The Top Luxury Printing Styles For Your Wedding Invitations – Including Letterpress, Foil and more.

August 22, 2022

Paper and print are the fundamentals necessary to write your love story. If you have been googling wedding invitations, you may have found a di

The fundamental ingredients required to celebrate and tell your love story are in papers and printing. If you have Googled wedding invitations, you have likely found a dizzying number of options for printing! Azure does it all whether you are looking for modern or classic artistic or traditional, whimsical or formal invitations, we have years of experience with all of these! And aside from cream of the crop design services, we specialize in a variety of luxury printing styles to produce uniquely beautiful invitations. So, let us break down the different methods of luxury printing styles, and help you choose the best combinations for truly elegant invitations in your taste. We hope this article offers the clarity and guidance to help bring your vision to life for your luxury invitation.

Deboss / blind letterpress printing

Letterpress printing

THE ALEFIYAH collection foil letterpress on cotton paper

Deboss Blind letterpress on pillowy cotton paper

Letterpress printing is a luxurious printing style that creates a beautiful textured pressed finish to each design. This printing method dates all the way back to the 15th century giving each work of art a traditional elegance. The letterpress is a hand-operated machine that uses a custom-made stamping block etched with your invitation artwork and text. The printing presses release ink as we press the blocks down onto thick cotton paper, leaving a deepened impression of your design. With this style of print, we suggest using thick cotton paper because this will leave a deeper imprint of your design. The ink will sink deeper into the impression and you will be able to feel the pressed areas when running your fingers over the page - that is at once luxurious and emotive for the recipient of your invitation. This is what creates a profound emotional effect of the press.

Cotton paper and ink create a formal intimacy that reads luxury and formality, creating a masterpiece of depth.

Blind Letterpress or Deboss Printing:
Deboss or blind letterpress is a high-end printing style that uses pressed texture without the use of ink to create a beautiful textured design. Deboss can elevate designs and borders in combination with other print styles (for legibility) or it can solo-star in more modern and bold typography designs on it's own.

What we love about blind letterpress is the elegance it delivers and the memory of texture it evokes. We create blocks with your design and use the press to leave a deepened inkless impression in our cotton letterpress papers. Deboss printing is a kin to letterpress printing but skips the ink in favor of texture.

we designed a grey letterpress with satin gold foil for this Lake como wedding

What makes Deboss printing extra special is the understated yet luxurious printing texture left in the surface of the paper, whether it is a modern typographic design or a decorative or cultural border or pattern! Due to the subtly of this process, it is best not to use it for fine detailed type or fonts as they may not be legible.

This High-end style works well for wedding invitations because of the tactile impression it leaves on the paper. Just by looking at a finished print you can immediately see the detail of craftsmanship that went into the printing process. When your guests run their fingers over their invitations, it is sure to evoke an emotional and tactile response and to leave an impression in their hearts.

Soft Grey Letterpress Printing & Gold Foil Pressed

To produce a letterpress invitation with multiple ink colors, we must layer a new press run each time a new ink is used. The process requires extra labor, materials and skill to make sure each new layer of ink color is applied perfectly. For this reason, letterpress is charged by the color (or press run). The results are stunning and the press is known for delivering each design with precision.

Here at Azure, we love letterpress printing! Aside from the texture and art, each design is pressed with the richness of history. This is a printing process that has been used to bring people together for centuries, making the letterpress one of the most beautiful and poignant ways to print your invitations.

Having this feeling of romance and history throughout the design process is always a heartwarming testimony to keep printing the love letters of our time.

Foil printing

Detail of Rose Gold Foil Invitations by atelier azure

Embossing & Debossing

NOOR in rose gold foil

Foil printing ( or hot foil stamping / sometimes called foil embossing) is the shiny prince of print. This elegant printing style always makes a splash in any metallic, satin or matte texture. There are many foils available to choose from - shiny golds, coppers and metallic silvers to a refined satin or matte finishes on metallics and pastel foils. A favorite for many of our customers is "rose gold foil" and "satin gold".

Emboss printing makes a raised impression on the surface of the paper in your design and can be created with or without ink or foil (blind emboss). This ultra luxury printing style raises your design on the surface of the paper, creating a three-dimensional effect that can contain multiple levels (sculpted emboss $$$$). This printing style will increase the focus of any design and offers a textured print impression. Pairing foil stamping, letterpress or other printing styles with embossing adds color and richness to the dimensions of your design. What is extra lovely about this printing style is the dramatic effect it leaves on the surface of paper. This luxe look will have every guest drawn to your wedding invitation, tracing the raised areas of your design with their eyes and finger-tips.

