The Art of Custom Wedding Invitations: The Process from Inspiration to Mailbox

When you’re planning your wedding, every detail matters. And nothing sets the tone for your special day quite like your wedding invitations. They’re the first glimpse your guests get of what’s to come, and they deserve to be as unique as your love story. Today, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my custom wedding invitation process, from the initial spark of inspiration to the moment they land in your guests’ mailboxes.

Finding Your Inspiration

Every custom wedding invitation begins with a conversation. I love sitting down with couples (whether virtually or in person) and hearing about their vision. What colors make you smile? What elements reflect your relationship? Maybe it’s the way sunlight filters through trees at your venue, or perhaps it’s the vintage lace on your grandmother’s wedding dress. The first question I always ask my couples is, “how do you want to feel on your wedding day”? This sets the tone for the whole event and guides me to designing with your aesthetic front and center.

My couples often bring Pinterest boards, fabric swatches, venue photos, or sometimes just stories. One bride brought in pressed flowers from where her fiancé proposed; another showed me their collection of travel postcards from adventures they’d shared. These personal touches become the foundation for truly custom wedding invitations that tell your story.

The Design Process

Once we’ve gathered inspiration, I begin sketching. This is where your invitation suite starts to take shape. After your first proof is sent, we’ll collaborate to refine every detail, from typography and color palette to paper selection.

Custom doesn’t just mean pretty—it means purposeful. If you’re having a garden wedding, we might incorporate botanical illustrations. For a mountain ceremony, we may include a custom watercolor of your venue’s landscape, or choose colors inspired by the setting. Getting married by the ocean? We could play with deckled edges and fun shapes. Destination weddings lend themselves well to incorporating unique details that reflect the locale–vintage stamps, a certain typography style, or an overall vibe that reflects what guests can expect.

Each element is thoughtfully chosen to reflect your wedding day vision. And because these are truly custom wedding invitations, you’ll have multiple opportunities to review and refine the design until it feels perfectly “you.”

The Printing Methods

Now comes the transformation from digital design to tangible keepsake. I partner with exceptional printers who specialize in various techniques:

• Letterpress: For those who love dimension and tactile elegance, where designs are pressed into luxurious cotton paper (my favorite!)
• Foil stamping: Adding metallic shine to catch the light (and your guests’ attention)
• Digital printing: Perfect for reproducing watercolors and complex color gradients

The printing method we choose depends on your design, budget, and aesthetic preferences. Often, we’ll combine methods for the perfect custom result—perhaps letterpress for your invitation card with foil details. I love to incorporate blind embossing to add texture and a subtle touch of luxury.

Production and Assembly

Once printing is complete, the meticulous assembly process begins. Each piece of your invitation suite is carefully gathered, from the main invitation to RSVP cards, details cards, and any additional enclosures.

For multi-piece suites, I use techniques like belly bands, pockets, or silk ribbons to create a cohesive package. Custom wax seals bearing your monogram or wedding motif add an extra touch of personalization that guests love to discover.

Every fold, every tie, every placement is done by hand. This attention to detail ensures that each invitation that leaves my studio meets the highest standard of quality, because your guests deserve nothing less than perfection.

The suite below took several hours to assemble because we chose to include separate event invitations (little squares) for select guests and some guests had different RSVP cards as well. This is a labor intensive process that I love to do and offer this in my highest-level package: the exclusive package.

The Final Touches: Stamping, Addressing and Mailing

Beautiful invitations deserve beautiful envelopes. Envelope addressing is included in my highest-level (and most popular package), as well as RSVP envelope addressing. These are often overlooked when buying invitations and the process is so much smoother when you’re not hand-writing each address, or trying to fight your home printer with envelopes that might not turn out right!

My favorite add-on is custom vintage stamp curation. I source a cohesive selection of vintage and current stamps that elevates your invitations from basic to thoughtful. These will always cover the full cost of mailing each invitation.

I guide you through the mailing process. Whether I’m mailing your suites to you or shipping from Richmond, I’ll make sure you know exactly how much postage we need. I love to stamp envelopes, so I can include that in your package.

Weight and thickness matters! I always take a completed set to the post office to confirm weight before mailing. These practical considerations ensure your custom wedding invitations arrive safely and make the impact they’re designed to create.

Why Custom Is Worth It

In a world of templates and mass production, custom wedding invitations stand apart. They aren’t just paper products—they’re physical representations of your relationship and the celebration to come. They set expectations, build excitement, and become keepsakes that you and your families will treasure for generations.

Custom invitations allow for flexibility that template designs simply can’t match. Need accommodations for multiple events? Bilingual wording? Special inserts for distant travelers? When you choose custom, your invitation suite adapts to your needs rather than forcing you to compromise.

Most importantly, custom wedding invitations honor the uniqueness of your love story. They communicate to your guests that this day isn’t just another wedding—it’s your wedding, thoughtfully crafted down to the smallest detail. And that kind of personalized attention is exactly what your celebration deserves.

Ready to begin your custom invitation journey? Let’s create something extraordinary together.