Distinctive Expressions|Wedding invitations|personalized stationer|

Seals… not the marine mammals a wax seal can provide the finishing touch for your invitation package.  Although thinking about it an Invitation delivered by a seal…. no not going to go there today.

The original wax seals were just that . The sender of the letter sealed the envelope with some wax and used a seal to put his mark into the wax as a signature and to let the receiver know if the letter had been opened.

Some seals were family rings , others were purpose designed just to provide a seal for important correspondence. When the process was started the bulk of the population was illiterate , nobility, upper classes and the church were the only people who could read and write . The idea of a seal became one of those upper crust hoity toity things reserved for the rich.

Now you can get a sealing kit from most of the hobby and craft stores along with the wax. The wax is available in many colours and as finishing touch provides an elegant closure for your invitations.

The wax should be colour coordinated to your wedding scheme and the sealing system you are using should be tried out on a spare envelope before you go to town on your addressed envelopes just to be sure that you are getting the result that you want.

Talk to you later

Glen

Accents,Ribbons and Jewels.

This one does need a great deal of care when applying. The difference between an accent and garish can be very small. The best way to do this is to make several samples of different ideas. Have a number of other people look at them and gauge their response. First res ponces are generally telling.

A ribbon in a complimentary colour to your invitation or as part of the colour scheme of your wedding can be a nice final touch, treat it as a final garnish so to speak on the total package. It should not be the center of attraction it should improve the final result. The width of the ribbon and the material it is made of are important factors, buy several samples in various sizes, colours and materials try them all and settle on the one that suits you best. A couple of notes, first make sure that you have a system of attaching the ribbon to your invitation. Hot glue is a good method but TRY IT FIRST. Some materials do not take kindly to the heat and some materials change colour when the glue is applied. Make sure that your system works properly before you get set on it. Second don’t buy gift wrap ribbon it has an internal structure to it that allows for the curling that you see on gift packages, it is not the best choice.

And Last make sure that your ribbon and the invitation will fit into the envelope and lie pretty much flat or at least as flat as possible in the envelope, postal service machines can take a dim view of something that just sort of fits , you really don’t need the envelope returned in a postal service bag as damaged ….

More later

Glen

Paper selection can make a big difference in the appearance of your invitation.  Most catalogue invitations offer white or ecru/natural coloured stock for the bulk of their invitations.

The white is a bleached card stock that has a colour very near to copy paper a bright white colour. This works well for a large variety of invitations, specifically ones that have embossing  or coloured embossing. The colours will play off the bright white background and make an exclamation point with your text and design .

The ecru/natural stock is unbleached , as a result it is a sand/beige shade. It works very well with more subdued designs and colours.

What you use for your invitations depends on the way you want to make your wedding statement, so discussing it with your designer is a good idea.

Coloured stock is available in any colour you can imagine, in any hue as well as with any number of surface treatments from a leather finish to metallic sheen, the limit is your imagination. These stocks work best as part of an overall wedding theme. Hot pink invitations used as part of an extreamly formal wedding would probably be a bad bit of planning. But at the same time using hot pink invitations as the opening statement for a funky fifties themed wedding would do a very nice job indeed.

Using coloured or textured stock for your invitation requires advance planning on the entire wedding package, having one sore thuimb stuck out in the middle of a special event is a bit of a problem. Proper planning can prevent the sore thumbs.

One last note when making a paper selection for your invitations make sure that envelopes are available in the paper stock that you want to use, most of them are but some are not available, it is a bit of a diappointment to have to use a mismatched envelope of worse yet have to order custom envelopes because you neglected this little thing. Specially since a custom envelope order is typically 10,000 units……

More later this week apologies for the delay in posting time was devoured by locusts this month.

Glen

Last post we spoke about photographs and your invitations. Now we move on to embossing .

Embossing is a process of using dies to make a 3 dimensional image on the invitation.
The process involves positive and negative dies and a press. The dies are engraved with the image that you want to use and the paper stock is run through a press. The pressure of the machine either embosses ( positive image above the paper) or debosses( negative image below the paper). Colour can be added as well.

This process can be pricey if the dies are intricate and need to be engraved.

There is another ” embossing ” process. Foil embossing uses heat and a transfer foil to emboss text with images on the page. There are a wide variety of colours and dies can be made for a special image.
This method can produce a very nice image and is generally used as an accent .

