Isabel & Luis are getting married!

I was thinking today that it's been a little while since I posted anything about weddings, and since I have had quite a few potential custom wedding clients appear over the past week or so, it might be good to write about some of the wedding stationary that has been recently finished. A few months ago I was contacted by a lovely bride, Isabel, through my etsy site about letterpress printing a set of custom wedding invitations that she was designing herself.  I feel really honored to have gotten to work with this couple, because, although they are living in the U.S. now, Isabel is originally from Spain and her husband-to-be, Luis, is originally from the Dominican Republic and right before their wedding they will be leaving the U.S. to move to Tunisia for work.  Personally, I love to travel and I always thought it would be really neat to have a job that you travel and live in different countries for.  I didn't quite end up in a job like that (obviously, even though I love the job I have very much), and I don't plan on trying to move my nearly 1,000 pound printing press around to different places just so that I can say I've lived and worked in other countries, but I do still love to travel to, see and experience different places whenever I get the chance.  Because of this I feel really excited to have gotten to work with a couple who is doing that, and who will be here for awhile and then be somewhere else. It's really neat that they chose to work with me, out of all the other possible people they could have throughout the U.S., the world and their travels.  It's pretty neat how the internet and e-commerce can bring people and businesses together who are hundreds or thousands of miles apart.

Anyway, on to the stationary.  Because they have many friends, speaking different languages, all over the world, Isabel & Luis decided to have two sets of invitations printed.  The design of both sets is the same, but one set is in English and the other set is in Spanish.  You can view images of both complete sets below.  

Each set included an A8 size invitation, a khaki invitation envelope with their return address printed on the flap and a reply card.  All of the pieces (except the envelopes) were printed on Crane's Lettra paper in Ecru.  We decided to use the standard weight of Crane Lettra (110 lb.) for their reply cards and the double-thick weight (220 lb.) for their invitations.  Check out both invitations below.

I haven't printed on Crane's double-weight paper too often, but I really do like the way that it looks.  The paper itself, while still being 100% cotton is so stiff and thick, it almost feels the same as my coaster stock.  It prints really beautifully and because of the thickness of the sheet to begin with, you can get a fairly substantial impression without a lot of effort.   Check out a close-up, detailed image of one of the invitations below:

Pretty, don't you think?  I really love too how the combination of the warm red and chocolate brown inks on the warm Ecru 100% cotton paper really makes it feel like a decadent and romantic Spanish wedding.  It's almost like a preview of what the actual celebration at a very old cathedral in Madrid, Spain will be like, in paper form.  

Below are closer-up images of both sets of reply cards.  Rather than going with a standard reply card where your guests fill in their response and mail them back to you, Isabel and Luis opted to go with more of an informational-style reply card and are having their guests respond online.  I did a similar type of card for the last couple I wrote about, Valerie & Rebecca, for the same reason: both couples are moving in between when the send out their invitations and when they have their actual weddings.  I think this is a really great thing to do so that you can still have a separate reply card if you are in the same or a similar situation.  Check them out:

Last, but not least: the envelopes.  Isabel and I went back and forth a lot on what the envelopes for this set should be: white, ecru, khaki?  What size should they be? Etc...  We finally decided on a Khaki colored A9 envelope from Waste Not Paper.  The actual invitation is an A8, but Isabel was making some sort of fancy fabric inner envelope to put the invites, etc. in that would go inside the printed mailing envelope, so we decided that going with the bigger size would be the safest idea in order to make sure that the fabric inner-envelopes would fit.  Isabel designed a rather fancy return address image and I printed it in chocolate brown ink on the back flap.  

Finally, it's always wonderful to hear a little bit of praise every now and again for what you do, day to day, even if what you do is really really cool...  Normally, I would just link to this sort of thing, but in this instance I didn't want it to be too hard to find, so below is what Isabel wrote on her wedding website about Twin Ravens Press and my work:

The letterpressed part of the wedding invitations (inner invitation, RSVP card and envelope) were designed by Isabel but printed by the awesome Twin Ravens Press.  They were A+++ on customer service and went above and beyond to find the highest quality at the best price.

Thanks so much, Isabel!  I know that they are going to have an absolutely beautiful and romantic wedding in Spain in May.  

Congratulations Isabel & Luis!