When working with wedding clients, I often get asked about timing for ordering and sending save the dates, invitations and day of stationery items. Below is a general time line that may help you when getting started on placing an order for your stationery.

Save the Dates:
Order 10-12 months prior to wedding date; Mailing 8-10 months prior to wedding date.
Tip: It's always a good idea to have a wedding website with your details and accommodations listed on your save the dates so your guests can have access to all of the information.

Invitations:
Order 5-6 months prior to wedding date; Mailing 4-5 months prior to wedding date, earlier for destination weddings that will require guests to secure flights and accommodations.

Day Of Wedding Accessories:
Order 4-6 weeks prior to wedding date. Special applications such as gold foil stamping or letterpress on menus, ceremony programs, etc., may require additional production time.

Other Things to Consider
If you plan to have your envelopes hand addressed, you may want to add in extra time to allow for this. Calligraphers can have longer turnaround times for envelope addressing, sometimes up to 12 weeks.

Keep in mind, if you are planning a destination wedding, it is a good idea to mail out save the dates at least 10 months to allow for planning. The invitations can be mailed out closer to the wedding date, 4-5 months, as a reminder that your wedding is coming up soon and they will need to book their reservations if they haven't already done so.
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One of our favorite custom designed invitations this past spring was for Julia & Pierre, who celebrated their wedding at Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Westchester County, NY.

We worked directly with our client's and with their wedding planner to create a stylish and elegant invitation suite. The invitations were printed on a soft warm white paper stock with digital and letterpress printing, die cut detailing on the Welcome Party card, and a translucent belly band with hand stamped antique gold wax seals bearing their initials.

We hand assembled the stationery suites, saving our couple valuable time. We do the work so our couples can relax!

We love the look of the watercolor illustration detailing along side the letterpress printing. 

NooneyArt Designs has partnered with local printers to make sure that our customers get quality printing that works for their design and budget needs. We offer three printing methods - flat digital printing, letterpress and foil stamping. Below is some basic information on the three different processes that we think should be helpful in making your choice.

Digital Printing
Flat digital printing is the most commonly used process due to its quick turn around and economical price point. It also allows for personalization on items such envelopes and name cards. Full color designs can be printed on a variety of paper and card stocks up to 130# cover weight. White ink is also available with digital printing, which is a great choice if you wish to print your text or design on a darker paper stock.

Letterpress
Letterpress printing is a centuries old technique of relief printing which has a luxurious, tactile feel. The process starts with the creation of a plate that has a raised image and/or text which is then inked and pressed into paper stock. It’s typically best to use a thicker paper stock in order to achieve a deep impression that you can see and feel. We’ve done letterpress on cover stock weights from 100# to double thick 240# with good results.

Letterpress on its own typically uses one or two inks that are printed separately, but we often combine it with digital printing to add full color artwork and images to a design.

Letterpress is more expensive than digital printing, and requires additional production time (we require 2-3 weeks).

Foil Stamping
Foil stamping is a great way to add formal elegance to your printed project. It requires a similar process to letterpress, but instead of ink, very thin sheets of foil are used to press the design into the paper. The foil is available in a variety of colors including gold, rose gold and silver. Like letterpress, this method can be combined with digital printing, requires additional production time and is more expensive than digital printing alone.

Contact NooneyArt Designs for more information or to schedule your printing project!

This elegant gate fold style wedding invitation was created for Joshua and Nathaniel as a way to introduce their guests to their venue in France, Chateau de Courtomer. The artwork on the invitation gives the guests a little sneak peek at the grounds, from the tree lined path on the envelope liner to the entry gate on the front of the invitation, which opens to a sunlit scene of the Chateau.

The invitation and enclosures were printed on 100lb felt textured cover stock to give the artwork the look of being painted on watercolor paper.