And... They're... OFF!

Our invitations, that is!

After months of obsessing over the design, then changing it, then finally reaching something I truly love and feel proud of, our invitations are in the hands of our guests. Which means not only is this wedding really happening, but it means that I can finally share the final product with the hive! Without further ado, our invitation suite, designed by yours truly (click on the photos to zoom in a bit):

The whole shebang, my pride and joy!

Close-up of the envelope liner and the invitation. The top teal layer of the invitation is die-cut with the scroll shape, and layered on top of the white layer with our actual wedding info

The top left corner of the invitation with our wedding date engraved

Engraving is a really amazing printing method. Basically, it is the only process that allows the ink to sit on top of the paper, creating both crisp ink definition and a raised texture. The back side of the paper is "bruised" from the pressure of the engraving process, giving it a delectable hand-touched feeling (which is illustrated in a photo further down in this post). Thermography is also raised printing, but it creates a shiny effect (which, personally, I am not a fan of), and does not create bruising. The raised effect of thermography is a result of a resin powder that is applied to an offset printed piece, rather than the pressure of the engraving process.

Some people mistake engraving for letterpress, simply because they haven't seen it before and they are only familiar with the texture that results from letterpress. The main difference here is that with letterpress, the ink is actually pressed into the paper, creating a relief texture. This results in a beautiful piece, but does limit your ability to use dark or colored papers. With the aforementioned pressure used in the engraving process, the ink sits on top of the paper, allowing for some amazing and crisp contrast. The green and white ink on the teal paper would not be so crisp and bold if I had used letterpress. (And don't get me wrong — I love me some letterpress, but this particular design would not have worked with letterpress.)

I have to thank my friend and co-worker, Maggie, who let me borrow her fabulous camera to capture these detailed photos for you (thanks, Maggie!). Below is a bit more invitation eye-candy that resulted from my little glamor shoot and hopefully these photos will help you see what engraving allows you to do.

I used Albemarle Swash for our names; the rest of the type is ITC Souvenir (it pains me to blur out our last names because I love the type so much.... I wish I didn't care about privacy!!)

I love how the envelope liner ties it all together! The vector art pattern was purchased on istockphoto.com and I modified the colors and tiled the seamless pattern in Adobe Illustrator. The envelope liner was flat printed (also referred to as "offset"), because engraving would have been a little ridiculous and the amount of coverage would have made it extremely difficult for my engraver.

I am in love with our reception card

My absolute favorite detail.... I put an asterisk after "dancing" and added this line at the bottom. I think it's charming, if I do say so myself!

This close-up really illustrates the texture of engraving. See how there is actually some dimension to the word "celebrate" sitting on top of the paper?

And here is what the back of the reception card looks like. I had it duplexed with teal stock to add a little surprise element of color to the back of the card, but what I really want to show you is the bruising that occurred from the engraving process. You can see the indentation of the scroll shape as well as where all of the type is. Isn't that neat?

Our reply set

This differs from my original RSVP layout that I had included in my invitation teaser post a while back; my engraver advised that the criss-cross dotted lines might not look great when engraved, because some of the dots met up with each other and would create a little bit of a blobby effect when engraved. I took their advice and revised my layout to be what you see here.

I couldn't bear the thought of mismatched stamps after all of the work I put into the invites, so I bit the bullet and ordered custom stamps from Zazzle. I requested expedited service since I had put off getting my stamps — I ordered them at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday morning and received them at 10 a.m. the following day, from California! Not bad for $18.99 extra, and totally worth it to get these in the mail a little quicker.

A detailed look at the response envelope

I printed our directions and accommodations on a high-quality laser printer at work. I made it a tri-fold to include every ounce of information our guests could possibly need!

If you ever doubted how committed I am to details, I'm sure there's no denying it now!

The back of our outer envelope, complete with our wedding date

Engraved thank you notes to correspond with our invitations

I love the envelope for our thank you cards!

So, there you have it! I fully admit that I would not have been able to pull off these invitations if I didn't work for a company whose business is producing invitations and stationery. I have resources for engraving that most people don't have, and I have wonderful colleagues who helped make my vision a reality. However, I think and hope that the designs themselves can still inspire brides to think outside of the box, and I also hope that they give you a glimpse into the amazing world that is the craft of engraving.

If you have questions that weren't addressed in what I explained here, PLEASE ASK! I am planning to do a follow-up post to go into a bit more detail about how the actual invitation was printed and assembled, since it was a multi-step process, and to answer all of your questions. Please leave any questions in the comments and I will do my best to answer all of them soon!

A final shot of the full set taken with my much crappier camera