Perfect for a summer wedding or a beach-side destination wedding, we’re completely in love with these Nautlius letterpress save the dates we recently printed. A fabulous 1-color letterpress design printed in navy ink, these save the dates are the definition of preppy chic. The Nautilus design is one of our favorites, because it features a choice of several different motifs including the crab shown here, a palm tree, starfish, anchor, and others, all perfect for any nautical-themed event. We think it’s fun, festive and yet completely sophisticated – a sure sign of good things to come for guests at this wedding!

When you’re surrounded by incredible letterpress creations every day, choosing your own letterpress wedding invitations becomes difficult. Really really difficult. There were moments during that time when I joked about wanting to send each of our guests a different invitation, just so I could see all of my different ideas in print. After much debate, with the help of our amazing client coordinator, Tiffany, and our equally amazing graphic designer, Beth Ann, I was was able to settle on our Keswick design in mediterranean and pale gray inks. The entire process was incredibly exciting, but nothing topped the day I finally got to hold them in my hands. They’re absolutely stunning and you can bet we’ll have a set framed to hang in our house after the wedding.

Because we’re having an unusual two-day wedding with a private ceremony on Friday and a larger reception on Saturday, our main invitation was printed for Saturday’s reception. To let Friday guests know they were invited to the ceremony, we included a small ceremony card insert with the details as to the ceremony time and location. Reply cards sent to those guests provided space to reply for both the Friday and Saturday events. All of the pieces were printed in 2-color letterpress, with the exception of the ceremony card, which was a 1-color letterpress card.

Of course, no invitation is complete without beautiful hand calligraphy. Our envelopes were addressed by our amazing calligrapher, Debi Zeinert of The Blooming Quill. She even hand-mixed the ink to perfectly match the mediterranean blue of our invitations and printed envelopes. Not only was I stunned at how amazing the envelopes looked, but our guests are still raving about how exciting it was to get them in the mail. Now that right there, that’s a good way to kick off a wedding celebration if you ask me!

With that said, I’m off to get married – I can’t wait to share photos and more details when I’m back!

In early May, my bridesmaids hosted an incredible bridal shower for me. While I’ve been getting increasingly more excited for the wedding in recent months, excitement really started to mount with the shower the girls hosted for me and all of my family and friends. They put so much effort into making it a wonderful day and it truly was just that.

I will admit that it was a bit awkward for me to be banished from helping with shower preparations. I am very much hands on when it comes to social occasions and being on board to help with baking, cooking and logistics, but this time I wasn’t allowed to know anything aside from where and when to be. Upon arriving a few minutes before the other guests, the first thing I noticed were huge trays of cupcakes and tons of white roses. Two of my favorite things in life? Cupcakes and white roses. I knew right then and there it was going to be a great day.

I won’t lie – I am a girl who loves food. Needless to say, the feast they put together made me one happy bride. I am told coordinating everything required color-coded spreadsheets and the aid of Google Docs to bring it all together, but if you ask me, it was well worth the effort! Lots of fresh fruit and miniature sandwiches, bruschetta and caprese skewers, pasta salad and cheesecake, it was sincerely the best food I’ve had since the last of the holiday cookies were eaten up this winter. And did I mention there were cupcakes? Because there was and they were amazingly tasty.

I absolutely adored the favors the girls dreamed up for all of the guests – tiny flowering plants potted in petite little terra cotta pots. During the party they served as added decor and afterward each guest had a little plant to take home to their garden. It was such a fabulous idea! Truly, no detail was forgotten. From fresh mimosas and bloody marys as guests arrived to little slips of paper at each seat asking each guest to impart a bit of a wisdom, it was such a special time for me to spend with the women closest to me prior to our wedding. Even my favorite colors, foods and flowers and my love for monograms were taken into consideration for a day that was infused with incredibly thoughtful personal details. It is certainly a day I will long remember and to be perfectly honest, the lovely women in my life far surpassed any expectations I could have had and then some.

The opportunity for us to work with brides all the time is nothing short of joyful, but the opportunity to be a bride who works at Bella Figura? Absolutely incredible. As I’ve been planning my own wedding, it has been a sincere and immeasurable pleasure to interact with the wonderful brides we’ve printed letterpress invitations for and I’ve found myself completely immersed in beautiful letterpress wedding invitations every day. Hearing their stories, seeing their wedding photos, sharing in a bit of their sheer bliss, has been a remarkable way to prepare for my own wedding, which is taking place this weekend! Knowing how helpful and wonderful it has been for me to take a glimpse into the planning and happiness of other brides, I thought it seemed only appropriate to take this week to share a bit of my own wedding and my own inspriation.

