We printed these gorgeous letterpress wedding invitations for a pretty blue and yellow themed wedding – they showcase our Nevis design printed in midnight and navy inks. The envelope boast a colorful patterned liner in our geneva pattern in verbena and the invitations feature our seneca stripe pattern in midnight. This incredible customization was brought to us by our friends at Sugar Paper in Los Angeles.

{Above photos by Smock.}

Ami and Nicholas’s gorgeous wedding was featured a while back on Style Me Pretty, so today we have the pleasure of sharing a few photos from their actual celebration, too! The blue and yellow color palette of their invitations was carried throughout the event with perfectly chosen details to bring the entire look together. Beautiful flowers, pretty linens, and lots of great color and pattern pulled it all together.


See many more photos from Ami and Nicholas’s celebration on Style Me Pretty here and here.

{Above photos by Sweet Monday Photography via Style Me Pretty.}

It’s hard to believe, but the 2010 National Stationery Show officially opens in just twelve days! We’ve been hard at work preparing for the show – there are so many fun new things to come from Smock this year! Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been mailing out invitations to our favorite retailers and media contacts to visit us at booth 2241 to check out all of the exciting new releases. While we can’t share everything just yet, we did want to give you a little sneak peek at the pretty letterpress printed envelopes that have been arriving in mailboxes nationwide. They feature beautiful hand calligraphy addressing from our dear friend Debi Zeinert of The Blooming Quill. For those attending the show, we’re excited to announce that Debi will once again be in the Smock booth offering hand calligraphy for visitors from 9 to 6  on Sunday, May 16th, and again from 11 to 2 on Monday, and 10 to 1 on Tuesday. We look forward to seeing you there!

At long last, we’re excited to share the winner of our Smock Design Contest, a custom letterpress and offset wedding invitation sent to us by our friends at Papery & Cakery in Boca Raton, Florida. This design features offset printing in a custom palm tree design on the front, printed in sand ink, combined with letterpress text printed in midnight ink. It’s a sophisticated combination of texture and color that is exemplified with the perfect finishing touches – corner rounding and edge painting in midnight. The envelope was lined in our payette pattern in midnight, perfectly coordinating with all of the other design elements for a look that is polished and simply beautiful.

Our special guest judge Nole Garey of Oh So Beautiful Paper selected this design as our contest winner, because she fell in love with the combination of letterpress and offset printing. She says, “I love everything about the design, from the color selections to the midnight blue edge painting to the calligraphy details. I love the way the soft palm trees almost look like delicate feathers against the ivory background.”

Thank you so much to Papery & Cakery for sending us this incredible design and to all of our design contest winners for continually inspiring us. Thanks are also due to Nole for helping us out with the difficult task of narrowing down all of the amazing designs to just a few winners. Thank you!

To learn more about Papery & Cakery, check out their recent Smock Store Spotlight.

Keeping on with our Smock Design Contest honorees, this next design is a custom Haddington letterpress wedding invitation sent to us by Just Paper & Tea in Washington, DC. It was printed in tangerine and a custom bright pink ink with bright pink edge painting and a matching liner in our payette pattern. We love this bold modern take on the classic wedding invitation using our Haddington calligraphy design in bright cheerful ink colors. Paired with edge painting and a patterned envelope liner, it’s a thoroughly modern interpretation of a timeless design.

Thanks so much to our friends at Just Paper & Tea for sending us this amazing creation!

Brought to us by our lovely friends at Urbanic Paper Boutique, this next honoree in our Smock Design Contest is a customization of our Helani letterpress wedding invitation design. We love the gorgeous color palette, printed in azalea and pewter inks, and the fun mixing and matching of patterns. The letterpress invitation itself is printed in 2-color letterpress with patterned backing printed in azalea ink in our willoughby pattern. The reply post card was printed in 1-color letterpress in azalea ink with a sweet little accommodation card printed in pewter ink. For the perfect finishing touch, the envelope was lined in our champlain patterned printed in pewter.

