minted-letterpress-wedding invitationsHi friends! Today is  my first Wedding Wednesday post since our wedding and I’m so excited about this topic -invitations! I partnered with Minted for S and I to create our wedding invitations and adore the way they turned out. We received them back in May so I’ve been dying to show you!

While reflecting on wedding planning in general, curating our invitations is hands down one of my favorite things we did! S was the sweetest, most helpful fiance and was very involved in wedding planning. Between him and our amazing planner Kelsey of BackBayBride, my wedding planning experience was pretty stress free. When it came to stationary, S was very happy to let this aspect of planning be the girl’s world so Kelsey and I had fun vetting through different ideas via Minted. From this experience and receiving guidance and advice from Kelsey through the process, I have eight tips for you bride-to-be’s that are checking ‘invitations’ from your to do list!

ONE // Nail Down Your Overall Theme
I have a post drafted all about nailing down your overall wedding theme since it is SO important. You’ll refer back to your theme for almost every single wedding decision, so getting it nailed down before bridesmaids dresses, securing a floral vendor or purchasing stationary is a must.

At a high level, Kelsey and I discussed my vision from the get-go of working together. Since I’m a visual person, I created a private Pinterest board and started pulling wedding details I was intrigued by. I started to see similarities between certain details and would then pull an image into my theme board, like lush green bouquets, white garden roses, gold terrariums, sleek tuxedos, beaded bridesmaid dresses. I also added a couple words to our theme board that described the feel of our big day along with our color scheme. While creating a theme is a big task, it’s so important to nail a cohesive look, not only for the reception, but for the ceremony, invitations, cocktail hour and more. More on this soon 😉

TWO // Search Pinterest
Just as I noted above, Pinterest is a huge part of any bride’s planning process. Just as Kelsey and I used it for curating a theme, we also used it when finding ideas for S and I’s invitations. I quickly realized I adored letterpress. Letterpress is traditional and timeless, but we could also put a modern spin on them!

To find the type of invitations you are intrigued by, I suggest starting with broad searches like:
coastal wedding invites, navy wedding invitations
Then once you find certain details you like narrowing with those long tail keyword phrases like:
coastal nautical lobster wedding invites, navy monogram wedding invitations

THREE // Decide on Paper
While I loved the look of letterpress, I wanted to feel the different papers available to make sure it was the right decision. I’m sure if you create your invitations in-person your designer can walk you through different paper, but since we went the Millenial route and avoided any more in-person meetings than we needed, we ordered Minted’s free wedding sample booklet. They provide you with samples of every paper offered, font colors, invitations with all their different edge cuts and their detail offerings like foil press.

I knew right when I saw the letterpress that I loved it! The standard sample letterpress was very pretty, but too traditional so I ordered a sample of the invitation I’d fallen in love with from the get-go along with the regular paper version of it. Ordering a sample of an exact invitation has a small fee around $5, but this goes as a credit towards your invitation purchase if you end up going with Minted.

Once we received the sample in the mail, it was a no brainer. S and I both agreed the letterpress was gorgeous and this style looked better than the standard paper version. There really isn’t any stationary more elegant! The minimalistic design really matched our neutral color scheme and the wording structure really combined with the letterpress paper nailed our overall wedding theme of being timeless, yet modern. We also thought the sturdiness of the paper was what an invite should feel like. After holding the letterpress, other papers all felt flimsy and underwhelming. Your invitational suite sets the tone for your wedding and  for us, this one did just that! We loved every detail about them including the euroflap envelope. Euroflap envelops add an elegant touch!
minted letterpress wedding invitations
FOUR // Nail Down Details
Knowing what is needed to communicate to guests will help craft your invitations. Our wedding invitation suite consisted of the invitation to the ceremony, invitation to the reception and a traditional RSVP card with it’s own envelope and stamp. We opted for separate ceremony and reception invitations solely because we had different venue locations for each and had too many details to squeeze onto on invite. If your ceremony and reception take place at the same address and general area, then you could just add “reception to immediately follow” at the bottom of the ceremony invitation.