More to follow.

What to do, What to do, What to do…..

You want to dress up your wedding invitation set but the Scroll letterpress printed in four colours on hand made Japanese paper with hand turned stained cherry spindles and accompanying mailer are out of your budget.

Here are Five ideas that can help you out .

Photographs, properly used photographs can add a high level of personalization to your Invitation set. Photographs on the Save the Date, the Invitation itself and the Thank you cards all add a personal touch.

Putting a favourite picture of the two of you on a vacation or some other favourite moment  works very well.

A picture on the Wedding invitation is generally a more formal “ pose” . It introduces  your guests to you and your wedding plans.

The  Thank You Card is a perfect place to put a photograph of the happy couple in the full wedding regalia. It serves as both a thank you and a reminder of the wedding.

You can use a photograph on any or all of the Invitation set it is up to you  what you do use.

A couple of things to keep in mind,  using photographs will increase the cost of the invitation a bit , how much depends on your design and wishes.

Some types of invitations and some types of paper stock are better than others for pictures.

More to follow next post.

What is a Wedding Invitation Set?

The invitation is the announcement of your wedding  it includes the important information, participants, time and date , location . It can also accentuate the theme of your wedding with the style colour or type of invitation.

 But what else is included in a Stationery package for a wedding?

First is your invitation, everything else is based on that.

The inner envelope contains your Invitation as well as the RSVP card and its pre addressed envelope. This envelope is not used for mailing and generally it will not have glue on the flap, it should be identified as an INNER envelope when you recieve your Invitation Set.

The outer envelope contains the inner envelope and is used for addressing and mailing purposes. The envelope should ALWAYS have a return address on it. The return address on an envelope for a celebration is placed on the flap of the envelope not on the front. You should check with your local postal service for any limitations on size/ text, or font limitations.

The Reply card (RSVP) is your confirmation that your guest will or will not be attending .  These are very important for your planning , your caterer and hotel will need these numbers . One quick little trick , number your RSVP cards on the back, keep a list of the numbers that way you will know who forgot to sign their card before they mailed it back . ( yes it does happen with distressing regularity).

The RSVP envelope comes pre addressed ( at least ours do) . They fit into the inner envelope along with the RSVP and the Invitation.

That is our basic wedding package and will do the job quite well for most people.

Thank you cards, and announcements  are also very useful. You can save time and money if you order them all at the same time as your wedding package, using the same card as the RSVP is maintains the theme of your wedding and saves you some money as well.

Save the date cards are sent 6 to 8 months in advance of the wedding , using the wedding theme for what ever style of card /magnet announcement that you like lets your guests know what is coming.

Shower, bachelorette, bachelor invitations are also nice touches and you can have some fun with them, they are not as bound by tradition as a lot of the wedding stationery is.

Please feel free to comment or drop us a line if you have any questions .

Glen

Once you have selected the invitation that you want for your special occasion you now have to put your thoughts onto the invitation. You have a number of choices depending on how your invitations are going to announce and compliment your wedding.

Your Choices range from

Calligraphy ,Thermographic Printing,Embossing,Offset Printing,Laser ,Ink Jet.

Calligraphy, is he traditional method. A crafts person physically writes the text of your invitation using pens and ink. The actual ” font” so to speak would be determined by what you want and what techniques the crafts person is skilled in. This is a very traditional method and when done well has no equal in elegance or beauty. The cost is in proportion to the ability of the calligrapher, many years of practice and effort are not inexpensive. This is a high end product be prepared to pay accordingly.

Thermographic printing is a multi step process , first an adhesive is applied to your invitation , a plastic coloured powder is then applied and sticks to the adhesive . The invitation then goes through an oven that heats and melts the plastic. The end result is the text in the font and colour that you selected is now in three dimensions, you can feel the text if you run your ( clean) fingers over the invitation. This is pretty much the standard for catalogue invitations now. It is available in many colours and an unlimited number of fonts.

Embossing is a process of squeezing an invitation between two dies under high pressure, the resulting impression is three dimensional  . This is a higher end process as it requires an die maker to make the positive and negative dies. It produces a memorable effect. The cost of the dies generally makes this a process that is used for large numbers of pieces  in order to keep the price per piece in a reasonable range.

