Hello!Lucky
Letterpress greeting cards, thank you notes, DIY projects, free printables and craft inspiration.
One of our favorite wedding blogs, Style Me Pretty, recently featured Sarah and Matt's 2007 wedding showcasing their vintage style and love of tall ships. We designed and letterpress printed their invites (above) and the couple embellished them using wax paper, baker's twine and a wax seal.
See the entire gallery here. All photos by Julie Mikos.
Check out our super sweet giveaway over at Oh, So Beautiful Paper! We're offering one lucky OSBP reader the chance to win 100 one-color letterpress invitations or save the dates from our wedding collection! Just leave a comment here for a chance to win - good luck!
We're so pleased that Amy and Adam's gorgeous Sonoma Wedding was featured on Style Me Pretty this week! Choosing the beautiful B.R. Cohn Winery as their setting, the couple (best friends since college!), treated their guests to a celebration inspired by the bountiful Sonoma fall harvest.
We love the rustic simplicity of chalkboard directions.
The couple said their "I do's" under one of the oldest trees at the winery.
We customized Amy and Adam's wedding invitation to reflect their California fall theme. Escort cards and save the dates brought the clean, playfully preppy touches together.
Simple autumnal flower arrangements by Kathleen Deery Design popped against the white table settings. A beautiful color palette that continued into the night [courtesy of Got Light?]:
The event was catered by Paula LeDuc Fine Catering, where Amy works. Divine! Our congratulations to Amy and Adam!
Photos courtesy of Elle Jae Photography
Our long-awaited unveiling is here! We are absolutely thrilled to bring you 12 new designs from our design studio here at Hello!Lucky. These brand new Save the dates, RSVP cards, and wedding invitations have been months in the making, and many have been inspired by our wonderful clients!
Our San Francisco Skyline invitation evokes the beautiful silhouette of your chic urban wedding.
Inspired by the motley sailors of yore, our Vintage Tattoo design is a perfect accompaniment to your hip and stylish wedding.
Our Heartland wedding invitation is full of rustic charm. Inspired by vintage fruit crate packaging, this invite adds a little shabby chic to picturesque farm or ranch weddings.
A beautiful, modern design with retro flourishes, our Nouveau Peonies invite is inspired by the romance and decorative whimsy of Art Nouveau textiles.
Land ahoy! Our Seagull wedding invitation is a relaxed accompaniment to seaside weddings.
Our other new designs include: a Lake Tahoe-inspired design--perfect for all outdoorsy weddings; a whimsical Cala Lily wedding invitation, a pretty Vintage Lace design with a retro flair; Tuscany and Bordeaux--perfect pairings to your wine country wedding, and and the San Francisco Skyline designs (which complements our London Skyline, New York Skyline designs), showcasing the city silhouette of your urban, city wedding.
We were super excited to be involved in designing for this ceremony! Marni and Brian's wedding is the stuff plush Gothic romances are made of! We love the dark color palette interspersed with more traditional details.
The couple began their ceremony taking a lovers stroll through the labyrinth at San Francisco's hallmark Grace Cathedral, lighting candles as they passed.
They then met up with their guests, who had only been told they were to be driven to the woods, instructions awaiting. Each guest was then welcomed with "survival kits" of edible treats and well-stocked flasks. The understated ceremony took place beneath a simple white canopy in the redwoods of beautiful Muir Woods.
We started by creating custom designed letterpress invitations which summoned the Victorian details Marni knew she wanted--redwood trees, roses, birds, and Victorian embellishments.
Carrying Marni and Brian's Victorian Gothic theme throughout the events of this two day affair, we also worked to design letterpress programs, menus, seating cards, and cocktail napkins.
One of our absolutely favorite parts? The couple even had the redwood tree graphic from the invitation etched onto whiskey flasks! Cheers to that!
The following night, Marni and Brian gathered everyone together again, this time for a reception party held in San Francisco at Hamlin Mansion. We love the playfully rich palette of rich green and purple fabrics for the table settings. Built in 1901 in Italian Baroque style, this venue offers stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Decked out in whimsical charm, feathers, and purple and magenta accents, we're loving the floral arrangements by Cherries Flowers.
