THE FINE PRINT
Our wedding stationery design process
First of all, congratulations on your engagement! We’re delighted that you’re considering working with us on your wedding stationery, and we’re excited to get to know you and walk you through the design, print and finishing process that will translate your love onto paper. Our aim is really to make this as easy and as pleasant as possible for you, as we know that you have a lot of other things to do and decisions to make whilst planning your big day. We have been doing this for ten years (and working in design and communications more broadly for twenty!) so we encourage you to lean on our expertise in typography, wording, design, and layout, as well as our extensive experience of working with paper and fine printing techniques. We work closely with you and your event planning team to craft finished paper goods you and your guests will treasure forever. We often work together for a period of 6-12 months, and take pride in keeping communication clear, concise, and cordial throughout the process, and overall offering a highly personalized, sophisticated, and efficient service.
OUR COLLECTIONS
We have seven semi-custom collections of wedding stationery for you to choose from, and a wide range of beautiful paper and print techniques available to customize for each one. Once you have browsed through and gotten to know our collections, please fill out our detailed wedding enquiry form, and we will get back to you within a week with pricing estimates and proposed timelines. If you are not set on a single collection, we are happy to explore multiple layouts in the early rounds of the design process and guide you through making a decision. Couples either choose to stick with a single collection from their Save the Dates all the way through to their day-of stationery goods, or mix things up and combine elements in varying styles.
DESIGN PROCESS
Our design and production process usually takes 6-8 weeks, and is roughly broken down as follows:
Weeks 1 & 2: Wording, layouts, concepts and revisions
Weeks 3 & 4: Color palette and print technique selections
Week 5: Guest addressing proofs and final proof approvals
Weeks 6 & 7: Printing & production
Weeks 7 & 8: Quality control, assembly, and shipping
Some jobs can be completed in a slightly shorter timeframe, if you are available to provide swift feedback on the submitted concepts and revisions, and have your full list of guest addresses ready to go. Other jobs may take longer, if we are waiting for particular paper colors to arrive or specially customizing any parts of the suite. In any case, we keep you updated at every step of the process, and are proud to say we have never missed a deadline in ten years!
On occasion, we are able to expedite a job significantly for an additional rush order fee.
PAYMENT & booking
We require a 50% deposit up front, and the balance is due upon proof approval prior to sending the job into production. Any changes we make to the quantities or specifications of your stationery during the design process are adjusted accordingly in the balance invoice. This means you don’t need to know the exact quantities required at the start, and you are welcome to add or remove inserts in your invitation suite, or elements in your day-of stationery package as we work. We will always share the cost implications of any modifications to the original scope of work and agreed estimates, so there are no surprises in the balance invoice.
Please note that we have a minimum order quantity of 50 and a minimum project fee of $5,000 for all wedding projects. This can be met with any combination of save the dates, invitation suites, or day-of stationery elements, as well as our newly launched wedding websites.
We pride ourselves on accepting a limited number of jobs each month in order to ensure our full dedication to each project. This means that we often book up 2-3 months in advance, so it’s always best to enquire well ahead of your actual mailing deadlines.
SAMPLES & PROOFS
While we do not offer hard printed proofs of your customized stationery, we do have a range of paper and print samples from past projects, which we are happy to send you once we begin working together. There are close to a thousand different paper colors and weights available in our catalogues, so we ask that you share a particular color palette or mood board to enable us to curate a set of samples for you that is suited to your styling concepts and selected collection/s.
ASSEMBLY & MAILING
We assemble, stuff, and seal all save the date and invitation suite envelopes, and ship the package to you or your planner to mail out to your guests. If you have RSVP envelopes in your suite, we require you to purchase and ship postage stamps to our production studio so we can apply them and complete the assembly process fully before shipping them off. The client or planner then needs to purchase and apply all postage to the outer envelopes before mailing them out. We will share the final dimensions and weight of one stuffed envelope to enable you to calculate your postage.
In the case that you have guests who are only invited to part of the weekend’s celebrations, or require different versions of itineraries or RSVP cards, we carefully assemble according to the guest list to ensure that each person or couple will receive the correct version.
If you have guests who are primarily split up between two continents, and you have friends or family in both locations who can assist you with mailing, we can send your invitations to multiple locations to reduce the time and cost of mailing from a single place.
PRINT TECHNIQUES & PAPERS
We offer a wide range of specialty printing techniques including letterpress printing, blind embossing and debossing, hot foil stamping, screen printing, fine art quality digital printing, and printing on linen. We will guide you through all the options and share samples or photographs of past projects to enable you to make your decision. Or you can leave this entirely up to us!
We source papers and finishing materials from the best manufacturers and distributors in the world, including Europapier, Colorplan, G.F. Smith, Gmund, Favini and Fedrigoni to name a few. We keep a few of our favorite neutrals and textures in stock at all times, ranging from 150gsm translucent vellum to 710gsm pure cotton papers made specifically for letterpress printing, but we can always order specific colors, textures, and weights upon request. Our signature envelopes are made in a luxurious 240gsm Twill (ribbed-texture) paper available in five colors - ivory, nude, light grey, charcoal grey, and black.
paperless options
Though we are all about love on paper, we work with clients all over the world and understand that some of your guests may not have a reliable postal service and may need to receive electronic versions of your Save the Dates, Invitations or Itineraries. Please let us know and we’ll be happy to accommodate you. Please note that digital versions are only offered in addition to printed stationery, not as a standalone service.
CUSTOMIZATION
In addition to the standard customization options of changing print and paper colors within each collection, we are always open to hearing your other ideas and bringing them to life, time and budget allowing. Adding venue illustrations or other graphics, envelope liners or additional inner envelopes, wax seals or handwritten details…don’t be afraid to ask, and we’ll do our best to make it work!