Jerry Yoon, San FranciscoVendor: PhotographerWebsite: Jerry Yoon PhotographyAbout Me: Gone are the days of being stuck with boring wedding photography, where everyone and everything looks like the same old photographer took it. We're not here to please your mom. We want to rock your socks off with imagery that explodes off the page and makes you feel all fuzzy inside. We're inspired by who you are and not what others think you should be. Playwright, architect, nuclear scientist, tax man, dance machine, burly construction man, blog stalker. We take them all. Can't wait to jump into the pool together and make something your kindergarten teacher would be proud of!
Julie and Mario from Subtle Glances are the brains behind our business cards that we love so much. We’ve always been a fan of the timelessness and quality of their letterpress work. Here is a smattering of the invitations that we’ve shot in the last year. Check out their website and blog! I love looking at their blog and being inspired by all the textures and colors they put up there.
Llubav Choy Duerr, BrooklynVendor: Accessories DesignerWebsite: Llubav Co.About Me: Combining my personal aesthetic of art as a visual feast, a background in textile design, and a love for fashion, I created Llubav Co. with the aim of brightening up your day. I use Hungarian wool felt, American wool, linen, filigree, and vintage embellishments to produce ring pillows, stationery and fashion accessories that are as unique, vibrant and colorful as my Latin American upbringing. I live and create in Brooklyn, and I have two beautiful guys in my life -- my husband Chris and our baby son Mikus.
I’ve been having so much fun with my brand new scanner, and I just couldn’t wait to scan some of the stationery from our wedding. As promised, I will be sharing the process and moments of what our big day was like. So showing the paper goods would be a good start. My husband hand-cut large sheets of heavy stock, cold press paper, and then we screen printed all the components on our little kitchen table. I had three screens burned with special silk for paper printing: one for the main envelope and the return address, another screen for just invitations, and one more for the rsvp, gift tag, thank you card, table card and name card.
This project was a true test of the love we have for each other because screen printing takes a lot of time, patience and coordination. For me the icing on the cake was being able to design and print our invitations. For my husband, the icing on the cake was not having to pay for them.
Cynthia Converse, Syracuse, NYVendor: InvitationsWebsite: Bella FiguraAbout Me: Bella Figura is a wind-powered, eco-friendly letterpress shop committed to the fine artisanship of letterpress printing and the environment. Along with our sister company, Smock, we print our wedding invitations and stationery on only the finest luxury cotton and bamboo papers to ensure the most beautiful of prints in sight and to the touch, while working tirelessly to do our little piece for the good of the earth. We are hopelessly in love with our abundant collection of cast iron presses, farmer's markets, fall in Upstate NY, creating beautiful heirlooms for our brides, businesses that do good for the world, calligraphy, spending time in nature, contributing to the greater letterpress community, our rambling studios in a converted warehouse turned artist's haven, and our two year old in residence. Turning invitations into art on paper while dedicating ourselves to the environment is not what we do, it's who we are.
{The wedding of Elizabeth & Felicia // Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, California // Circolo 2 letterpress wedding invitation design in champagne and pewter}
Our client coordinator Andrea had the great pleasure of working with Elizabeth (Eaz) to help choose the perfect wedding invitation for her ultra luxurious event. At first, Eaz was a bit skeptical about working with us exclusively by email and phone, but we are so happy that they did! Upon receiving their letterpress samples, Eaz and Felicia opted for the fun Circolo 2 design printed in champagne and pewter. The invitations coordinated perfectly with the charger plates they used and helped influence incredibly beautiful and personal details throughout their wedding. The couple infused their day with meaningful details that make it one of our favorite Bella Figura weddings to date.
Sabrina & Eunice Moyle, San Francisco, CAVendor: Invitations & StationeryWebsite: Hello! LuckyAbout Me: We (sisters Eunice and Sabrina Moyle) started Hello!Lucky in 2003 out of Eunice's garage with a hand-cranked Vandercook printing press. Since then we've created whimsical stationery and greeting card designs for almost every occasion, including wedding invitations, save the dates, thank you notes, and a line of hilarious sock monkey cards! We love crafting, flea marketing, fashion, travel, and all things paper. We're based San Francisco with a studio in London, so we're immersed in design trends from around the world!
Heather Lee over at Brides Chicago just emailed us with this adorable story on monograms (for which we contributed a cute cross-stitched monogram!). We love the idea of getting creative with monograms and are especially fond of the love birds by Paper + Cup and the cool showposter style one by Pica Press.
For anyone who’s curious - here’s the full cross stitch invitation suite we originally designed when we heard about this monogram story:
Cynthia Converse, Syracuse, NYVendor: InvitationsWebsite: Bella FiguraAbout Me: Bella Figura is a wind-powered, eco-friendly letterpress shop committed to the fine artisanship of letterpress printing and the environment. Along with our sister company, Smock, we print our wedding invitations and stationery on only the finest luxury cotton and bamboo papers to ensure the most beautiful of prints in sight and to the touch, while working tirelessly to do our little piece for the good of the earth. We are hopelessly in love with our abundant collection of cast iron presses, farmer's markets, fall in Upstate NY, creating beautiful heirlooms for our brides, businesses that do good for the world, calligraphy, spending time in nature, contributing to the greater letterpress community, our rambling studios in a converted warehouse turned artist's haven, and our two year old in residence. Turning invitations into art on paper while dedicating ourselves to the environment is not what we do, it's who we are.