We adore the cigars and doughnut bar by Erin Bell!
Thanks to Erin Beach, who did an amazing job on photography and Moira Gubbins, the wedding coordinator from Hamlin Mansion.
Earlier this year we were delighted to print the invitation suite for the owner of one of our favourite UK stockists, High Tea of Highgate (the fact that this is a delightful tea shop in a lovely part of London and that Georgina is a fabulous cook is entirely co-incidental!)
Georgina's wedding to Riccardo Carrelli took place in the magical setting of Burgh Island, an Art Deco hotel situated just off the coat of Devon and the setting for several Agatha Christie films. Our letterpress suite printed over images of the island set the mood for Georgina's 1920's inspired celebrations and the whole event was beautifully captured by the photographer Joanna Wilkinson
The Burgh Island hotel and the equally famous 'Sea Tractor' used to transport guests at high tide.
Georgina's fantastic dress was designed by Alice Temperley and, we are assured, was just perfect for doing the Charleston in!
...and to prove it!
A truly genius way of creating an edible centrepiece!
We just love the detail of these wedding favours a uniquely British delicacy - seaside rock from The Rock People. The couple's name runs right through it!
Congratulations, Georgina and Riccardo!
Invitation photos by yours truly, wedding photos by Joanna Wilkinson.
Whoa! We just got named "Best Wedding Invitations" in San Francisco Weekly's Best of San Francisco 2009! H!L greeting card retailer The Bell Jar also won in the "Best New Gift Boutique" category - double whoa!! (Congratulations, Sasha!). Even though we create wedding invitations for brides all over the country (and world!), it's an extra-special honor to be recognized by our home town, which is so full of talented designers (many of whom we got the chance to catch up with this week at the National Stationery Show). Check out the write-up on our invitations here.
We'd like to thank the Academy, our husbands, all our dedicated, creative and talented employees and clients (you know who you are), Richard Siebert, who taught a couple of cute girls how to print way back when while regaling us with stories of Berkeley in the 70's, chain smoking and wearing a "Bianca's Smut Shack" t-shirt, and all the mentors and friends who have helped us along the way...our mom and dad...blah blah blah...(cue music!!). Thanks again, San Francisco Weekly!
We happened upon these photos of a charming letterpress wedding invitation suite via Inspired Bride and (oh so) beautiful paper. Maddy, bride-to-be and writer of Inspired Bride, is also a graphic designer and lover of letterpress (we're with you Maddy!). And, she asked us to print the beautiful stationery she designed.
How sweet is the bird and pretty dotted pattern?
So wonderful that Maddy is lending such a personal touch to her wedding and we're tickled to have helped. You can read more details about the inspiration behind the stationery here and can visit Maddy's blog for more wedding details.
We recently did fabulous invitations and day-of paper for our friend and fellow card maker, Danielle Spinetta of Tallulah. She and her husband, Greg Piché, were married at Foreign Cinema in San Francisco, and had a fun vintage movie theme - Foreign Cinema has a giant wall for projecting movies (so cool!) - they showed Grease and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid during the reception. Love it!
Photography by Beth Hurley and Deb Mindel of Greg Piché Photography.
Danielle had her save-the-dates printed at the amazing Hatch Show Print and asked us to do the rest of the pieces in a similar show poster style (an aesthetic we happen to love, so needless to say it was a great pleasure to work on). Here's the menu (above)...
The place cards were inspired by vintage movie ticket stubs...
We designed these great custom cocktail napkins from For Your Party - such an adorable detail - served alongside these delicious looking glasses of huckleberry lemonade.
Love these Hooray! flags made by So Inviting (she also made the flag for the cake)...
The truffle cake was made by I Dream of Cake
Love the earthy modern look of Foreign Cinema. The giant letters in the background were made by Madeline Edwards. Congratulations, Danielle & Greg!
We're excited to announce a new contest on the Southern Weddings blog - we're giving away 100 1-color letterpress wedding invitations (retail value of $600). Just respond to their blog post to describe your wedding vision, and we'll pick a lucky winner! Contest closes July 30. Need inspiration? Feel free to browse our wedding invitation collection, custom design gallery, and wedding inspiration boards!