While breaking down the details, we also realized we didn’t find a for a directions card. With today’s technology, written directions aren’t really needed and both our ceremony and reception invitations included the addresses. We instead decided to include our wedding website for additional information like parking details. Do what feels right for you! For this specific suite, this would knock off $400 within itself.

We also decided to opt for traditional RSVPs. On top of it being so exciting to receive replies everyday, it just made the most sense for us. S comes from a large Italian family so many of his older relatives may not have been able to reply online so this was a great avenue for us, but if your crowd is very tech savvy, online RSVPs could save you a chunk of change towards stationary and stamps!

Before curating your invitations, also have an idea of the feel you’re going for. To counter on the traditional style of letterpress, we wanted a more modern wording and ditched the formalness of “so and so’s parents invite you” or “so and so request the honor of your presence”. I love how chic the “MINDY SERGIO PORTLAND” looks.

So overall, make note of all the details you need to include on a Word doc. Then separate them out onto which part of the invitation suite it will appear on. You will quickly find some pieces like a reception invitation, or maybe even traditional RSVP aren’t needed and are a route to save some moo-lah$$.

FIVE // Design
Whether you inquire to a designer or find something of your taste via Minted or a similar vendor, both of these avenues allow for customization. Minted designers will work hand in hand with you to create an idea from scratch or alter an option to you liking that currently exists. You can customize many aspects like font types, colors and envelope liners. Minted’s selection is so vast that I bet just about ay bride could find something that nails their wedding theme and style as a couple. I love that they can curate custom maps too for direction cards too!

We have worked with Minted many times on holiday cards, our save the dates and even artwork for our home. The process is always seamless and if there is a glitch, they quickly fix it with no questions asked. Do keep in mind if you decide on a fancy euroflap envelope, the liner selection is very limited! I didn’t realize this until after and it took me a long time to find a way to make them on my own. Another example of S being the sweetest and not only slicing 200 envelope liners, but vetting through my fifteen ideas of printing them and finding a design hehe.
Minted letterpress wedding invitations
SIX // Address 
At first we planned to have a calligrapher hand script that addresses, but we couldn’t say no to Minted’s free envelope addressing. They have so many fonts and I love the curvy italicized font we used. One of S’ groomsmen thought it was done by hand and was so impressed. I died laughing. Nope, just a computer HAHA.

SEVEN // Complete
Once we received our boxes of invitations in the mail, I went to work finding an envelope liner. Let me tell you about my biggest endeavor through all of wedding planning. Apparently euroflaps aren’t known to have liners. Well our envelops were the same color as our actual invites, so we needed a pop of color and envelop liners are really the only way to do that. I searched every nook and cranny of the internet for these A7 envelop liners. Hours. Upon hours.

Finally a week later [hint: set all your timelines a month before it’s actually due so even when you fall behind yu’re actually right on track!], I found a print I loved off Etsy that nailed what our actual floral arrangements will look like. The print is romantic, whimsical and I fell in love! Now the two week long search for printing these began. It took that long to find one place that could print and slice these for us at a reasonable price. I knew I could get the price lower though. Our envelope liners ended up being our first DIY project. We decided to save over $200 and print them at a local printer and slice those suckers ourselves. An industrial slicer is the best tool we used. I borrowed mine from my office and it was a life saver through this entire wedding planning process! Also, S wins best fiance of the year award for his positivity and help. After slicing them, we used double sided tape to stick one in every envelope 🙂

My next project to complete our invites was to find a modern belly band. Basically you need something to hold all the varying pieces together. Some invites have built in pockets, some use paper a belly band, but ribbon was more up our modern style. We actually grabbed two different hues from Michael’s during our weekly stop haha. To that we compared silk ribbons, but the price alone negated that option real quick! The grey ribbon S found ended up playing off the font color perfectly and didn’t distract away from the liner or invites themselves.

