Thursday, April 23, 2009

Another small step in the wedding direction

And I do mean small.

I went to Mercurio Brothers, the local and shockingly reasonably-priced letterpress print shop, with Dr. Cowgirl the other day to get some information about invitations. I collected a bunch of samples, brought them home to Mr. Barefoot, and we reached a decision.

On the design of the invitation? No.

On the wording of the invitation? No.

On the number of invitations needed? No.

All those still remain to be determined.

However, we did decide on the type of paper we want to use.

We chose
Somerset 300 gm Cotton ... our most popular cover stock for wedding invitations and is our #1 recommendation. It is thick and spongy, which are good qualities for letterpress. [...in] Soft (natural) White (more like an ecru).
Unbelievable. I have never before been this consumed by minutia. The wedding is drawing out all my obsessive tendencies (which were quite latent until now!) in a bizarre convergence of my party-hosting anxiety and my dissertation avoidance. Heaven help me if I didn't have the dissertation to draw the major part of my attention - I'd probably be parsing the relative merits of different type styles. (There's no saying that that won't happen over the summer. eek!)

Anyway, Dr. Cowgirl and I couldn't resolve those larger issues about our respective invitations, because we were going to treat ourselves to a facial and a massage, respectively, at Spa Week (or month, at our local spa) - $50 treatments at a spa near you! Check it out before time runs out!

3 comments:

jes [a mountain bride] said...

wow - that so amazing you are using that print company...i've had them saved on my computer forEVER now because their prices kick a** and the designs on their site look legit. I like that you can design your own stuff and they can upload it for you....is that what you are doing?

are they nice to work with??

elizabeth said...

Yeah, the prices are shockingly good!

You can design your own (what my friend is doing), or get a design from elsewhere (I'm planning to get one from Printable Press [http://www.printablepress.com/ - much blogged about in the wedding blogosphere.])

We met with Joe, who was really lovely - took the time to explain how the letterpress process works, gave us samples, and helped my friend pick out colors for her invite. He was completely patient with all our questions. My friend said there are some mixed reviews on Yelp. It's a real working print shop - a busy place - not a bridal salon, so I could see how some brides might be disappointed by the less-than-white-gloves treatment (which was no less than professional, just not cloying.) But if you're reading this blog, you may not require the princess treatment ;-) in which case, I think it would be a great choice.

They said to order 4 weeks in advance. I'm just so psyched that it's local - I'll be able to pick up the invites on my *bike* on the way home!

I'll probably post more about the process - drop a line if you have more questions about them. They seem great!

Eva-Lena Rehnmark said...

There is also Sarah Hart of Blush (Blush Paper and Press phone 888.641.2224) she makes her own 100% recycled paper which looks gorgeous. There is no website up for her yet She is printing our business materials (artseed weddings) She is even experimenting with natural dyes to give paper a hue of green tea, coffee, or lemon from her own garden. Her pricing is VERY reasonable.
There is a lot to read about green printing - it goes a lot deeper than soy ink. http://www.flurryjournal.com/2008/03/13/green-the-new-primary-color/