Weddingbee boards

I chose to do custom letterpress and I learned a horrible lesson. You should go with a vendor who has been vetted by others. Unfortunately, this means that you'll have better luck with bigger, more visible studios (think Bella Figura or any others you frequently see on this blog and others), which are usually very expensive. What you are paying for is reliability and quality--two very important things. If you are comfortable in Illustrator and can deisgn your own, you might save on design costs which I found to be part of why any custom invitation, regardless of printing method, tends to be so pricey. At the end of the day, since this is the first thing that needs to get out the door, you really want someone reliable taking care of your invitations. Trust me...it's been a wildly, uncontrollable source of stress. If you don't have a really complicated design, you could probably do it yourself like 365. I heard that depending on what kind of press you are using, it can get really frustrating at times, though. The PP Presses at least make it easier to get plates for your designs, but it doesn't work on all presses. If you're going to DIY, just make sure that the press you're using can do what you're trying to do. Good Luck with vendors, and PM me if you want some recommendations, as well as vendors I'd steer from...

I Love Letterpress! I've been searching for vendors for our wedding. I had a friend who works at Paper Source and she was going to give me a discount for my invites. Even with her discounts, the cost was more than some of the other vendors I looked at.

I'm eventually going to use a company called SFSEE.com Somebody previously mentioned them in their blog. They are located in California and they said they'll print half my invites in letterpress and all my programs in flat printing. They have the best pricing I've seen so far. 

If I didn't design my own, Ceci is definitely one of my top choices. She has beautiful designs and great to work with. I have worked with her on a different level and she is just spectacular. I wish I had the budget for her stuff but ultimately, I've always wanted to design my own.

Plain and simple – I'm a designer and this was one of those rare opportunites to work on something to please yourself then WAY YOU WANT IT TO BE. Yet, at the same time, it's a lot of work. I think I designed about 22 different ideas before we narrowed it down and deciding which one to print. However, stressing about printing, envelopes, ink colors, etc... not as fun but very worth the while when you see the end result of all your labor.

Since I had a chance to create my own std & invite, I created something more fun for the std and something for elegant for the invite.

The only thing that I would have done differently is letterpress some pieces and add more adornments. Ended up not having enough time since I was in the process of designing other invitations and projects. :)