things are better with a parrott: Organic, Refined Letterpress Invitations

Cassie, the bride, & I have been working together on her wedding invitation suite for almost a year now! The design began with a vintage roll of wall paper featuring butterflies & organic, scrolling vines & leaves. Cassie loved the calligraphy of Betsy Dunlap, so we had her create the lettering for their names, "RSVP," as well as addressing all of the envelopes {250 of them!}.

I incorporated the vintage wallpaper by lining the back of each invitation with it. The pattern of the original paper was very large, so I had it scanned & I resized it so we could get as much of the pattern as possible on the back of the invitation. The liners were then digitally printed & assembled by hand by me.

The suite also included a double-sided postcard RSVP. On one side there was space for the guests to write their names & response, & on the other side we left a space for guests to write a note to the bride & groom, along with the return address. The couple has a whole weekend of events planned so we included a small card directing guests to their wedding website.

Everything was held together with linen fabric bands held closed by custom wax seals stamped with their monogram.

Betsy addressed each envelope with metallic silver ink. We used deep navy blue envelopes so Betsy had to hand-draw lines on each envelope lightly with pencil, calligraph each address, let them dry, then erase the lines...250 times! Once I received the envelopes, I assembled every invitation & off to the post office they went!

Each piece was letterpress printed on 100% cotton paper in natural white. The invitaitons were printed on 236lb. paper & the coordinating pieces on 118lb. Each piece was printed with deep navy blue ink which matched the wallpaper liner, wax seals, & envelopes.