Thank you so much to Urbanic for allowing us the great pleasure of printing this letterpress invitation suite. To learn more about this amazing Smock dealer, check out their recent Smock Store Spotlight feature.

Recently we announced the winners of our second semi-annual Smock Design Contest. Our finalists for this Smock Design Contest were selected by the Smock team and our Creative Director, Amy Graham Stigler. Our good friend Nole Garey of the incomparably inspiring blog Oh So Beautiful Paper then selected the first place winner and runner-ups from among our favorites. We love her picks and know you will, too!

Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks as we reveal all of the winners and detail the incredible creations that earned these beloved Smock dealers a spot at the top – we can’t thank them enough for their endless inspiration and enthusiasm!

Papery & Cakery in Boca Raton, Florida
Francis-Orr in Corona del Mar, California
The Write Image in Salt Lake City
Urbanic Paper Boutique in Venice, California
Judy Paulen Designs at Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan
Just Paper & Tea in Washington D.C.
Wordshop in Denver
Salutations in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Paper & Chocolate in Dallas
Gus & Ruby Letterpress in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

A unique stationery boutique on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, RSVP Today is a quaint by-appointment-only studio specializing in fine stationery and a beloved Smock dealer. Proprietress Deborah Hassan holds a business degree from New York University and spent many years in the corporate world working for a Fortune 500 company before becoming an entrepreneur. She shares, “When it came time to open my own store I wanted to sell a product I was passionate about. My love for paper began when I was a child; collecting samples of invitations and stationery that I purchased and received throughout the years.”

Debbie’s studio space is filled with gorgeous letterpress creations and is a haven for stationery lovers. She works attentively with each client to dream up the invitations, card and announcements of their dreams, filled with unique details and personal touches. We love this recent customization of our Cindrel letterpress wedding invitation design that she created with a client for their upcoming June wedding. It features a custom folio printed in azalea ink that showcases a unique customization of the Cindrel motif creating a frame around the couple’s wedding date. The interior of the folio is printed in our pippin pattern in blush ink and features several inserts detailing event information, lists of local accommodations and more. The letterpress invitation itself is a horizontal version of our Cindrel design printed in azalea ink paired with navy to match the other event details the couple is planning for their wedding.

In our typical fashion, we had to ask Deborah a few questions to get a feel for what makes her tick…

If you were invited to the White House for dinner, what would you wear?
I would want to wear something elegant and special. As with any invitation, it is important to have a memorable and unique presentation that reflects the event.

If you could describe your personality in letterpress, which Smock design would you be and why?
It would be Vettore, which I used when I did my letterpress holiday cards through Smock. I used Spence and Engravers printed in red ink.

What would you suggest as must-visit places for first time visitors to New York?
My studio is right across the street from the Guggenheim Museum and Central Park, both must sees on your visit. It is also right off Madison Avenue, an area boasting some of the most renowned stores in the world.

What is your favorite part about what you do?
I love helping people find the right invitation and making the experience fun instead of stressful. My store has a warm, unique and cozy atmosphere that makes people feel comfortable and excited to take part in planning their event. I love stationery and enjoy looking through my books with my customers.

Earlier in the week we shared a little sneak peek of our Smock display at The Wedding Party this past weekend. Today we are back with more gorgeous photos from the lovely Jen Huang so you can see even more of the inspired vendors who were a part of this magnificent bridal event.

First up is Jen herself and the beautiful display of her photography and wedding albums she brought with her to the show. Jen’s work is modern yet timeless and her personality is so sweet and charming – we loved spending the day with her!

(If you think you recognize this white rose wedding cake from Sylvia Weinstock from the winter issue of Martha Stewart Weddings – you’re right! It was on display at The Wedding Party for all to see.)

One of our favorite displays at the event was the gorgeous spread of cookies, macarons, cakes, cupcakes and other treats from One Girl Cookies.  Everything was so pretty it was almost hard to eat. (Almost. Trust us, we did sample many many treats that day.)