Milk glass vases were something I knew I wanted to incorporate from the beginning.
{Photo by Punam Bean}

To kick it all off, I wanted to share this inspiration board I created several months ago now. It was by far not the first one I created, nor was it the last, but it’s definitely the collective inspiration that got me headed in the direction of how our wedding will unfold. I knew I wanted an event that was both classically elegant and incredibly fun – a little bit vintage, a little bit modern and a whole lot spectacular. Early on the color palette developed into a sophisticated array of neutrals with smudges of my favorite blue hues appearing in little whispers here and there. Attention to detail has been a priority from the beginning, including our letterpress wedding invitations I’ll share later in the week, and all of the other little elements I’ve been crafting over the past many months. Sticking to things that were beautiful, vintage, and handmade has been the running thread that has helped to bring everything together. I can’t wait to see how my vision plays out and to share photos soon.

For now, here is the inspiration board that has led the way…

As part of our continued efforts to be truly eco-friendly, Bella Figura subsidizes CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) memberships for all employees.  Many of us happily take advantage of the opportunity to have fresh, local, organic produce delivered once a week by a local organic farm, Grindstone Farm. The veggies and herbs are always incredibly fresh and delicious and have typically been picked within just hours of reaching us. Because the Delevan Center, the old warehouse we call home, is the Downtown Syracuse drop off location, our CSA deliveries literally come right to our door. We love seeing what awaits us as we fill up our bags and head home to cook – half the fun is figuring out what to do with all the cool ingredients we don’t always see in local grocery stores!

Typically, we get an assortment of great lettuces, kale, fresh herbs like cilantro and dill, broccoli so delicious you’ll never want to eat anything other than organic broccoli again, garlic scapes, cool daikon radishes that resemble white carrots, and lots and lots of beautiful red radishes. As the season is progressing, so are the crops, and the veggies we receive every week are changing up, but we’ve continued to get a lot of radishes, which led a few of us to start looking into recipes that use radishes and ideally the radish greens too. After a while, we’ve found ourselves at a bit of a loss as to what to do with them other than slice them up for salads. After some hunting around, one of our letterpress printers, Carrie, who is one of the finest artisans we know to ever run an Original Heidelberg windmill, found and tweaked the following recipe that was so good, we just had to share it in the event any of you are at a loss as to what to do with all of your radishes. If you like food with an Asian flair, you will love this recipe.

Asian Hamburger Skillet

• 1lb lean hamburger (although many of us are vegetarians so we substituted the Morning Star ground “meat” instead)
• 1 medium red onion, sliced about 1/4? thick then cut into 2? lengths
• 1 bunch of radishes, cut in matchsticks
• 1 bunch of radish tops, cut roughly into 1? pieces
• 4 carrots, julienned or cut into 1/4? slices
• 1-1/2 tsp ginger paste
• 2 tbsp fish sauce (although we’ve also tried General Tso’s sauce and it was delicious!)
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 lime (optional)
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste

In a large sauté pan, cook hamburger (or meat substitute) over medium high heat, until just beginning to brown, breaking into small bits with spatula. Stir in onion and radishes and cook another 2-3 minutes. Stir in carrots, radish tops, ginger paste and fish sauce and cook 5-10 minutes until onions are softened and hamburger is cooked through. Sprinkle with lime juice (if using) and pepper, to taste. Serve immediately…and don’t forget to let us know how you like it!

The classic beauty of our Deveril letterpress wedding invitation has long made it a favorite with couples and it’s easy to see why. It’s elegant, chic and its effortless simplicity really allows the beauty of letterpress to shine. This version of Deveril put a modern twist on a classic favorite by opting for our bright red cardinal ink and our 7″ square size. In this instance, the bride wanted something with a bit of an edge and the groom wanted something traditional so this take on Deveril was their compromise. We think it’s fabulous!

You can see other great Deveril letterpress invitation customizations we’ve previously featured on the blog here and here, as well as fabulous Deveril letterpress save the dates here and here.

Custom letterpress coasters are among our favorite things to print. There is truly no better way to add a special, unexpected and unique touch to your wedding, anniversary party or fiesta than with gorgeous letterpress coasters. We love when couples incorporate a special monogram or recipes for signature cocktails, but they’re equally as fun when printed with motifs to match their letterpress wedding invitations. If you’re looking for that perfect way to infuse your event with personal flair, letterpress coasters are a must have.

Printed in one color letterpress in our dusty pink ink, these coasters perfectly coordinate with the couple’s Pavilion letterpress wedding invitations for their glamorous nuptials in Indonesia. They are both chic and oh so pretty.

These two-sided letterpress coasters are printed in fuchsia ink and feature the same design as the couple’s Birds letterpress wedding invitations. Along with a recipe for the signature cocktail served at their wedding, the back of the coaster also features the custom pattern used for their envelope liners – a perfectly coordinated and really fun way to personalize their event.

These letterpress coasters feature a custom hand calligraphy monogram, making them truly one of a kind. Printed in cardinal ink, they could be equally as special for an anniversary party or graduation celebration as for a wedding.

Circolo 1 is one of our favorite designs, but we especially love it when printed as a great letterpress coaster. Printed here in antique gold ink, this coaster is nothing short of modern and hip, again featuring a recipe for the couple’s signature cocktail. When we print great coasters like this, we know our couples’ guests are in for a real treat!

You can see more custom letterpress coasters here.