Our Wedding Paper
Photography by Lauren Fair, Paper by Empress Stationery, Calligraphy by Grace Calligraphy, Heirloom Ring Boxes
Our one year anniversary is just a week away and I can't believe I haven't shared more details from our big day! What better time than now? Planning our wedding stationery was something I was most excited about. I had followed many stationers for quite some time, but I always loved the classic style of Empress Stationery. We hired Jess and her team to do our Christmas cards for 2018, which was right after we got engaged, and after that experience, I knew I wanted her to do our wedding stationery.
I quickly realized that there are so many options when it comes to wedding paper. Not only were there different paper colors, there were different paper weights! Who knew? There was letterpress, foil or thermography. Ribbons, bands, wax seals, the list goes on and on! As I continued to save favorites to my Pinterest board, I quickly found myself overwhelmed. Luckily when planning wedding stationery, it's done in phases. Most couples decide to send out Save the Dates, then pieces of that design are incorporated into their wedding invitation, then again to their day of paper. This helped me as my vision changed throughout the entire process, but there was one thing I was certain about, a custom monogram! The first thing I booked was a custom monogram. I knew I wanted that to be the focal point of so many things on our wedding day. It represented Cole and I becoming one. One of the reasons I love Empress Stationery is because they create these beautiful vintage monograms that aren't your typical script monogram. They're classic. In fact, this year, we even incorporated our monogram on our Christmas cards and gift tags!
Save the Dates
Since we were planning a "destination" wedding, meaning everyone would be traveling in, I wanted to include something specific to Charleston. This is how we decided on Rainbow Row. Another amazing thing that Empress Stationery offers if custom watercolors. They did this lovely watercolor of rainbow row that was the focal point of our Save the Dates. I gifted prints of these to some of my friends who love Charleston just as much as I do. We also incorporated this lovely watercolor in one of our favors that I'll share with you the next blog post.
The last thing was to finalize the calligrapher. We found Grace Calligraphy and her style matched our invitations almost identical. I was thrilled when we received our box of addressed envelopes from her! I remember telling my husband I was nervous to send them out because they were too pretty to get messed up!
Watercolor painting by Empress Stationery
The Wedding Invitation
As I mentioned earlier, there were so many decisions to be made when planning our actual wedding invitation. One thing that I found helpful was to order samples. Then you can touch each one and feel the difference. After receiving the samples, I was able to make my decision on a lot of the basics, such as paper weight and the type of printing. We decided to go with letterpress and double thick paper so you couldn't see the indent in the back. If you're not familiar with letterpress, they actually create a metal plate that has ink rolled onto it and pressed into the paper. It is so lovely! If you've ever seen letterpresses stationery, you understand.
As far as the details went, I wanted a classic and timeless style. Something we could look at in 20 years and think, that's still beautiful. With our monogram as the focal point, Jess created just that. The most beautiful script font that was paired with a block font. The bow on our crest added the perfect touch! This is the crest that actually inspired our 2020 Christmas card! She was able to add color and create a garland. These are all of the little things most people overlook, but you better believe we thought of it! Below is our final proof right before it went to print.
After that was finalized, we started thinking of the little details to be included. Time for ribbons and wax seals! We had our custom monogram made into a wax seal because I loved the idea of pouring the wax ourselves! Turns out, my husband loved doing that, so this was his job when we began assembling them! There's definitely an art to wax seals and you have to understand it or you'll end up with a stamp covered in wax. Patience is key.
The last thing was to finalize the calligrapher. We found Grace Calligraphy and her style matched our invitations almost identical. I was thrilled when we received our box of addressed envelopes from her! I remember telling my husband I was nervous to send them out because they were too pretty to get messed up!
If I were to offer one piece of advice before deciding on your wedding stationery, talk to your designer about postage costs. This is one thing I didn't think about until we had assembled everything. I took my beautifully packaged envelope to the USPS store to get weighed so I could order stamps and the kind lady came back with a price of $4.71. You bet my jaw dropped and I replied with an "I'm sorry, each"? Since we had used double thick paper, included three extra cards, double envelopes, vellum wrap and a wax seal, the envelopes were considered packages and not letters. I may have freaked out a little, but I reached out to some of my friends who are in the industry and they recommended I stop by a few other stores to see if I got the same answer, and I did just that! Luckily, we only had to use $2 stamps for each invitation and I had to hand cancel them myself, but I was not complaining! We thought we were going to have to hand deliver each one! HA! Turns out, if your letter is too thick, it can't slide through the USPS sorting machine which places that stamp on the postage stamp. That's when USPS will consider your "letter" to be a "package", but I found a USPS store that allowed me to stamp each invitation so they didn't have to send it through that machine. I had no idea!
Day of Paper
The last thing was finalizing our day of paper. This is where you plan your programs, seating chart, place cards, table numbers, etc. I had so much fun dreaming these up! Empress Stationery again created a watercolor for our programs, but this time it was a beautiful floral crest to be displayed on the front. Pink peonies to match those included in my wedding bouquet and touches of blue to match our wedding decor.
Our seating chart had each guest's name printed on a card with our wax seals keeping them attached to the lovely canvas that Lindale Studios created for us! This greeted our guests as they walked out the doors from Cocktail Hour.
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