Printing with Texture - 3 Things You Need to Know to Plan a Boutique Wedding

When you're thinking about your wedding invitations, have you ever considered texture?

Let's talk about that a bit! Why does it matter? As often as I hear 'oh people will just throw it out anyway' you and I both know that's wrong. Your guests will slide your invitation out of the envelope and from that moment on, it's an experience. Life is all about experiences. They’ll judge everything about it from the first glance.

They are taking in the colors and fonts to gauge if it's a bright and fun party, or a traditional formal affair. They're feeling the paper and noticing that it is clearly high end (read, fancy expensive wedding) because it's thick or has a velvet texture or is soft and buttery - you clearly didn't just get these from the craft store. But then they'll notice the ink. They won't' necessarily notice if you use digital printing, but they WILL notice a printing upgrade. If you use thermography or letterpress, they can feel it. They'll run their fingers over the letters and that one little detail will take your invitation from average to 'clearly this wedding is high end'.

Now, if it's not in the budget, I totally understand and this invitation will look really lovely with digital printing, but the upgrade might be well worth it.

This one in particular uses a mix of thermography and white ink.

First - What is thermography?

Let’s start with the basics - thermography applies a resin over the ink that is then heated so it bubbles up creating a raised texture. It's very tactile. If you’ve ever gotten into stamping and used an embossing powder and heat gun - that’s what this is, just on a really big printing press!

INSERT THERMO PHOTO

Second - Why is white ink so special?

White ink is another great surprise. It’s not easy to do. Think about how a printer works and go back to art class - you can’t just mix blue, yellow, pink and black together and get white. Not happening my friend.

There are two ways a designer can achieve white ink on black paper. You can either draw a big black box on your design, use white text to ‘knock out’ the colored area. You’ll print on white paper and where you want the areas to be white, no ink is applied, the rest of the page is colored in. The back of your invitation is white.and then print that on white paper (so the back of your invitation is stark white).

Option 2 - you can use a special digital printer that has white toner to print straight onto dark paper. {work dream goal right here to own one of these!!} Why go this route? This printing process is much cleaner and neater than printing a full page of color. You get the paper color and texture through and through. For example - you can’t fake kraft or cork paper. I mean you CAN with a faux background, but let’s try not to do that for your wedding invitations - they are so special!

With digital white ink you can still see all of the beautiful fibers and textures of the paper under it. The shimmer pops through, the wood grain texture is still present and it packs an impact friends. Your guests turn the paper over and see it’s black through and through and -smooch! It’s amazing!

Third thing  - Yes I'd love a luxury wedding Laura, but how can I afford it?

Short answer - there is an option for everyone to have pieces of a luxury wedding if we figure out how much you can spend and what ideas are the most appealing to you. I'm a budget girl, I have one, I use one and I make my purchasing decisions every day based on a budget. I get it.

You may not be able to afford the deckled paper AND the hand dyed silk ribbon AND the custom wax seal ... but I bet you can afford just the wax seal. That one element alone will make your invitations stand out.

So that's what we'll do. If thermography is what you want, we'll explore how you can afford it maybe just on one piece, or if you can't afford it, we'll find another way to add some kind of texture to your design maybe with a luxurious paper or with a simple ribbon. Something that's still special.

Before we go, here’s your job - reach out. Let me know what you’re dreaming of and I’ll help you find the right combination of products to get you there. I’ll do you the research and the legwork and all you need to do is tell me how much you love it! Shop for your favorite design, then fill out the contact form at the bottom of that page to let me know what your dreams are! Don't forget to use the drop down menu at the top of the website to shop by color, theme or style to narrow it down!