We invited Rebecca from Moontreepress to contribute a piece to this Handmade Wedding Series. Last year Rebecca guest-blogged for the design*sponge wedding series (see Grace from design*sponge's post on the Storque) and we were very impressed.  Rebecca runs a custom letterpress shop in DUMBO, Brooklyn, and couples often come to her for their wedding invitations. Recently, she listed a custom invitations sample pack in her Etsy shop, which seems like a good idea for purveyors of fine letterpress who are trying to get the word out. Below, she highlights some great work by other Etsy sellers, organized by medium.

I'm really excited to be writing this piece on handmade wedding invitations: thanks so much to Etsy for having me. As someone who enjoys being crafty, I love the idea of choosing to make something over buying it. However, there are times when the scale of a project might be too much to take on — like making your own wedding invitations. In this cases, you still have the option of hiring an independent "maker" to help you out instead of going to one of the big "industry" type places of business. First off, I want to stress that the invitations I'm featuring here are just a random sampling of pieces I thought were nice. Luckily, Etsy has made it very easy to search various sellers, so I encourage you to search for your own favorites by doing a 'wedding invitation' tag search. Also there is so much content on Etsy — and it is constantly changing — so it's probably a good idea to check in periodically to see what new sellers and items have appeared.

The most important consideration for most buyers is usually the budget. For this reason I thought it would be helpful to break down the categories by process. Even though prices tend to vary within each category, it's safe to assume that a letterpress printed invitation is going to be more expensive than a laser printed invitation. Somewhere in between there falls screen printing (ie. silkscreen or gocco). On the other end of the spectrum, you can have your invitations designed and delivered via email as an electronic file, which you can then print yourself or take to a local offset shop, or you can go paperless for a more eco-friendly option.

Here is some lovely work that caught my eye. In addition to invitations, I also included some extra links to custom rubber stamp makers and calligraphers, because those are helpful to keep in mind for the envelopes.

Screen Printed:

MWilson

Uglykitty

Silkscreen Laser / Inkjet Printer:

Dearestemma


Pinklilypress


fubabee


Charmingpaper

Letterpress:

Vertalee



Invited Ink



Blackbird press

Design Only:

Evapaul


Bluedogprints

  
Absolutecreations


OfficialInitial


Calligraphy:
 
2Inspire

As a letterpress printer, I'm pretty stuck in my own process when it comes to invitations, so it was fun for me to look around at what other sellers are making. I hope readers will leave comments and include their favorites too, as it's always better to get a variety of opinions when the field is so wide-open as it is with Etsy. Thanks again, happy invitation hunting!

For more letterpress and wedding invitation ideas, see Invitations and Papergoods by Poppytalk and Pushing the Envelope with Calligraphy by KisforCalligraphy.

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