And finally, we searched high and low for the perfect stamps. Luckily the ones we landed on were in stock on Amazon prime and used to be sold by the post office. Before finding them, we were going to custom make our stamps on Zazzle which is another great option.
minted letterpress wedding invitations
EIGHT // Assemble
S and I had an assembly line going to place pieces in the correct order, tie the ribbon, stamp the envelopes, stuff the envelope, etc. We pumped them out after work in a week.
minted letterpress wedding invitations
NINE // Ship
From there, mail ’em! Well there are a few important things to check off before immediately sending them off in USPS’ hands, but there’s so much vital info that I saved that for a post coming soon.

I hope this post on our wedding invitations and the process of creating them helps you with your wedding planning! You can read more posts from my Wedding Wednesday series here. Xo Mindy

PS – If you’re wondering why we had a 1PM ceremony and 6PM reception, it’s because Roman Catholic churches in Maine won’t marry you past 1 🙂 Luckily we were in a gorgeous are with lots to do so guests made the best of it and explored while we ventured off to the ocean for portraits!

Thank you so much to Minted for gifting us our letterpress wedding invitation suites and for partnering on this blog post. All opinions and experiences are authentically my own.

  1. Ruthie Ridley says:

    Wow these invites are STUNNING!!! I love Minted!!

  2. Maggie says:

    I’m obsessed with how chic these are! The inside of the envelope adds the perfect touch!

  3. Amy M Loochtan says:

    these are classic and beautiful! Can’t wait to see you as a stunning bride!

  4. OH MY GOSH! You know I need all of this inspiration right now. Thank you for the tips. I know CJ and I are going to have to start talking about our theme soon and invitations are the perfect way to set the tone. 🙂

  5. Rach says:

    Your invitations are gorgeous!! I love the floral liner! Minted is seriously the best. That is basically where I get all my cards and invites!

    http://www.rdsobsessions.com

  6. Kate says:

    Oh my gosh, these look amazing! Always love Minted!

  7. Anna English says:

    These turned out great Mindy! So pretty!

  8. They are gorgeous! I looked at Minted for my invitations as well! They have amazing selections!

  9. kelly torrez says:

    Such a beautiful suite, I love that design and almost used it for my wedding!

    Birdie Shoots

  10. Sara says:

    We had Letterpress invites, as well! I love your theme and those floral envelopes are gorg!

    xo, Sara

  11. Oh my gosh, they are so pretty!! I love the design and the colors!

  12. Annie says:

    These invitations are absolutely gorgeous! I love Minted!

  13. Ashley Zeal says:

    They look awesome! Minted is the best!

  14. Sarah Lennon says:

    How cute are these?!! I hope you had an amazing time!

  15. Samantha says:

    These are SO cute! Congrats girl 🙂
    http://www.thefitbrunette.com

  16. Stuart Brazell says:

    Your invitations are so beautiful!!

    xx, Stuart

    http://www.stuartsays.com

  17. Sarah K Tripp says:

    Girl, these are so gorgeous! Love the floral insert!

  18. Wow these are beyond stunning. I didn’t know MInted did wedding invites. so neat!!!

  19. Your invites are SO gorgeous!

  20. ashley houston says:

    Minted makes the BEST prints and art. They’re my fave

  21. ORIELYZ FLORES says:

    Your invitation suite is BEAUTIFUL ! I’m actually looking for the envelope MEASUREMENTS. I order a letterpress invite and can’t find the ENVELOPE dimension to print the liner.

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Servello & Co. Interiors

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Hi there

I'm a Maine native residing in the Boston 'burbs sharing my love of interiors through decorating my husband and I's first home.

Through this experience, I discovered I have a knack for curating spaces that feel warm, cohesive and inviting. That passion turned into friends and family asking for interiors help and now we are here! 

Home should be a place you love to be. I'm here to help you achieve that!