Offset Printing is a process where an invitation is pressed onto an inked  plateto produce an image on the invitation.Multi coloured images require one plate per colour and multiple runs through a press.  It produces a very nice image with a three dimensional feel . Again it is generally used for larger runs to keep the cost per unit down.

Ink Jet and Laser printing are the same process as you would use with your home printer, although the printers are of a higher quality. The processes mean that you can get what ever font that you want in what ever colour that you want. It is a fast efficient way to do small runs of invitations notices place cards etc.

There are other systems available but these are the most popular. Using any of these for your invitations will provide a very nice statement foir your invitations. Which process you use will depend on what your budget and the statment that you want your invitations to make.

If you have any questions please drop us a line

The paper wedding invitation has been the standard for a long while, the confusing part of the issue is the paper. There are a number of things that combined, create the paper stock for the invitation that creates the announcement of your wedding. There are a few other types of invitations and I will be covering them in later posts.

Paper weight,

This is the thickness of the paper . It is measured in a couple of ways,

International ,  A square metre of paper is wieghted and the result is in gsm, grams per square metre Business cards are usually around 148 gsm, photographic paper for your inkjet printer is around 300 gsm. The higher the number the thicker the paper and as a result generally the stiffer the paper.

Standard weights, A ream of paper (500) sheets of 20″X26″ paper is weighted the result is given in pounds , The business cards listed above would be 67 lb stock and the photo paper would be 80 lb stock.  Please note Bond Paper uses a different size of sheet for its ream ,a nd as a result has a different pound rating just to totally confuse the issue.

There is very little similarity between the systems so trying to convert form one to the other can be frustrating, it is easier to make sure you know what system your vendor is using and sticking with that.

Type of Paper

For invitations the standard paper is cover stock of various weights depending on the invitation type, single panel invitations are generally made from a  heavier stock than folding invitations with multiple panels, in order to make the folding easier. Paper can be laminated to produce a multi coloured layered appearance. The colour choices are virtually endless , the limiting factor is the appearance that you want to have for your invitations.

Colour,

As noted above the available colours are limited by your imagination, virtually any colour is available with a large number of specialty finishes, metalic, shimmering lines, irridesant, transparent, again the appearance of your invitation is the limiting factor.

Texture

The finish texture of the paper stock can add a great deal to the appearance of your invitation set. Everything from corduroy to paislies to designs that remind me strangely of the late sixties can be embossed into paper. If you can not find what you are interested in, custom embossing dies can be made but the cost does go at that point.

The text that appears on your invitation is likewise limited only by your imagination and the amount of text that you need to put on the invitation. Colour, font,size, laser printed, offset, thermographic , all are different methods of putting your words on the invitation, what works for you will depend on what you want.

More on invitations next week, if you have any questions drop me a line

info@distinctiveexpressions inc.com

Modern wedding invitations became more widely-used after World War II. The development of thermographic printing allowed more sophisticated designs to be stamped on invitations at less cost than tradition engraving. Thermographic printing creates a raised effect that is often used for letterheads, business cards, and even Braille. Its versatility lends itself perfectly to the artistic nature of modern wedding invitations.

Today, invitations are often creative and individual expressions of the couple’s personality. Some couples might send a small gift as an invitation, such as a box of chocolates. Other couples may send an invitation with a framed photograph and a personalized letter. Some people choose non-traditional papers, such as handmade stock with flower petals pressed into it. Invitations may even include favourite cartoon characters, symbols such as an Irish claddagh, ribbons, bows . . . the list is endless!

So next time you open your mail and find that distinctive envelope amongst your letters, take a moment to ponder the history of how that invitation came to be. Just think, it all started with the lowly town crier!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Martin_Karen

In the late 18th century, the art of lithography was developed, making it possible to create beautifully printed invitations without engraving. Invitations at this time were generally still delivered by hand, so they were often sealed within a second envelope for protection. This is another tradition that modern society still observes.

Modern wedding invitations became more widely-used after World War II. The development of thermographic printing allowed more sophisticated designs to be stamped on invitations at less cost than tradition engraving. Thermographic printing creates a raised effect that is often used for letterheads, business cards, and even Braille. Its versatility lends itself perfectly to the artistic nature of modern wedding invitations.

Next post we get up to the present , in future posts we will go into the various methods of actually producing the invitations , paper , printing methods , everything.

: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Martin_Karen