Paper basics
May 13, 2014 7:16 AM Subscribe
Getting married and working on invitations, what's your best resources for a paper novice? Just need a crash course in paper products to select the best quality invites.
Head to your nearest Paper Source and talk to a staff member. They have tons of kits and tutorials.
posted by Hermione Granger at 8:15 AM on May 13, 2014
posted by Hermione Granger at 8:15 AM on May 13, 2014
I'm not sure if this answers your question exactly, but after toying around with DIYing our invites we ordered a sample pack from Minted on a whim and tl;dr we got our invites through Minted and couldn't be happier. Price wise it worked out to around as much as custom printed, DIYish invites, maybe a little more, but we were super impressed with the quality and service. They do free sample packs so you may as well have a poke around and see what you can see.
Congratulations!
posted by nerdfish at 8:19 AM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
Congratulations!
posted by nerdfish at 8:19 AM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's not clear if you are DIY-ing or ordering, but in either case I'd agree with the recommendation to visit a local Paper Source store if you have one. They will work with you as much or as little as you'd like - I took a couple classes from them and ended up making our ENTIRE suite of paper stuff for our wedding (120-ish guests). I did save the dates, invites, booklets with maps and "stuff to do", menus, table cards, seating cards, other signage for various tables, tags for our wedding favors, and probably stuff I'm forgetting. Paper Source will gladly DO all this stuff for you, too, and they do everything from "simple paper" to letterpress and proper engraving. They'd be a great first stop to touch things and talk to experts.
posted by ersatzkat at 8:43 AM on May 13, 2014
posted by ersatzkat at 8:43 AM on May 13, 2014
Oh So Beautiful Paper is my favorite invitation blog. There are a ton of different styles and vendors, so you can find a design and print style you love.
posted by elvissa at 8:48 AM on May 13, 2014
posted by elvissa at 8:48 AM on May 13, 2014
The Sample Room is specific to French Paper Co. papers but is a good way to see the way various printing techniques work with different kinds of papers. They also sell small quantities of papers and envelopes now directly via their site.
posted by Room 641-A at 9:08 AM on May 13, 2014
posted by Room 641-A at 9:08 AM on May 13, 2014
Oh, and have a look at Mark Friedland's site. Googling "creative intelligence invitation" also brings up a wealth of images.
posted by Room 641-A at 9:17 AM on May 13, 2014
posted by Room 641-A at 9:17 AM on May 13, 2014
Your number one crash course tip: envelopes need to be bigger than the card that goes inside of them. And whatever card/contents you design, you need to consider available envelope stocks. You do not want to make custom envelopes, or pay someone to do it.
Yes, this sounds very obvious. It is not. People attempted to make this easier on everyone by going with standard card/envelope size combos. An A7 or A5 being pretty standard. An A7 envelope is the perfect size to hold an A7 card, and so on.
Where this gets tricky is with gigantic invitations where you have an inner envelope, and mailing envelope, and card, as with very formal invitations. Then you might also have response card and envelope, registry card, map, etc. This means you might need a bigger mailing envelope than the one that's "supposed" to work with your card size because of the increased thickness. But you don't want the mailing envelope to be sloppy big and get dinged up in the mail.
Whatever you do, if you order online, give yourself enough time to order samples and make sure everything fits. Also take this to the post office and have them weigh it, so you know how much postage each invitation will cost and what stamps to buy.
If you go into a Paper Source, and don't want to get a hard sale, don't mention the word wedding. You're looking for "party" invitations you're designing yourself.
Also congrats!
posted by fontophilic at 10:09 AM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yes, this sounds very obvious. It is not. People attempted to make this easier on everyone by going with standard card/envelope size combos. An A7 or A5 being pretty standard. An A7 envelope is the perfect size to hold an A7 card, and so on.
Where this gets tricky is with gigantic invitations where you have an inner envelope, and mailing envelope, and card, as with very formal invitations. Then you might also have response card and envelope, registry card, map, etc. This means you might need a bigger mailing envelope than the one that's "supposed" to work with your card size because of the increased thickness. But you don't want the mailing envelope to be sloppy big and get dinged up in the mail.
Whatever you do, if you order online, give yourself enough time to order samples and make sure everything fits. Also take this to the post office and have them weigh it, so you know how much postage each invitation will cost and what stamps to buy.
If you go into a Paper Source, and don't want to get a hard sale, don't mention the word wedding. You're looking for "party" invitations you're designing yourself.
Also congrats!
posted by fontophilic at 10:09 AM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by aniola at 7:23 AM on May 13, 2014