Invitations

A special occasion demands a special invitation.  We invite you to come to our store in downtown Royal Oak to peruse our wonderful selection of invitations and announcements. Also, our new online stationery store has launched and is now officially ready for business! Remember though, our online store only represents a small percentage of the actual items we carry in store so call us or stop in to see our variety in person.

Whether your event is a small intimate affair, children’s birthday party or a wedding of your dreams, we will have that something special you are looking for.  If not, we'll have you talk to our in-house graphic arts department.  They will create your vision on paper.

Our store is conveniently open seven days a week, with evening hours on Wednesday and Thursday nights.  

Wedding Invitations | Printing Methods | Baby Announcements
Children's Party Invitations | General Party Invitations & Events

Wedding Invitations

How do I begin the search?

We believe that custom invitation papers need to be seen and touched.  There is no way to adequately replicate the feel, weight, texture, color and artistry that goes into making custom wedding papers.

We suggest that on your initial visit to our store, you give yourself at least one hour to search through all our available options.  Our bridal specialist will help you narrow your focus, keeping in mind your style preference, budget considerations and time restraints.  Once established, we’ll begin showing you wedding invitation idea books from several different vendors.  Some wedding vendors give us special savings that we can pass along to you.

What Invitation Dealers do you represent?

We continually are on the look-out for the newest, the latest and the greatest invitations.  And at the same time, we love the timeless tradition of a classic wedding invitation.

Here are some of our favorite invitation dealers:

William Arthur:  In the stationery business for over 60 years, William Arthur is one of the finest makers of luxury papers.  William Arthur’s invitations reflect a refined elegance with subtle modern hints.  Wonderful craftsmanship and excellent customer service.

Checkerboard:  Checkerboards loves to stay one step ahead of the trends.  Their paper and font selections typically appeal to the modern bride that likes a splash of color and ribbon.

Crane:  Crane is a family-owned company, making papers for over 200 years.  Their beautiful papers appeal to the more traditional bride.  We love Crane’s font selection and subtle ink colors. They do not cut down trees to make Crane papers.  Instead, their papers are made from 100% recovered cotton fibers that use fewer chemicals and produce far less waste than papers made from trees.

Envelopments: Unlike other wedding vendors, envelopments only sells blank paper stock, pocketfolds and envelopes.  This is for the bride who likes to think outside the box and create the wedding invitation of her dreams from a blank palette.  Often the most time consuming invitation to order, we suggest giving yourself extra time at our store to learn more about this unique paper line.  At the same time, Envelopments is the perfect paper company for the do-it-yourselfer who only needs to buy the paper and wants to take care of the type setting, printing and assembly themselves.

Carlson Craft and Birchcraft:  Both of these companies produce nice quality invitations for the budget minded bride.  We have several books (with hundreds of invitations) in varying styles, colors and formats.  Carlson Craft, in particular, has come out with a “Pockets” book that rivals its (pocket fold) competition in price.

B.T. Elements:  Nothing says “WOW” like receiving an invitation from these young graphic artist’s collection of wedding invitations.  Bright colors, ribbons, colorful envelopes and playful positioning of text makes these invitations stand out from the rest.

New Leaf Letterpress:  Sarah is a Letterpress artist from just down the road in Ferndale.  Her luscious collection of letterpress papers and fonts create beautiful invitations to cherish.  Since Sarah is in our backyard, her customer service is exceptional and turn-around time quite reasonable for letterpress printing.

Prentiss Douthit: This designers slogan is “Making life more fun … at least on paper.”   The Prentiss Douthit wedding collection updates traditional fonts with modern elegance with simple, understated sophistication.   Beautiful.

Tag & Co.:  Choosing an invitation from this tiny paper company in Utah will set your event apart from the crowd.  Tag & Co.’s unique style blends elements of modern design with vintage classicism, printed on beautiful fine art cardstock.  Due to their manageable size, they offer semi-custom flexibility with no added charges.  They give you the ability to change the colors and placement of every (existing) design.  Mix and match design elements from different cards to create a card that is perfect just for you and your event.  Their custom photo Save-the-Date book is one you must check out.