Champagne Gold Foil

Foil is an antique and yet updated luxury printing method that never goes out of style! First we start with a custom make metal block with your design and then we heat press an opaque foil film into the cardstock using that block. We do not use traditional inks that can take on the texture of the paper, so foil has a smooth opaque surface that can be metallic, satin or matte finish. This printing style pairs well with a variety of textures, papers, and other printing methods. Foil printing gives a regal flare to each design, especially if you are using a deboss or emboss printing method. You can use foil stamping on any design method. This specialty printing style is versatile and will always beautifully adorn any creation with a hint of light. What we love about foil printing is the attention to detail it creates on each design. You cannot help but lock eyes with bits of foil sprinkled over a luxurious wedding invitation. Foil stamping is a specialty printing method that definitely adds sparkle to all creations. Whether you are choosing a romantic rose gold or a sunny gold foil, each invitation will be graciously ornamented with foil pressed details giving a glazed finished look.

The Vine collection. Embossed floral invitation

if you have bold typography and design on your invitation, embossing can stand alone. However, you may need to combine your embossed design with a foil press, letterpress, screen or another print style for any fine lines and small type. When printing embossing, we like to use a pillowy premium cotton card stock, to ensure your print comes out to standard. Cotton paper creates the most lavish canvas for this type of print, producing the right dimensions that will favor this printing method. What we love about blind emboss is the 3-d look it creates on each printed design. Blind Emboss or Inked or foiled emboss will elevate the details of your design, giving an instant spotlight to the customization that went into every detail of print.

Digital flat color printing

Laser cut Invitations

A modern elegance, Digital printing

Digital printing is an elegant printing style that works wonderfully with any design. Of the luxury print styles we have talked about, digital is the least expensive and allows you to use many different (non-metallic) colors at once. However, when used in combination with another style of printing, you can get a truly high-end, luxury effect.

Art Deco Laser cut invitation our Metropolitan Deco design

Laser cut is a luxury printing method that is perfect for intricate complex patterns of design. This high-end printing method is a great way to be bold and unafraid of what paper can do. The exquisite cuts and layers that will go into this process will leave beautiful patterns and silhouettes, creating little windows of excitement on each design. There is so much you can do with this printing style, you can even create the delicate impression of lace wrapped around your invitation.

Laser cut print is a high end printing style that uses a laser beam to burn through paper, cutting out your design of choice. The laser beam uses heat to ensure a clean accurate cut of perfection. This elegant printing method was made with the intention to work well with intricate design patterns. No pattern is unachievable with laser cut, for it is the master of cut. A laser beam is used to pierce the tiniest of design patterns onto paper, giving a multitude of repetitive cuts all over. We suggest using a thick durable paper like card stock so that the paper does not fold or wilt while undergoing the laser. The beauty of this print method is that paper becomes delicate, almost as light as fabric. The details of tiny woven patterns laced on the surface produce a fairytale narrative of design onto every invitation.

Floral digital print detail

We often use digital printing to incorporate a watercolor background or other design elements or to help with variable data printing. This is when each guest's name is printed on their envelope or on their invitation. Digital printing is also often referred to as "flat color printing", because it does not leave any texture on the paper's surface. Digital printing gives us a crisp clean finish with endless color options to print photos, graphics, background colors and more. And when combined with other print styles, the possibilities for creativity and elegance are endless!

Silk screen printing

Nothing touches the heart like laser cut print, this style has excitement and luxury written all over it. You can really get creative with this printing method, involving as many layers as you'd like. What we love most about laser cutting is layering card stocks and other materials (wood, acrylic, fabric) with cut outs to add beauty and drama. For an even more "extra" effect, our customers often pair laser cut with gold foil or even acrylic invitation cards. Laser cut is a time-consuming process as it requires paper engineering and intensive design and the equipment needed is also expensive. Each piece is cut one at a time with the laser, which can sometimes add time to the mix. However, the laser-cut printing style can give you a unique and beautiful way to incorporate your own style, culture and wedding look into your invitation.

Silk screen printing or (screen printing) is a premium printing style made with a mesh screen with an emulsion stencil of the design. Ink is pressed through the screen leaving the print of your design onto the paper. Unlike digital print, screen printing can be metallic or non-metallic in color. However, like letterpress, the ink will absorb into the paper, dulling the shine for metallic inks slightly.

Like letterpress, each silkscreen color must be printed individually in layers with careful alignment to make sure the placement of each layer is perfect.

The luxury of this print method really comes from the artistry but also from the way the velvety ink texture feels and looks upon the paper surface. Unlike digital printing, silkscreen does allow for some metallic inks, although the shine will greatly depend on the type of surface the selected card stock has. This is a hand-crafted process that brings vibrancy and artistry to your invitation designs.

Screen printing is versatile and can also be done over different textiles such as wood, metal, stone, acrylic, glass and fabric.

We hope this blog post was a helpful guide towards selecting the perfect luxury print for your wedding invitation. There is so much we can help you do when it comes to creating a unique print and we are honored to work with all our amazing couples with all the details of luxury invitation printing.
With love and gratitude - we hope that all your wedding visions come true.

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DESIRED INVESTMENT

50 invitation minimum order