Digital or letterpress: which would you choose?

We’ve heard both sides of the story when it comes to the never-ending battle between letterpress and digital wedding invitations, and to tell the truth, we’re a bit torn! There are so many perks to both printing methods, how is one really supposed to choose?

Let’s think about this:

Letterpress

Letterpress is an amazing printing process that has been around for centuries. Luscious soy-based inks are impressed into Crane’s tree-free, 100% cotton Lettra, making any design come to life.

While this is a beautiful process, it is also rumored to be an expensive one! Luckily, there are some printers who have mastered the craft and can provide awesome deals and discounts.

Letterpress is perfect for brides who love that vintage feel or brides who want invitations that are classic and timeless. While old letterpress invitations were laid out letter by letter, contemporary designers–as well as the computer–has helped make this a modern and speedy quality endeavor.

After finalizing your proofs with Ajalon, your invitations can be printed and shipped within just 10 working days!

Why wouldn’t you want a letterpress invite?

Send Me My Free Samples of Letterpress Printing

Digital

You might have thought letterpress was the ONLY way to print your wedding invitations until you saw the crisp, clean, digitally printed pieces available for equally astonishing prices.

Digital invitations are perfect for brides with large wedding celebrations. Multiple events, maps and directions, and accommodation cards are sometimes necessary items to include in a wedding suite, and all that letterpress CAN add up– a smart reason why digital may be the way to go for you.

Digital invites also allow you to use more technology within your design. Adding photos of you and your sweetheart will make your save-the-date something to be cherished, and maybe even framed!

Send Me My Free Samples of Digital Printing

***

It all really depends on YOU! What are your needs and preferences? Talk with your wedding invitation consultant to discuss all of the little details and settle on the perfect printing method for your wedding invitations.

***
Written by Katie

Invitations by Ajalon’s Proposal Story Contest

Happy new year, lovebirds! Did you get engaged in 2011? We want to know how it happened!

Did your sweetheart make your heart explode by jumping off the side of a building? Maybe it was something a little more romantic. Perhaps the spoon you used for your morning tea contained the big question.

I want to hear them all! Share with us your romantic—or just plain goofy—2011 proposal story to enter our giveaway for 100 letterpress invitations or save-the-date cards, over a $300 $500 value!

The winner will be able to choose from any of our gallery designs, fonts and our standard ink colors.  They will receive 100 one-color, one-sided 5×7 letterpress cards with 110 blank envelopes. Printed with soy-based ink on 100% cotton Crane’s Lettra stock.

Here’s a sampling of our most popular designs:

Send Me My Free Samples of Oahu

Send Me My Free Samples of Park Avenue

Send Me My Free Samples of Keri

How to enter:

Comment on this blog post with your proposal story below.

Like Invitations by Ajalon on Facebook and let us know you added us in a comment below for one additional entry.

Tweet this: “I just entered to win 100 letterpress invitations from @ajalonprinting! http://goo.gl/GIDcx” for one additional entry.

Contest will end March 1, 2012. The giveaway winner will be selected by a random number generator and notified by email on March 2, 2012. All entries will qualify for a free sample pack, a $15 value.

***
Written by Katie

Hello @techbrides! #doyoulikecookies?

Modern brides are blessed with new technology to spread nuptial news FAST. Our phones can connect us to any social media outlet we can imagine, and everyone seems to be using them.

Photo Courtesy of Mashable

The moment after my own sweetheart proposes to me, there is no doubt in my mind there will be a few status updates to follow, but I am still a fan of spreading the word to those closest to me in a special way…such as with cookies. : )

Photo Courtesy of Mashable

These awesome cookies probably take a little longer to make than merely updating your Facebook status, but something tells me your friends and family will “like” finding out the news with a sweet treat attached!

Photo Courtesy of Mashable

***

Written by Katie

Go to the Invitation Gallery

Check out our special on letterpress invitations and save!!!!

Give Your Guests (and Yourself) Time to Plan Ahead

If you despise last minute wedding invitations, you are not alone. Most wedding guests really appreciate several weeks notice before the big event. If you send your letterpress wedding invitations out to friends and family at the appropriate time, not only will they be more able to prepare for your big day, but you will be too.

Some couples cannot hold back their excitement and send out a save the date card to friends and family. Save the date cards are appropriate to send out months or, in the case of a destination wedding, even a year before the proposed event.

