Nantucket has long been a favorite among our letterpress wedding invitations, and lately we’ve printed some really lovely customizations of Nantucket that we just love. This one, printed in powder blue and pewter inks, is especially pretty and perfectly suited to the waterfront occasion for which it was designed. With this particular customization, the repeated line pattern at the bottom of the invitation uses fewer lines and the scroll frame was enlarged and shifted up to frame the names of the couple while a script font was used in place of calligraphy accents. We are always happy to make custom changes to our already beautiful letterpress designs in order to help couples achieve the exact look they want, and this is a great example of how a few small changes make for an incredibly personal design.
This letterpress wedding invitation is printed in a custom dark blue ink and features lots and lots of gorgeous, hand-drawn calligraphy by our master calligrapher Debi Zeinert.
Even the M line on the reply card highlights the calligraphy….lovely! Shows how even a single calligraphy letter can totally make a card shine.
Letterpress accents on the classy letterpress coasters too….
Continuing our letterpress calligraphy love fest…here are a few more calligraphy treats.
Black ink seems so right for calligraphy invitations – it’s the original letterpress ink from hundreds of years ago, and black has stayed in fashion ever since. This is the Classic Calligraphy design using the Spencerian calligraphy style, letterpress printed on our 2-ply cotton paper. Totally timeless. And notice how special each of the first letters of the bride’s and groom’s names are – I love how the “L” of the bride is intertwined already with the “P” of the groom.
We often do calligraphy invitations in one color — but wow, when you add a second color–and add that to a custom monogram in fact — what an effect! The butterfly monogram is sweet and sophisticated and uses the bride & groom’s first letters of their first names. More black ink — how can you go wrong there? — but the garden green ink ads a bit of fun. This is another variation on the Classic Calligraphy design, Spencerian style.
Stay tuned for a very cool calligraphy save the date — in green!
Incorporating calligraphy into your letterpress wedding invitations strikes us as one of the season’s best wedding trends. Actually, calligraphy has been a popular design element for, oh, several hundred (or thousand?) years, but we’ve been seeing calligraphy a whole lot in our favorite wedding invitations this year. Though script fonts are great, nothing – absolutely nothing! – compares with hand lettered calligraphy, where every single letter is a totally unique work of art. Bella Figura’s calligrapher is the amazingly talented Debi Zeinert, who has been making our letterpress brides so happy for years now.
So for the next few posts, we’ll focus on some really gorgeous calligraphy invitations. Let’s start with this Nonpareil invitation – it’s honestly one of the prettiest things we have ever seen! And what an inspired customization too (check out the Nonpareil original invitation here). It’s true, we’re letter junkies over here, but check out the calligraphy accents: look at that A! The M! Just lovely. Clients can choose from about 10 different styles of calligraphy, but this style (the Clermont style) feels perfect: modern, elegant, with a little bit of cool. Also note that both the reply information AND reception information is on the invitation itself – it’s eco (less paper!) and keeps cost down too (no reply card/envelope/reception card to worry about!). Colors are black & fuchsia – so perfect!
We think it’s smart to do the thank you note and coaster in 1 color, to keep costs down. If you’re trying to save money, keep the 2 color design for the invitation, and do the rest of the pieces in 1 color.
Learn more about letterpress calligraphy designs at Bella Figura, or about having your envelopes addressed by our calligrapher as well.
Excuse us if we gush about the colors of this letterpress wedding invitation (in the Somersby invitation design) but — we are in love with these colors! The inks are perfect and stylish and sophsticated shades of pink: papaya & fuchsia that play off each other and interact in this lovely way. And check out the reply card – mainly papaya, but with a line of fuchsia (wow!). Monochrome colors will be a hot wedding trend for 2009, we’re predicting. You choose a color, then choose shades of those colors, and then everything looks perfect together. Monochrome colors offer a clean, eye-pleasing look, and make choosing flowers, decor, and even bridesmaid dresses easier (choose any shade of pink, for instance!). Monochrome letterpress wedding invitations are (trust us) also very, very pretty. Enjoy!
Here is another great version of the Deveril letterpress wedding invitation— this time in classic black ink with gold edge painting (the edge painting made all of us here swoon….just perfect!). Black ink, by the way, shows no signs of losing its elegance or popularity for this wedding season. Enjoy these photos of winter sunlight!
The Deveril letterpress wedding invitation has been one of true loves ever since we first printed the sample – it’s a customer favorite too, and we love seeing how clients customize the design. For the next few days, we’ll highlight some cool variations of the classic Deveril invitation design. We’ll start with a really fun idea – printing each piece in an invitation suite using a different color ink – the invite in navy, the reply card in garden, the reception card in fuchsia. It’s such a great twist on the usual 1-color letterpress invitation – fun, festive, but still really elegant.
We’ve always loved letterpress wedding invitations in 1 color — elegant & sophisticated and, if the ink is right on, it’s just perfect. And the good news, if you’re on a budget: 1-color letterpress is always less expensive than 2-color designs (and keep in mind you can print the invitation in 2 colors, and the accessory pieces in 1 color). Almost all of our 2-color wedding invitation designs can be printed in just 1 ink, but here are our some of our favorite 2009 letterpress invitations featuring just one perfect single color.
1-color designs pictured below, starting in upper right hand corner, going clockwise: Marais // Cartoccio // Urbanity // New Calligraphy // Birds // Sevilla
We love traditional rectangular letterpress invitations, of course, but we’re predicting a twist on the traditional: square and horizontal wedding invitations. Both sizes feel very fresh and stylish to us right now.
square designs pictured below, starting in the upper right, going clockwise // Festoon // Amici // Ella // Irving
horizontal designs pictured below, starting in the upper right, going clockwise // Silhouette // Mimosa // Ericka // Onalisse