Other invitation lines we proudly represent:

• Anna Griffin
• Chloe B.
• Encore Studios
• Mainio
• Marsupial
• McPhersons
• Naturally Ever After
• Paper Duvet
• Something Different by Carlson Craft
• Stacy Claire Boyd

What if I want to create something myself?

Write Impressions is the place to go if you want to create one-of-a-kind custom invitations.  Our graphic artists can work with your ideas or we can show you some ideas of our own.  Our wedding specialist will provide advice on design, font selection, format, etiquette and printing methods to ensure a final look that meets or exceeds your expectations.  Please note that custom projects typically need additional lead time to process and additional costs apply.

I found the perfect invitation, now what?

Once “the” invitation has been selected, we’ll strongly suggest you see a final proof.  A proof is typically a black and white final (faxed) draft of your invitation.  This is the time to make those last minute changes, check the spelling of  everything and make sure you are completely happy with font selections and lay-out.

Depending upon the vendor printing your wedding invitation, you can expect your final product to arrive within two or three weeks.  Custom orders typically need additional production time.

Can you address my envelopes?

While you are waiting for your invitations to arrive, it’s the perfect time to get your wedding list finalized.  Our customers tell us it can be one of the more tedious parts of pre-wedding planning.  Once you find the addresses of friends and family that recently moved or their new zip codes, stop by Write Impressions and we’ll show you how we can address your envelopes for that final touch.

Prices are reasonable (compared to hand calligraphers) and we offer special pricing for customers who purchased their wedding invitations at Write Impressions.  Choose from over 100 type styles and several colors of ink. 

Color outer envelopes are becoming more and more popular for wedding invitations.  Sometimes we need to think outside the box in addressing a dense color (like chocolate brown or black). 

Do you offer other calligraphy services?

Besides addressing envelopes (both inner and outer envelopes) here is a list of some of the other paper items our customers have asked us to create:

• Printing guest’s names on placecards
• Custom table numbers
• Menus
• Custom monograms for seals and/or tags

What else can you help me with for my wedding or special event?

Write Impressions has an impressive selection of in-stock invitations.  We can definitely print these for you in-house (usually within 2 – 4 business days) or for the do-it-yourselfer, you can print these at home.  All our in-house papers work with most ink jet or laser printers.

Our in-stock invitations are perfect for:

• Bridal Shower invitations
• Save-the-Date announcements
• Menus
• Rehearsal Dinner invitations
• Thank you notes
• Wedding programs
• Bachelorette/Bachelor party inviations
• Bridesmaid luncheon

Other custom wedding items that require 1 – 2 weeks production time:

• Framed seating scrolls
• Personalized napkins
• Cake boxes
• Favor boxes
• Wedding programs
• Bachelorette/Bachelor party inviations
• Bridesmaid luncheon

How do I put my invitation together?

For those invitations with added touches of ribbon, crystals or additional layers of cardstock, we can complete your ensemble with our assembling services.  Prices vary based on the final project. 

For the do-it-yourselfer, we rent out our professional double sided tape gun for $5.00 per night, plus the cost of the tape.

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Printing Methods

With so many types of printing methods, our invitation specialist will discuss your preferences and work with you to find the one that works best within your paper choices.  Your budget and time restraints helps guide this process as some methods are significantly more expensive than others.

Here is a brief description of the various methods:

Thermography:  This is the most popular printing method used for wedding invitations.  Thermography simulates the look and feel of engraving but is executed faster with lower costs.  The printer uses ink and a powder resin combined with heat to reproduce the raised lettering effect of engraving at a much lower cost.

Laser or Ink Jet printing:  This is often the most affordable and time efficient choice for smaller orders.