Attention shoppers! Check out the current issue of Lucky. magazine to receive 25% off Hello!Lucky's letterpress greeting cards, wedding invitations, and personalized stationery. Shop greeting cards online here, including all our newest designs. To order wedding invitations, browse here and call us at 415-355-0008 (US) or 07771 931101 (UK) to place an order or speak to a stationery expert.
We're thrilled to announce our new line of letterpress wedding invitations, Marry Me! by Hello!Lucky. We often hear feedback about letterpress invitations being out of the range of an average wedding budget, so we decided to try and do something about it -- we designed these invitations specifically be simple to print to reduce the amount of press time involved. They're also offered in a more limited range of colors to help streamline the production process, and allow us to ship them in just 10 business days. Since letterpress is an artisanal printing method, it's never going to be cheap, but we hope our effort helps bring stylish letterpress invitations within reach. Enjoy!
Photographs courtesy of Sara Remington.
We originally created these Old West-inspired wedding invitations for a couple getting married on a ranch in Sun River, Oregon. Since then, we've adapted the design to a number of stationery items, including save the date cards, thank you notes and even coasters, and added personalized details such as an icon of the state of Texas, above. The invitation design features cowboy boot stitch, and a pattern of vintage stars inspired by riding spurs, and old-fashioned type faces. Perfect for riding off into the sunset! The invitation is available here and can be customized by our designers.
For more western wedding style inspiration, check out Snippet & Ink's Ranch Romance inspiration board here.
Photography by Sara Remington.
We debuted several new letterpress wedding invitations at the Designer Wedding Show in London last month, including several elegant designs inspired by the traditional English wedding invitation - a simple folded card with plain type and reply details printed on its face (no ticking of boxes for the truly traditional!). We couldn't resist adding a small hint of our signature vintage-inspired flare, of course!
Photographs by Sara Remington.
We created these orchid wedding invitations for Su-Lynn and Pierre, a wonderful couple we first met in London. Their January wedding was held at Au Jardin des Amis at the Singapore Botanical Garden followed by a reception at the Ritz Carlton. The letterpress printed invitations featured a modern, minimal orchid design in a fresh spring green, plum and gravel color palette, a Warhol-inspired "hair of the dog" invitation for the post-wedding brunch, a fan-shaped program, and a custom-illustrated map. We're grateful to Su-Lynn and Pierre for their vision, and to collaborating with us to create our favorite wedding invitations of late! Congratulations, Su-Lynn and Pierre!
Photography by Sara Remington.
Why do we love letterpress stationery so? Obviously, we’re a little biased – but it didn’t start out that way.
We first fell in love with letterpress as an artistic medium – it creates gorgeously tactile prints and beautiful, saturated colors. We also loved the authentic, vintage quality of it – it used to be the primary commercial printing technique back when commercial printing was still a small-scale craft and involved hand-setting individual letters of type, backwards. It reminded us of days gone by, an of the old nature books we used rummage through our grandmother’s attic. Today, it’s still a highly respected artistic medium, with studios like Arion Press in San Francisco producing sought-after limited-edition letterpress-printed books that are created in collaboration with fine artists from around the world.
Eunice and I love functional art, so the next step in our love affair was to figure out how to make the medium accessible. Greeting cards and custom stationery immediately came to mind as personal, creative, accessible, and affordable formats that many people could enjoy and share. Wedding invitations, in particular, mark an incredibly meaningful event and the first step in creating a new life, home, and family – if fine art is to have a place anywhere in people’s lives, it should be on such an occasion.
So, we started doodling and printing on a hand-cranked Vandercook printing press in Eunice’s garage, and the rest is history! Today, we continue to remain focused on letterpress as a fine art – our printers have advanced degrees in fine art, and have apprenticed with master printers for years. Our goal is to create beautiful products that have an heirloom-quality and that make art and craft a central part of our everyday lives.
Photographs courtesy of Sara Remington.
You’ve set the date, picked a venue, and read every back issue of Martha Stewart Weddings. Now, you’re thinking about taking the plunge for letterpress printed wedding invitations. You’ve shopped around and know that letterpress wedding invitations can be more expensive that other types of invitations. What you may not know is that the product you get can vary wildly in quality.
