Between a Rock and a … Letterpress

When it comes to invitations, SP (reluctantly) acknowledges that he can be something of a snob, hence the pretentious image above. I love paper, thick paper, gilded-edge paper, all of it. The first act when encountering an envelope holding an invitation is to run a finger along the lettering to see if the sender invested in one of the holy trinity of stationery: embossing, engraving and letterpress. It is true that the invitation sets the tone for the event and in this day of Evites and emails, a paper invitation in and of itself is cause for celebration.

Speaking of celebrations, SP is in the midst of planning the pop-up shop’s opening party. Of course I turned with much glee to the designing of the invitation. Would it be engraved, embossed or letterpress? What size, which color? Lined envelope or not? The envelope would be hand-addressed of course. Oh what fun we were to have. Were, you say? Well, yes. The dark clouds of the current economy gathered and the shadows brought a chill to the preparations. You see, here at SP we like to practice what we preach, the overriding mantra that one does not have to spend a lot of money to enjoy the good life, especially nowadays. And just to remind, engraved invitations are expensive when one has a a large number of guests to accommodate.

SP is humbled to say we received a few calls with regards to the event, from public relations and production (thank you Fathom PR) to liquor (thank you Famous Grouse). The master baker at La Conversation is bringing his out of this world macademia hearts. We will bring our own party glasses from home in which to serve the hooch.  As all of this was coming together, we could not justify spending large dollars on invitations. Hence the dilemma. Dive into debt with fine stationery or practice practicality in this economy and send the invitation via email? Oh, how we pained over this. Remember the snobbery? Finally it was decided to do the sensible thing and send the invitation out via email and pray for better times ahead.  We kept it clean, traditional and straight to the point. Nothing cutesy and not an Evite. Just black text on a white page. Simple. This was a tough decision considering we peddle stationery in the SP Shop but nevertheless, one that had to be made. And we feel good about it. Really.

Well, truth be told, in the end we did both. We received a very generous last-minute offer from one of our favorite fine stationery makers, Real Card Studio, who sent beautiful letterpress invitations to send out in addition to the emailed variety already sent. After all was said and done the dilemma was resolved but believe me, it was a tough decision to make.

And since it would be ill-mannered to discuss an event in your presence without including you, please consider yourself cordially invited. I hope you will join us: Herewith, the much discussed invitation. Don’t forget to R.s.v.p.