Louella Court

An elegant evening

At Louella Press, we love the opportunity to design a custom variation on one of our engraved pieces, and the invitations for this sophisticated affair are a perfect example. This chic couple came to our Chicago retailer, Pulp and Ink, and chose our Urban Flourish invitation. When they decided to add an extra bit of flair, we set to work and came up with the contemporary flower motif pictured below. The bride liked it so much that she incorporated the flower through the programs, place cards and menus that we also designed. To tie everything together, we sent our invitation design to the talented Chicago baker, Takes The Cake, and you'll see how they used the florals in their stunning cake design. It's always a treat to see how the pieces come together for a gorgeous evening!

Thanks so much to Artisan Events in Chicago for their beautiful photos of the soiree!

For more photos of the invitations, please see the custom work on our website. Photos nine and ten are of this unique peice. The inviation and all day of items were engraved in three colors on our stunning metallic gold stock.

In related news, we weren't the only ones raising our eyebrows at the details of this sophisticated evening. You can find the wedding (along with lots of photos of our work) in the Summer 2008 issue of Inside Weddings. This magazine is well known for documenting unique and beautiful weddings for all different tastes. Pick up a copy while it's still on the stands!

Perfectly Minted.

If you are a lover of fine papers and custom invitations like us (and you don't live under a rock), you have most likely been hearing a lot of buzz about Minted recently. We are thrilled and honored that Louella Press is one of the brands being offered by Minted, among such great company as Egg Press, Mr. Boddington's Studio, and Wiley Valentine, to name a few.  Ordering your dream invitations online has never been so easy!

Minted is still growing and getting set up with all of the amazing invitation suites available from its brands, but until then you can call 888.828.MINT to order any Louella invitation your heart desires, including our newest engraved design, Modern Meadow, which is available exclusively through Minted.

Cool black and white wedding

It's been rather hot around here, and so we've found ourselves wistfully looking at photos of cooler weather. Among them, these detail shots of area photographer Laura Novak's chic winter wedding this past February. It's always exciting to do an invitation for a vendor we work with, and I know Vanessa was thrilled to create Laura's unique stationery suite. Her invites were letterpressed on thick cotton stock, before being duplexed to the offset pattern pictured below. Because the crisp white invite begged for the contrast of a dark envelope, Laura choose jet black lined with pink for both her outer and response envelopes. Both were engraved with her hot pink motif, and hand caligraphied by Betsy Dunlap in white.

And as you may have noticed, we can't get enough of our black, white and punchy pink motif, and couldn't resist one more post on the subject!

If you'd like too see more fun photos of this wedding and the day of items we designed for Laura, check out these posts on the Bride's Cafe: pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3.

Clark's glamour shot

All we need is a red wool scarf and we've got the cover for the new J.Crew catalog ... Here is Clark looking regal for the camera during his first official photo shoot. You can really see his eyes in this one- one brown and one clear blue. This little genetic gift is the very reason the puppy is with us instead of becoming a show dog. In the world of "Best in Show," this sort of trait is considered a bad thing, when we feel like it only makes him cuter!

At 12 weeks Clark weighs in at a full 14 pounds heavier than when we met him. He is certainly hard at work putting on those LBs and teething... And he doesn't appear to be stopping any time soon!

Real Spring Chic Wedding

We're thrilled to end the week with a few photos from another real wedding. This special day was a refined affair at the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia, and I love how the bride chose light spring colors to create a fresh feel in the ballroom. Photos are compliments of our talented friend and area photographer, Laura Novak. Take a look at how our bride, Olivia, chose to incorporate the pattern we used for her invitation on several of her day of details. The result is a very chic "put together" look.

As always, feel free to click on the image for a closer look. Have a fabulous weekend all, and we'll look forward to seeing you back here next week!