These days, with so many designers and hobbyists diving into letterpress printing, it can be easy to overlook the fact that letterpress printing is a craft (some go so far as to call it an art form) that takes years to truly perfect. The difference in experience between an amateur- and a professionally-printed product is not unlike the difference between wriggling into that itchy sweater than your best friend knitted for you (too-small arm holes and all!), and slipping into a beautifully constructed couture garment. Since a letterpress wedding invitation sets the tone for your entire wedding day, it should be of the best quality.
Here are some tips for spotting fine-quality letterpress printing:
- Detailed impression that gently depresses into the paper. One of the lovely things about letterpress is the tactile impression the plate leaves after it has been pressed into the paper. However, it is possible to go overboard. Less experienced printers often press the plate so hard against the paper that the type or design punches through the back side, making your invitation feel more like a ticket than a piece of fine stationery (and making the inside of a folded card, such as a thank you note, difficult to write on). The hallmark of fine letterpress printing is that the plate “kisses” the paper, leaving the back of the card smooth yet achieving enough indentation to achieve depth and detail in the design.
- Thick, soft paper. To truly showcase its tactile quality, letterpress wedding invitations should use soft, 100% cotton archival printmaking papers. These papers are thick, soft (almost cashmere-like), and absorbent, so are thus best able to receive the ink and impression of the letterpress plate. Commercial papers tend to be harder and less absorbent so result in a less deliciously exquisite result.
- Even ink coverage. One of the trickiest aspects of letterpress printing is to get just enough ink on each area of the design. When the design includes a large solid area as well as an area of fine type, (as in our L’Oiseau invitation above), the large area requires more ink and the fine type less ink. A skilled printer will make numerous detailed adjustments to achieve perfect coverage in all areas. Squishy and/or uneven ink coverage are hallmarks of a novice printer.
- Perfect registration. Since each ink color is printed in a separate press run, each colored area of the design is printed separately, too. After the first layer is printed, the plate for the second later must be mounted and adjusted so the second part of the design fits perfectly with the first. This can be especially difficult when the design has details that require tight registration, for example small pink polka dots against a brown background.
Designing for Letterpress. Like printing, designing for letterpress is an art as well, requiring the ability to work within a constrained color palette (since each ink color is applied separately, letterpress printing typically involves one or two ink colors) and intimate knowledge of the printing process and the printer’s capabilities. The more skilled the printer, the more flexibility the designer has to experiment creatively.
The best design for letterpress capitalizes on the vintage nature of the printing process, capturing an authentic, vintage feel that is updated for modern style, whether it be Art Nouveau, Pop Modern, or Chinoiserie. Letterpress printing has been around since the 1400s, so there’s a wealth of stylistic history to draw on. The best designers have a broad stylistic vocabulary and thus can customize your invitations to suit your style or theme.
We first met Sarah and Matt at a wedding show at San Francisco’s Fort Mason. We were immediately taken by their adorable vintage-inspired style. Sarah has demure, impeccable taste and could be a 40s-era movie queen, and Matt is always dapper and the consummate gentleman.
To our great delight, they invited us to collaborate with them on their wedding invitations. Their inspiration was tall ships and nautical imagery. They had already designed an icon for themselves, a heart and anchor. We poured over pages upon pages of nautical diagrams and images of tall ships, and created a design that combined a tall ship, lighthouse, message in a bottle, and, of course, hearts and anchors. We letterpress printed the wedding invitations, reply cards, and map. The wedding invitation suite was wrapped in a glassine, tied with baker’s twine and sealed with a wax seal bearing Sarah and Matt’s icon. Since Sarah and Matt are very crafty (Sarah subsequently contributed a DIY card-making project to our forthcoming book, Handmade Hellos), they did the assembly at home.
The wedding reception was held at the Lodge at The Regency Center, where a Maxfield Parrish-inspired theatrical backdrop set the scene. Escort cards for the guests were fashioned after the "message in a bottle" idea with each bottle containing a personal note from the bride and groom - most of the miniature apothecary-style bottles were found at antique fairs, flea markets, and on ebay. Photographer Julie Mikos took the gorgeous photos of the ceremony and Melissa of A Simple Ceremony did the exquisite floral arrangements. The stunning black and white cake was created by Carolyn Wong.
