!!) years ago – and I’ve featured countless wedding invitations with beautiful vintage stamps over the years. Vintage stamps offer a wonderful opportunity to represent your personal style, whether chosen thematically or by color palette. And since unused postage never expires, there are endless options to suit everything from a formal black tie wedding to a casual backyard gathering. Some readers have asked for tips on where to find vintage stamps over the last few weeks, so today I thought I’d share my go-to sources!

Where to Find Vintage Stamps by Oh So Beautiful Paper

Photo by Union Photography from Allison and Mark’s wedding invitations

eBay

If you have the time to search for stamps yourself, eBay is a wonderful resource for finding vintage stamps! This is my personal go-to source, and I like to search for entire sheets of vintage stamps. You can start here, and you’ll find sheets of everything from 3¢ stamps to recently issued stamps. You can refine the results by adding keywords – like science, love, birds, etc. – but leave out the word “stamp” since you’re already searching by stamp sheets. This method can be super effective if you’re searching for thematic stamps, but you may run into a bit of trouble if you’re trying to group stamps based on a particular color palette.

The best way to search for vintage stamps on eBay is by identifying the Scott number of a particular stamp that you love, since many eBay stamp dealers will use only the Scott number in their listing. For example, a really pretty flower “Love” stamp is #1951, my favorite constellation stamp is #3945, and another favorite stamp with state birds and flowers is #1953.

Where to Find Vintage Stamps by Oh So Beautiful Paper

Photo by me from Sophie’s Constellation-Inspired Birth Announcements

Online Shops

There are a bunch of online vintage stamp shops that will curate a collection of stamps for you based on your theme or color palette – such a great option for busy couples or anyone feeling super overwhelmed by the whole process. There are probably a million more that I don’t know about, but here are a few of the shops on my radar:

Underwood Letterpress

Verde Studio

Pack and Post

TreasureFox

Vintage Postage Shop

Darling One

Love the Postage

A couple more online stamp shop options: Champion Stamps and US Mint Sheets. They don’t offer stamp curation, at least that I know of, but you can buy tons of vintage stamps here. Just browse by Scott number through pages and pages of vintage stamps to find what you like – just pay attention to the pricing, which may not be face value.

Where to Find Vintage Stamps by Oh So Beautiful Paper

Photo by Antiquaria from this Vintage-Inspired DIY Save the Date Tutorial

Local stamp dealers, stamp club members, and stamp shows

If you can track down a local stamp dealer or stamp club, they will often have vintage postage that they are willing to part with for face value. I’m told they come by large piles of vintage stamps when they buy stamp collections – but many are considered “worthless” from a stamp collecting point of view. Seriously: just Google your city/area and “stamp club” and see what comes up. You can try emailing the club or see if they list upcoming stamp show dates and go talk to them in person.

Where to Find Vintage Stamps by Oh So Beautiful Paper

Photo by Paisley Quill from Brooks and Erin’s wedding invitations

Local stamp shops and antique stores

If there is a stamp and coin shop in your area, you’re in luck! Stop by and ask to see their face value stamps. Stamp museums also often sell vintage stamps; a fun detail I discovered during a visit to the National Postal Museum earlier this year. You can also try local antique shops – if they don’t have any in the shop they may still be able to connect you with a local dealer with an extra supply of face value stamps. I’ve also heard of some people stumbling onto affordable stamp collections at flea markets – just be sure that you’re buying unused/uncanceled stamps!

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Photos via Martha Stewart Weddings

A few tips for using vintage stamps:

While you’re searching and shopping for stamps, make sure that you have one stamp worth at least 15¢ (or more!). Most wedding invitations require a minimum of 70¢ postage at the current rate. The 3¢ and 8¢ stamps are beautiful, but you’ll need a 29¢ or 33¢ stamp somewhere in the mix to make up the difference.

Consider planning out your stamp arrangement ahead of time to make sure you leave room for an address – and to maximize visual impact. Some stamps look best in a straight row across the top of an envelope, while others look best in a puzzle piece arrangement in the corner. It all depends on the group of stamps you select!

Tell your stationer and/or calligrapher as soon as possible if you plan to incorporate vintage stamps into your wedding stationery. A calligrapher will definitely need to know so he or she can leave enough room at the top of the envelope for your stamps, and a large number of vintage stamps might affect a stationer’s idea to use a non-traditional envelope shape or layout.

If a particular stamp design is in high demand, some dealers will list the stamp at a price greater than face value. I’ve seen this happen to some of the pretty “Love” stamps frequently used on wedding invitations, so if you have your heart set on a particular stamp you might need to factor that cost into your stationery budget. I personally think it’s worth it to find the perfect stamp for the occasion, but the trick is to find stamps that collectors don’t care about yet make a visual impact when assembled as a small group on your envelope.

Those are my tips! Are any of you planning to use vintage stamps soon?