The wedding invitation itself is usually sent to guests about two months before the ceremony, and definitely no later than six weeks before. Giving your guests enough time to fill out and return your letterpress printed RSVP cards will help you attain a final count, thereby making other planning duties, such as meals, seating charts, etc., a smoother process.

Send Me My Free Samples of Kira

If you are planning a destination wedding, give your guests another four weeks (at least) to make travel and accommodation arrangements.

Plan ahead with affordable letterpress wedding invitation deals, including Ajalon’s November 2010 special of 100 letterpress invitation cards and envelopes and 100 RSVP postcards! If you haven’t already, all you Spring 2011 brides should be sending out your save the dates right about now…

Written by Katie

Invitations by Ajalon
View our letterpress wedding invitation gallery.

Nothing Leaves an Impression like Letterpress (no pun intended)

If you are looking for a wonderful way to make a bold first impression with your wedding invitations, then you have come to the right place. Letterpress wedding invitations designs hold an understated elegance that is impossible to beat with any other printing method. When thinking about your guest’s first impressions of your reception, ceremony or save the date cards, don’t forget the power and appeal of letterpress printing.

Take it one step further:

Foil Stamping

Nothing spices up your wedding invitation quite like a little foil stamping. It comes in a variety of colors (not just silver and gold) and can be applied to your invitation set in fun and interesting ways. When added to your invitation, foil stamping creates a glistening shine that always helps to heighten your guests first impressions of your wedding celebration.

Colors Galore

Many brides are afraid of straying from the traditional white paper with black text invitation style. If you are looking to make a strong first impression with your letterpress wedding invitation designs, then consider mixing and matching different colors combinations that suite your personality, wedding theme or season. Adding some personalized colors can work wonders in helping you achieve that exceptional first impression that you want.

After receiving her invitations from us, see what this bride’s first impression was:

“I received my invitations yesterday. They look AMAZING!! I can’t wait to give them out to my family and friends. Thanks again!!!” ~ Linda

Written by Nick

Invitations by Ajalon
View our letterpress wedding invitation gallery.

New Spring Contest for Indian Wedding Cards Designs

For all you south Asian brides out there have we got some news for you! This week we are having a gift certificate giveaway contest and everyone is invited to participate. We have been hard at work designing new south Asian letterpress wedding invitation cards and we would like to hear from you. Just search our gallery of Indian letterpress wedding cards and leave a comment here indicating which one you liked the most and why it will fit your wedding style.

If your response is selected we will give you a $50 gift certificate that can be used toward your order of any of our wedding invitation cards in our gallery and even custom design work too. When writing your response, think about the different color options, foil stamping, design aesthetics and overall shape and size.

Even if you do not want to enter the contest, you should still check out our extensive new spring arrivals in our letterpress wedding invitation gallery. The new colors, themes and styles are sure to put a smile on your face and impress your guests.

We would like to thank our friends over at Maharani Weddings A Haven for South Asian Brides for hosting this contest.

Written by Nick

Invitations by Ajalon
View our letterpress wedding invitation gallery.

Don’t ya just love how the blogosphere brings us into contact with people all over the world? Just recently, our letterpress Save the Date Giveaway was helped along by some of my blogger friends. In the spirit of “one good turn deserves another,” I’d like to thank the bloggers who posted our giveaway. Here are there links and a little about them. I encourage you to check them out:

http://digunderrocks.blogspot.com/

Sandy I am an Apparel Designer, Jewelry Designer and Poker Player living in LA… and I sell on Etsy.. and I like cats.. Dig Under Rocks Blog is dedicated to all things jewelry, textile, vintage and apparel design.. I create handcrafted modern bohemian jewelry and blog about works in progress, inspirations, new techniques and upcoming events.. Also, I discuss the challenges and adventures of starting a handmade business out of my apartment.

http://www.hmgiveaways.com/

Bit by the giveaway bug? This site is full of great goodies.

http://surviveweddingseason.com/

Best friend turning into a bride-zilla?  Not sure what to spend on a gift?  Choosing between close friends who picked the same wedding date? Survive Wedding Season provides creative and practical solutions to all your wedding-related questions and concerns.  

http://smittentheblog.blogspot.com/

Cindy – I’m a floral designer and an addict of all things vintage. I love unique weddings, old fabrics, ephemera, letterpress, photography, and anything handmade.