Congratulations, Sarah and Matt! We are so happy for you! Photographs courtesy of Julie Mikos and Sara Remington.
We have to admit it – we are style-obsessed over here at Hello!Lucky. We love seeking inspiration from all over world and from every medium imaginable, from vintage packaging to old spurs to haute couture in pursuit of creating the perfect custom invitations.
Plain and simple, style and good design give enjoyment and meaning to our lives. What we wear, how we decorate our homes, the objects we surround ourselves with, and what we write on (of course!) all contribute to the day-to-day experience of living. Our aesthetic environment shapes our psyche - great style and design can shift our outlook from stressed out to serene.
A wedding is a (sometimes daunting!) blank canvas for expressing your personal style and creating a joyful experience for your closest friends and family. The pleasure of that experience will be emotional, to be sure, but it will also be aesthetic – from the flowers, to the dress, to the invitations, and the photographs. As such, the wedding should have a design or a style to make it cohesive, positive, beautiful, and unforgettable.
Wedding invitations are the first step to creating the style of your wedding day. They are the first thing that guest will receive, and first impressions do matter. The invitation will indicate whether the event is formal or casual, what guests should wear (your guests, appropriately attired, will become immortalized in your wedding photos!), and what to generally expect from the experience. And, of course, they will showcase your fabulous taste!
Wedding invitations should be approached thoughtfully and imaginatively. Feel free to look far and wide for inspiration– from fashion to textiles to home décor. Reach beyond traditional wedding resources, and find something truly meaningful to guide your vision. Once you’ve decided on your style and theme, focus on quality design and craftsmanship, which is all in the materials and details. With wedding invitations, as with most things, great quality comes at a price or (if you are inspired to do-it-yourself) through a labor of love. The key is thoughtful consideration in creating a truly special experience for your guests.
One the wedding invitations are in the mail, you can turn your attention to styling the rest of the wedding day – it’s all in the special detailed touches, everything from flowers to food to favors. Keep these design elements in mind as you’re picking out our invitations and choosing vendors. Stay focused, organized, and seek help from experts if you’re feeling overwhelmed…it may sound clichéd but the wedding day you create truly could be the best day of your life!
We at Hello!Lucky are thrilled to debut our fresh new look online! It’s been a long time coming, and we have to confess we’re doing a little happy dance over here in San Francisco (with a bit of toe-tapping in London!) now that it’s finally gone from imagination to reality!
Our new site features a clean, simple-to-navigate design and tons of gorgeous photos by the amazing Sara Remington. Sara took so many lovely portraits of our letterpress wedding invitations that we had trouble deciding which one to feature on the home page! The options we considered are below – we picked green for its fresh, serene feeling but we’d love to hear what you think!
In envisioning the new site, we wanted to create a drop-dead-gorgeous destination for letterpress wedding invitations, birth announcements, custom stationery, and greeting cards online – a destination that welcomes not only shoppers but those craving ideas and inspiration (given the number of hours we spend at Anthropologie, we know the psychic rewards of trolling through tons and tons of beautiful items and gorgeous design!) .
That’s a lot of ground to cover, so we’re taking baby steps! We’re dipping our toe in the pool (c’mon on in, the water is fine!) by sharing our newly expanded letterpress wedding invitation collection. Enjoy, and we’d love to hear from you!
At Hello!Lucky we specialize in Letterpress greeting cards, as well offer DIY step by steps & free printables. Led by sisters Eunice and Sabrina Moyle, our small team of expert designers and artisan letterpress printers specialize in creating neon & foil, holiday cards, birthday cards, & thank you cards, that are full of creativity and whimsy. We've been featured in Martha Stewart Weddings, Design Sponge, Style Me Pretty, Real Simple, and many other leading publications. Please feel feel to contact us via chat, phone or e-mail - we'd be happy to assist you!
Hello!Lucky | P.O. Box 17605, San Francisco, California