As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, and as my mom can attest to, I’ve been agonizing over stationary. I established the direction pretty early on, but of course I wanted to letterpress and/or calligrapher everything. When your life goal is to co-own a letterpress studio with your matron of honor, you jump at the chance to letterpress every flat surface for your wedding. My original list of paper goods was substantial:

• Save-the-dates and envelopes
• Invitations and envelopes
• RSVP cards and envelopes
• Programs
• Escort cards
• Table numbers
• Favors (a surprise!)
• Thank-you cards
• Out of town “things to do” cards
• Coasters
• Candy bar wrappers
• Flower petal cones for guests
• Large flower petal cone for the flowergirl
• Flags for the cupcakes (with flavor names)

Coasters were the first thing I dropped. Since we aren’t having a flowergirl, the large petal cone was cut. Nearly all of our guests are out-of-towners, so I revamped my plan for the OOT bags and decided to do small DIY tags instead of cards. The candy bar wrappers can be flat printed. I’m DIYing the petal cones. And we decided to do online RSVPs, so no reply cards and envelopes.

Even with the list down to eight items, I was struggling to find enough space in our budget to letterpress everything. I started by trimming the items that I wanted to letterpress and calligrapher — like the cupcake flags, escort cards and table numbers — and decided to do calligraphy only. I tentatively decided to flat print the programs, thank-you cards and save-the-dates, but I couldn’t commit. I had a vision of a coordinated suite — same type, same paper, same dimensions, same envelopes, same printing method — and, as is often the case for me, I couldn’t get past it.

On my way home from an appointment in Portland this afternoon, I stopped at my favorite paper goods store and picked up a few pieces of pre-cut Arturo cotton paper. It’s one of the less expensive cotton papers, making it perfect for a bit of an experiment. At around 4½”x6¾”, it was slightly bigger than I wanted, so I tore it down to size with a metal ruler and then printed my design with my little Canon inkjet.

I still have some tweaks to make on the design side of things, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out. It’s not letterpress, of course, but with the luxurious paper, it’s a respectable fake-out.

The lowest price point I could get to for letterpressing the save-the-date cards was right around $300 — which is a fantastic deal for letterpress but still more than I wanted to spend, since I have to add photos, envelopes and postage. The fake-out version will run me about $25 in paper and possibly a new black ink cartridge for the printer. Okay, and a few hours of tearing paper with a metal-edged ruler… But it isn’t like I can’t do that while I watch my Netflix one evening.

What fake-outs are you planning for your wedding?

It’s no surprise that the hardest wedding details for me to finalize are related to our paper goods and wedsite. I’m most critical of my own work, and I’m extremely picky — so playing designer and client, hyper-attention to detail sets in and with it, indecision.

When I had to prioritize photography over stationery (it should be a no-brainer, I know, but it was a struggle), I had to reduce the number of items to letterpress. Then the real vacillation set in. I was approaching a direction for the suite when I knew that everything would use the same paper stock and the same printing method — and I knew that I could stick with my simple, elegant aesthetic to let the letterpress shine.

But switching it up introduced a myriad of new questions. Do I still want fabric inner envelopes? Do I want to bring stitching and other handmade elements into the non-letterpress pieces? Should the envelopes match? Should I integrate calligraphy into the save-the-dates to coordinate with the invitation envelopes?

I still haven’t answered all those questions, and I have a couple dozen thumbnail sketches in my planning binder. But at long last, I chose a script. It’s Burgues Script (displayed above) and it’s gorgeous. I added it to my wishlist a couple of years ago and I’ve been waiting for the perfect excuse to purchase it. Another favorite, Feel Script, was first runner up.

It will be accompanied by a classic serif, most likely Garamond. And both will be finished off by masterfully calligraphered details by Jenna Hein.

I’ve had these journals bookmarked in my Kaboodle shopping list for goodness knows how long, and I finally realized that the blue one would make a perfect guestbook. So lovely.

My Bella Figura sample set came in the mail today, and it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever received. I expected a few samples in an envelope, but what arrived was a gorgeous brown box filled with delicately assembled samples — each group of items in its own envelope and marked with a lovely little description of the contents. The samples themselves are so beautiful that I feel like I need a new adjective. I don’t mean to pontificate hyperbolically, but this was just the happy surprise I needed today. And at $10, the sample sets are an absolute steal.

Some fantastic suggestions for less-stuffy invitation wording. Via Offbeat Bride.

Despite my complete adoration of calligraphy — and, in particular, calligrapher-artists like Jenna Hein, I thought I’d ruled it out for my invitations and signage. But seeing Laura Hooper’s work today made me reconsider — if not for invitations that at least for signage and seating cards.