Letterpress

An inked plate is stamped onto the paper, forming an indented impression in the paper, with the ink sitting on the ‘floor’ of the impression.  By repeating the process, customers can create images using more than one ink color.  Letterpress wedding invitations typically have a vintage or whimsical feel.  This process is used most commonly with handmade papers or heavily textured papers. The oldest method of printing, letterpress is loved for its luxurious tactile nature. Letterpress can take between three and eight weeks to produce and is for the customer with no budget restraints.

Engraving

This process dates back to the seventeenth century.  A copper or steel plate is etched with the design and/or text and then inked. The excess ink is wiped clean, and the remaining ink left in the etching is applied to the paper when the paper is pressed to the plate.  This sandwich effect creates the raised lettering on the front and bruising on the back of the paper, which are both classic features of engraving.    Engraving can take between three and five weeks to produce and is also quite a bit more expensive than thermography.

Embossing

Used most often for small insignias, monograms or return addresses, this process creates a raised impression on paper by running the paper between two metal sheets.  No ink is involved with this method.

Digital Printing

With advancements in technology over the past 10 years, the digital and offset printing worlds have finally collided. Huge offset presses are being replaced by high resolution, high quality digital printers.  These prints produce remarkable results based on digitally-rendered files. Customer’s digital file is sent directly to the digital printer, losing no image quality. Colors are bold and vibrant.  The printing appears as a flat image.

We commonly use digital printing for orders using a photograph as the end result is a smooth, slightly glossy finish.

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Baby Announcements

Announce the birth of your adorable bundle of joy with a custom birth announcement. 

We have a wonderful selection of in-stock birth announcements as well as represent many fine paper lines with volumes of choices.  All printing methods are available – including digital photo printing, thermography and letterpress.

Other things baby …. in paper

• Baptism/Christening invitations
• Baby Naming invitations
• Thank You notes
• Adoption announcements
• Crane
• Embossed Graphics

While picking out your birth announcements, check out our baby gift department that is brimming over with adorable, quirky, whimsical, sweet and just plain wonderful gifts for the baby.

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Children’s Party Invitations

Your child’s birthday party invitation should reflect the fun and celebration your guests will soon enjoy.  Whether it’s your child’s first birthday or their Sweet 16, we’re sure to help you find the perfect invitation for your special event.  Our in-store selection has many of today’s popular themes in stock.  

Because our buyers are continually selecting new designs, and our inventory fluctuates daily, we decided not to sell boxed invitations on our web site at this current time. 

All of our designs are ink jet or laser compatible.  However … everyone owns different equipment at their homes or offices and we cannot guarantee it will work on yours.  To find out if your machine accepts smaller sizes of cardstock papers easily, play with a single small sheet of cardstock at your home before printing on more expensive paper.

Or  -  we are more than happy to print your invitations at the store – usually within two or three days.  Our prices are based on how many invitations we are printing – not wording or lines.  A free faxed proof is included in every order

Here are some of the invitation lines we continually stock:

• Inviting Company
• San Lori
• Mara-Mi
• Paper Prince
• Meri Meri
• Putnam House
• Sharp & Sally
• Hicks
• Zoomerang
• Boatmen Gellar
• Tag

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 General Party Invitations and other events:

Of course we have invitations for all types of events and parties.  Here are just a sample of other invitations we have done:

• Birthday Parties for Adults
• Surprise Parties for young and old
• Girl’s Night Out
• Graduation Announcements and Party Invitations
• Moving Announcements
• Business/Corporate Announcements and/or Parties
• Charity Events
• Family Reunions
• Themed Parties (Golf, Margarita Party, Casino Night, Euchre or Poker Party, Tea Party, Italian Night, Picnics, Cinco de Mayo, Pool, Yacht or Boating, "Up North", Disco/Rock/Karaoke, 50's/60's)

• Christmas / Holiday Invites:  choose from classic holiday themes or whimsical, fun or wintry
• Halloween:  both scary or silly for adult or children’s parties
• Easter:  we usually stock a couple of Easter invites – perfect for the neighborhood egg hunt
• St. Patrick’s Day
• Valentine’s Day
• 4^th of July

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