Invitations are the first item your eagerly awaiting guests will receive. Wedding invitations help form expectations for your special day – will the day be traditional or contemporary? Formal or relaxed? Morning or night? Your custom wedding invitations will also reflect your personal style as a couple. Choosing a printing process is one of the most important choices you will make in working with your custom invitation designer.

One hundred years ago, printing provided information about who issued the invitation, the bride and groom’s name, date, time, and place. Almost always presented in an engraved formal scripted type, printing was the only embellishment on a bride’s wedding invitations. Today, there is an exciting and acceptable range of options for printing your custom invitations. Engraving, letterpress, lithography, thermography, embossing, de-bossing, and die-cutting, are all options for printing and enhancing your wedding invitations. Each has its unique qualities and style – from traditional to contemporary, formal to relaxed, and expensive to affordable.

The first step to creating artful invitations is to find a custom invitation designer who offers a full range of printing methods. By offering a wealth of choices, your invitation designer will ensure a printing choice that is most appropriate for your own wedding event, style, and budget.

Historically, engraving is the most widely used printing process for wedding invitations. Take a look in your family’s memory box – chances are good that you will find an engraved wedding invitation inside. Engraving begins with etching each letter deep into a copper or steel plate. The recessed ink is then transferred from the plate to the paper, producing a raised surface. Engraving’s quality and dignity commands the highest price in printing wedding invitations. The hand-tooled process also requires two to four weeks to create – so begin early if your heart is set on this sophisticated printing method. Traditionally done with a formal roman or script type on a rich, toothy paper, however, many contemporary brides are now hiring custom invitation designers to enliven the process with new colors, such as navy on light blue paper, or white on green paper.

Thermography is a fairly new process developed to be a less expensive option to engraving. While thermography has a raised surface, it tends to be much shinier and lacks the precision of engraving. This glossy print can be fun for invitations to parties given before or after the wedding.

Letterpress is experiencing a renaissance for its artistic and modern look. Letterpress is created by hand-setting each raised letter, or by making a plate. When printed, the type is pressed into the paper, creating a beautiful texture. Because letterpress is a time consuming process, it is also quite expensive. This hand crafted printing process can take two to four weeks. Letterpress is versatile and can look wonderful with formal script, modern type, or playful lettering. Your custom invitation designer can help you create something unique by using light colors on dark or colored paper with letterpress, or pressing logos or images that create a textured surface.

Embossing and de-bossing is an option to letterpress. The embossed surface is raised, and the de-bossed side is lowered. Because of the printing process, embossing and de-bossing creates a dramatic raised and lowered impression. This printing process can also make a smooth surface that brings a modern contrast to earthy textured paper. Try de-bossing a large rectangle that reaches one half inch to the edge of the invitation, and then letterpress the type inside the rectangular space. This looks amazingly artistic to combine the two processes.

Lithography, also known as offset, is the most economical and commonly available printing process. It is economical because your custom invitation designer can have a large plate made to accommodate a portion of your wedding invitation suite. For instance, your invitation, response, direction, and program can be printed in one run. The limitation is that they must be in the same colors and work best with smooth, or lightly textured papers. Lithography is a good choice if you want to put most of your invitation budget towards imported papers and fancy add-ons.

Die-cutting is a process that cuts shapes into or out of your invitation. You can make your invitation into a special shape, or cut a shape out of the top of the invitation. For example, if your wedding is taking place in a circular court, your custom invitations could be die-cut into a circle. Or, perhaps the wedding is taking place under a sycamore in an arboretum, you could have a leaf die-cut out at the top. Your custom invitation designer will help you choose the most appropriate use of die-cutting for one of a kind invitations for your special day.

Choosing a custom invitation designer who offers a range of printing processes will help you create a unique invitation that works within your budget. Bring a list of the items you will need printed – from the save the date, invitation, response and direction card, menu, program, escort and place cards, to the thank you notes. Depending on which printing process you choose and how many items you are sending, invitations can take up to one month for the printing alone. Ideally, you should select your custom designer and begin the process at least 4 to 6 months in advance so you can send your wedding invitations on time.

As you begin to define the look and feel of your wedding, remember that invitations will make the first impact for your guests. Try one of the newest trends in printing and your guests will read your invitations in style!