The Letterpress Process for Wedding Stationery

My home studio

I work out of my home, and do all the designing and printing myself, in house. Here you can see my big flatbed cylindrical press, with which I print the invitations. The smaller press, with the handle sticking up, is called a platen press. I use this to print return addresses on envelopes, name tags, and other small stuff

What is letterpress printing?

Letterpress is a form of printing using a printing press, wherein a raised surface is inked in one color of ink at a time and printed onto one sheet of paper at a time. The raised surface can be hand-set type, a carved linoleum block, or in the case of most modern wedding invitations, a photopolymer plate. This printing method results in elegant, crisp printing and can have a deep impression made on the paper

The design process

I work on your design with paper and pencil, scan it into my computer, and digitally correct/clean up the image. I send you a draft, which will be in black and white, no matter what color the final invitation will be. It is normal to go back and forth with small corrections and alterations a couple of times for the design. Once it is finalized, I send off for photopolymer plates, which are shipped back to me in 2-5 business days.

Similar to copper plates, which have been used for centuries, photopolymer plates are raised surfaces from a photo transfer process. As with many forms of printmaking, such as screenprinting, one color is printed at a time. So designs that include two colors have two different plates, for example.

The printing process

Once I have the plates in hand, I can start printing! First, I cut the paper to the appropriate size (often bigger than the final size for technical reasons). Then I mix up the ink color(s). Setting up the press with correct amount of pressure, and correct registration of image on paper can be time consuming. Each piece of paper is fed individually into the printing press.

As the job is printed, more ink is continually added to the press. For each additional ink color, the plate must be changed, the rollers cleaned, and the registration must be tweaked. Because of this, letterpress printing can result in slight variations of color from one piece of paper to the next, as well as slight variations on alignment of plates. After all pieces are printed and the ink has dried, I trim the sheets of paper down to the final size. Then I package it up very securely and mail it off, with the appropriate envelopes, and always with insurance! 

General Timeline for Wedding Invitations:

• initial inquiry and quote

• finalize quote, send out contract to be signed by both parties, including a 50% deposit

• start design of invitations and other items: for this, the wedding party sends as much information about what they want for their design as possible. This can include images of other designs they like, descriptions of style, even a Pinterest board. 

• Design work: I mock up the design and send files to the wedding party to review. Often the design is revised multiple times. Sometimes this back and forth over email can take a couple of weeks and be the most time consuming part of the process. That’s normal! It’s ok to reject designs, or even go in a totally new direction after seeing some options. Part of the contract is for 8 hours of my time spent on the design, including revisions. Sometimes that is plenty. Sometimes extra time is needed, in which case I charge an extra $55 an hour. 

  • I let clients know during the design procedure how much time it is taking me, how much time is left, etc. If there’s something you want me to try I can even provide an estimate of how much time I think it will take me before proceeding. 

  • Clients receive a digital black and white proof of all plates 

  • Final color for all inks should be chosen at this time. I mix all inks by hand, and can get quite close to any color, though not perfectly. If you have an exact pantone # you wish me to match, I can order pre-mixed ink to ensure accuracy, although this does require an extra  charge. 

• Printing - see above description of how the printing works. This usually does not take more than 2-3 days, but can take longer depending on how big the job is and how many pieces, how many different color inks etc. 

  • Occasionally something goes wrong - the plate is not exposed correctly and I need to send out for new ones - or I mess up the final trim - that’s why I always try to build in extra time in the timeline to ensure you get your invitations with enough time to spare

• I ship you the final pieces including envelopes, and once you receive them, you pay the remaining fee.