http://awaysoiree.com/

Events by Evonne is a boutique full service planning, coordination and design company that specializes in highly personalized weddings and events in all of the Hawaiian islands, the San Francisco Bay Area and wherever your dreams may take you. We limit our events every year in order to ensure that we can provide exceptional quality, service and attention to all of our clients; and all of our services are custom designed to suit our clients’ needs.  Congratulations! We’d love to be a part of your very special event!

http://weddingsunveiledblog.blogspot.com/

Weddings Unveiled sprang from the minds of a wedding planner and a fashion photographer. They imagined a beautiful magazine reflective of the South’s modern sophisticate with a fresh, edgy take on classic style. The result proved to be the most exciting, talked-about wedding publication in the South by brides and wedding professionals alike. Weddings Unveiled is everything weddings with vivid imagery, lush editorials, incomparable fashion and a sophisticated manner that appeals to intelligent, modern brides.

http://weddinggenius.wordpress.com/

As a professional wedding consultant, I saw the need to reach brides and help them along the somewhat overwhelming path of planning their wedding.  With so many things to research and so many aspects to a wedding, it’s nice to know that there is somewhere to go for helpful information, hints and tips to ease the process, ideas and inspiration to create your dream wedding, and a place where you can ask questions and get answers.

So I saw the need to bring some of these professionals together in one site to better educate and inspire brides.  We are each specialists in our own wedding service industry and it is with our expertise and experience that we will be able to help you along the way.  One person can’t know everything, but a group of us can guide you along the way.

We hope that you will find ideas and inspiration that will make your day memorable for a lifetime. Congratulations!  And remember to have fun!

http://brideonashoestring.wordpress.com/

Great ideas and inspiration from who else? A bride on a shoestring…teriffic read.

Congratulations to Amy! She was randomly selected as our giveaway winner for the 100 Letterpress Save the Dates. We had to pick the winner randomly, since all the entries were wonderful, although I have to say, Amy’s proposal story was secretly my favorite! Click here to read all the proposal stories. (Ladies, if he hasn’t popped the question yet, send him this link, it may give him some ideas!)

If you missed Amy’s proposal, here it is again:

Michael planned a Christmas Eve dinner at the Oregon Grille in Hunt Valley, Maryland. When we arrived he had slipped the maitre‘d an envelope with a note that read, “Amy Lynn, I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you, will you marry me?” The maitre‘d handed me the wine list and I thought “That was weird? They usually give the wine list to the man.” Well, when I opened the wine list the envelope slid out into my lap and Michael said “What’s that? Open it.”

I curiously started to open the envelope and as I read the note, Michael went down on one knee and unknowingly pulled the entire tablecloth down with him. Wine glasses, water, bread, silverware and menus came crashing to the floor. The entire restaurant went silent and Michael didn’t miss a beat as he said,  “I can’t imagine my life without you, will you marry me?” The rest is history. The entire restaurant erupted in applause. It was a night to remember.

Way to go Michael! Congrats for staying on task!

If you entered our contest and weren’t selected, send me an email at ajalon[at]ajalon[dot]com with your address and I’ll send you a free letterpress sample pack. Also, be sure to subscribe to our blog, as I’m sure we’ll have another giveaway soon! This was a hoot, and I can’t wait to do it again.

My best friend is getting married in September and has asked me to be her Maid of Honor. I recently got married myself so I am lucky in that aspect. I know from my wedding, that the maid of honor is in charge of planning the bridal shower and bachlorette party but, I was stumped beyond that. I went online to research what duties come with the title maid of honor.

There are a lot of different websites and they all seem to have different answers. On every site I found one uniform answer; the main duty of the maid of honor is to support the bride and help them with what ever they need help with.

The bride just picked the location of Tahoe for the ceremony. Now the real planning begins!

Colleen
Invitations by Ajalon
View our letterpress wedding invitation gallery.

There are so many elements to choose from when it comes to our letterpress wedding invitation sets. How do you decide exactly which elements will be best for you?

Our standard set includes the wedding invitation, envelope, and rsvp postcard. You may also want to include save the date, rehearsal invitations, direction cards, accommodation cards, menus, programs, favor tags, and place cards. If there is a special element you are looking for, we are more than happy to work with you on any other element you may want to include.

I recently attended a wedding where the bride and groom chose to go very simple, with just the invitations, envelopes, rsvp postcards, and save the date cards. They chose to carry the simplistic idea all the way through the wedding with minimal decoration and flair, yet, I thought it was very elegant in its simplicity.

Other brides have made use of other elements as well, including direction cards, accommodation cards and place cards. One bride and groom even had thank you cards included in their set.