Thanks to Martha Stewart, letterpress is synonymous with wedding invitations. And so, when I mention to people that I do letterpress, I get one of two questions: What is that? and Do you do wedding invitations?
There are a few reasons why I haven't marketed wedding invites as something I do. One being that my press (a table-top Adana) wasn't made for mass producing which wedding invitations can lead to. Another reason, an invite would typically require a lot of text that would span a large area on the printing surface. In my experience, larger and older presses handle even impressions on paper much better than my Adana can.
Having said that, I don't want to stay away from wedding invites all together. But rather set the expectations and limitations. Admittedly, I would love to do simple and elegant save-the-date cards. Letterpress stationery for the announcement of a wedding, for the most part, is seen as a luxury. It is by no means inexpensive. So if you're looking to have that luxury, save-the-dates is a way to get it, instead of doing and paying for the whole lot (invites, RSVP's, location details). Save-the-dates is where you can set the tone or theme of your wedding with a colour (or two) and a few lines of text. Save-the-dates are also good on paper because should one choose a flat card (one sided, not folded), it saves on paper consumption.
A fellow letterpress printer at Poppy Letterpress is all about her Adana and her adventure into printing her own wedding invitations with it. So, it can definitely be done and done well. But I'm not sure that she would do it again!
Truth is, I very well mean to use my press to do my own wedding announcements. How could I not! In fact, I'm off to a wedding show tomorrow and look forward to see what's going to be offered up in terms of stationery. I would be surprised if there wasn't a letterpress vendor at the show. But it wouldn't be a total loss because I've got my Adana ;)
There are a few reasons why I haven't marketed wedding invites as something I do. One being that my press (a table-top Adana) wasn't made for mass producing which wedding invitations can lead to. Another reason, an invite would typically require a lot of text that would span a large area on the printing surface. In my experience, larger and older presses handle even impressions on paper much better than my Adana can.
Having said that, I don't want to stay away from wedding invites all together. But rather set the expectations and limitations. Admittedly, I would love to do simple and elegant save-the-date cards. Letterpress stationery for the announcement of a wedding, for the most part, is seen as a luxury. It is by no means inexpensive. So if you're looking to have that luxury, save-the-dates is a way to get it, instead of doing and paying for the whole lot (invites, RSVP's, location details). Save-the-dates is where you can set the tone or theme of your wedding with a colour (or two) and a few lines of text. Save-the-dates are also good on paper because should one choose a flat card (one sided, not folded), it saves on paper consumption.
A fellow letterpress printer at Poppy Letterpress is all about her Adana and her adventure into printing her own wedding invitations with it. So, it can definitely be done and done well. But I'm not sure that she would do it again!
Truth is, I very well mean to use my press to do my own wedding announcements. How could I not! In fact, I'm off to a wedding show tomorrow and look forward to see what's going to be offered up in terms of stationery. I would be surprised if there wasn't a letterpress vendor at the show. But it wouldn't be a total loss because I've got my Adana ;)
2 comments:
You've got it right, that's for sure. Save the Dates would be a fun job for the Adana, but I definetly wouldn't be offering up wedding stationery services using the Adana alone. Oh, it can be done (and most of my issues relate to bad rollers) but it's very time-consuming, has a limited printable size and needs a simple design. But if it's stationery for yourself, it's still worth it.
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