What’s going to be hot in the letterpress wedding invitation world for 2009? Well, we looked into our crystal letterpresses and our first prediction is…
Cynthia Converse, Syracuse, NYVendor: InvitationsWebsite: Bella FiguraAbout Me: Bella Figura is a wind-powered, eco-friendly letterpress shop committed to the fine artisanship of letterpress printing and the environment. Along with our sister company, Smock, we print our wedding invitations and stationery on only the finest luxury cotton and bamboo papers to ensure the most beautiful of prints in sight and to the touch, while working tirelessly to do our little piece for the good of the earth. We are hopelessly in love with our abundant collection of cast iron presses, farmer's markets, fall in Upstate NY, creating beautiful heirlooms for our brides, businesses that do good for the world, calligraphy, spending time in nature, contributing to the greater letterpress community, our rambling studios in a converted warehouse turned artist's haven, and our two year old in residence. Turning invitations into art on paper while dedicating ourselves to the environment is not what we do, it's who we are.
Today we are beyond thrilled to be joining the ranks of the other amazing vendors that make up the Weddingbee PRO family! It’s such a pleasure to get to blog for all of you and to share a glimpse into what makes us tick. Here at Bella Figura, we’re a small company with a big heart. Along with our sister company, Smock, we are wholly passionate about and devoted to the art of letterpress and committed to the environment. Located in a rambling old warehouse in downtown Syracuse, NY now inhabited by an eclectic band of artists, we are as dedicated to the earth as we are to our clients and the preservation of the fine art of letterpress printing. We happily donate 1% of all sales to environmental causes via 1% For the Planet and are pleased to have received Green America’s Business Seal of Approval.
A glimpse into our print shop where everything we create is lovingly printed in-house.
Wiley Valentine, CaliforniaVendor: Invitations and Paper ProductsWebsite: Wiley ValentineAbout Me: Wiley Valentine is named for our artistic grandmothers, Mary Wiley and Norma Jean Valentine. Our company is 4 years old and growing strong. We specialize in invitations, stationery, and all sorts of paper delights. We love the forest, vintage books, thunder storms, butterflies, fairy tales and the smell of rain. We strive to think of our environment first when creating our paper products, and only use 100% recycled or 100% cotton papers.
We had the pleasure of doing a job for one of our fabulous retailers, Watermark Stationery, in Minnesota recently. The couple chose the Michelle collection out of the Bridal album. The designs in the bridal album are all shown flat printed on 100% recycled paper. The couple wanted something a little extra special and decided to letterpress their invitations on 100% cotton paper and add chocolate brown envelope liners to accent their color palette.
Flush Designs, PasadenaVendor: Invitations, Event & Floral Design, PhotographyWebsite: Flush DesignsAbout Me: Flush Designs is run and owned by me, Courtney C. Keefe de Jauregui. It is all encompassing, from the custom & handmade invitations seen at my website, to full exploration in event styling and design, to flower arranging, to playing sidekick and second shooter to my husband's wedding photography. I am working on becoming a wedding "One stop shop". :) I am a graduate in fine art painting, but a self taught graphic designer. As I still needed to get my hands dirty, I started taking letterpress classes, thus becoming my new love. When I am not busy working (usually still in my pajamas) and telling myself to remember to buy a new chair (this one hurts), I am singing to my 3 cats and enjoying a cold pint with my husband at our favorite local Irish pub. Maybe it's in the reverse order. :)
I just finished this beautiful invite for a lovely couple in Ireland. She wanted a elegant but relaxed invitation that really showcased the couples love for sailing and the ease of enjoying life but with out looking like a nautical themed invite. Flowing flowers and sailboats in the breeze…
Their colors are mainly blues with her bridesmaids dresses being 3 shades of blue. So we chose to mix 3 shades of blue thread to tie it all together. This is the first invite I printed using POLYMER plates! I just finally made the switch from magnesium mounted on wood. I was pleasantly surprised by the ease of the transition and the fun it brought back to printing for me.
It started to drizzle just as I was taking the pics so I didn’t get too many but hopefully you can see it’s simple loveliness.
Sabrina & Eunice Moyle, San Francisco, CAVendor: Invitations & StationeryWebsite: Hello! LuckyAbout Me: We (sisters Eunice and Sabrina Moyle) started Hello!Lucky in 2003 out of Eunice's garage with a hand-cranked Vandercook printing press. Since then we've created whimsical stationery and greeting card designs for almost every occasion, including wedding invitations, save the dates, thank you notes, and a line of hilarious sock monkey cards! We love crafting, flea marketing, fashion, travel, and all things paper. We're based San Francisco with a studio in London, so we're immersed in design trends from around the world!
We love Anna Bond’s illustrations - she’s the owner of Rifle Design and has a fabulous blog. We adore (covet, are wildly envious of, etc.) her whimsical and naive style…
Wiley Valentine, CaliforniaVendor: Invitations and Paper ProductsWebsite: Wiley ValentineAbout Me: Wiley Valentine is named for our artistic grandmothers, Mary Wiley and Norma Jean Valentine. Our company is 4 years old and growing strong. We specialize in invitations, stationery, and all sorts of paper delights. We love the forest, vintage books, thunder storms, butterflies, fairy tales and the smell of rain. We strive to think of our environment first when creating our paper products, and only use 100% recycled or 100% cotton papers.
Minted.com is our exclusive online retailer for our custom albums. Recently we were asked to participate in a design challenge to create pre-wedding invitations for 3 different couples they chose. Below are our submissions and the links to view them on Minted. If you like them, feel free to vote for us!