In addition to pretty cakes and cupcakes, there were also gorgeous flowers in soft shades of pastel and blush pink. Fluffy rose centerpieces and rose scented-candles were scattered throughout the space creating a lovely sensory experience visitors won’t soon forget.

And there were even more cakes and sweet treats. These red velvet cupcakes feature cute little cupcake sticks from For Your Party – colors and designs can be customized for any event.

We loved the vibrant bouquets and floral arrangements from Stone Kelly Events & Florals. The rich jewel tones were in contrast to the a lot of the other pastel flower creations throughout the show and the punch of color was really beautiful.

Another favorite were the party decorations on display from Confetti System. The shimmery pastel metallic colors were so festive and a really fresh look. We’re looking out for this look to be a new trend in weddings for 2010!

Of course, no recap is complete without an obligatory photo of the Smock team. Here is Lindsy and I as we finish up prepping our space for the event and look forward to meeting lots of enthusiastic brides. Thanks to our new friends at Sperry Tents for snapping this quick photo for us!

A big thank you to The Wedding Library and the awesome staff at the New York Palace for your warm hospitality and for pulling together such an amazing event. We loved being a part of it!

{All photos from Jen Huang unless otherwise noted.}

It’s a bit ironic that we have sun and summer on the brain today given the blinding snow currently falling over Central New York, but our dreams of sunshine can’t be deterred – we can’t wait for spring to get here! This time of year we start to get a lot of inquiries about invitation designs particularly well-suited to waterfront, beach or destination weddings so we thought we’d dig up some of our favorites from last year to share with you. There’s nothing like the promise of warm summer breezes to get you inspired, snow or no snow.

This first invitation is our Lashar design printed in pewter ink using our Smock Spencerian calligraphy font. The back of the letterpress invitation features gorgeous patterned backing printed in sea mist in our lesina pattern.

This invitation was a beautiful custom version of our Haddington design, printed in espresso ink and blind deboss. The palm tree motif was a custom addition to the design, making it perfect for an elegant destination wedding.

Brought to us by our friends at Peabody Papers in Columbus, Ohio, this version of our popular Vettore design was printed in midnight and seamist inks. The flourishes from the Vettore design were modified in such a way that they remind us of water and waves without being literal.

This custom version of our Engadine design was printed for the folks at Luxe Expressions in Atlanta. It’s a letterpress reply postcard printed in midnight and seamist that features pretty ocean-themed motifs. The card also includes space for guests to reply to multiple weekend events, which is a great option when designing your stationery for a destination wedding.

Over the weekend, Smock participated in The Wedding Party hosted by amazing team from The Wedding Library at the New York Palace Hotel. It was incredibly fun to be a part of this beautiful bridal show event and to get to meet so many brides just embarking on their wedding planning adventures.  The day was officially kicked off with Darcy Miller of Martha Stewart Weddings speaking to brides about current wedding trends, including a few highlights of her own wedding, followed by event planner extraordinaire Colin Cowie. Later in the day, brides were invited to visit the incredible showing of talented wedding vendors (including Smock!) and to watch a breathtaking Vera Wang fashion show. We have so many photos from the event to share later in the week, but first up we wanted to give you a little sneak peek of our Smock display.

We rented furniture from Taylor Creative Inc. so we could invite brides (and even a few grooms) to sit down and flip through our albums while snacking on tasty Tate’s chocolate chip cookies. We brought a collection of pretty milk glass vases and containers, stacks of our signature Smock boxes and simple accessories like vintage doilies and then pulled together a long table displaying just a small handful of some of the most beautiful Smock customizations we’ve had the pleasure of printing in recent months. On our way to the Palace on Saturday morning, we stopped off at a cornerstore on 50th and grabbed huge handfuls of flowers that we arranged in assorted sizes and shapes of containers to add a little extra pretty to our space – it smelled so amazing! Lukcily, we shared a room with the wonderfully talented Jen Huang who took these photos for us to share with you.

We have a lot more photos to share later in the week – stay tuned!

{Photos by Jen Huang Photography.}