• Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Wedding Invitations

    These gold foil wedding invitations perfectly reflect the bride and groom they were created for. Learn about this unique suite and how it came to be in this blog post!

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Invitation Suite | The Postman's Knock

    I am confident that my friends have been avoiding me this month after discovering my zeal for these gold foil wedding invitations. They’re all I have talked about the past couple of weeks — I am utterly and completely in love with them, and I gush about them to anyone who will listen. Luckily for my friends, I have a blog where I can write about this sort of thing, and I’m going to let it all out here!

    I created this suite for an Atlanta bride and groom; I worked with the bride to fine-tune until the invitation and accessories were perfect. The groom contributed by letting us exploit his Persian heritage, as we also did in the couple’s save the date invitations, which featured the Atlanta skyline.

    Gold Foil + Letterpress Save the Date | The Postman's Knock

    I really enjoy working with Emily because she’s very easy-going. She wasn’t apathetic by any means, but she gave me free rein to come up with designs and then she would offer her opinion. Initially I was going to create a simple calligraphy invitation, but I just couldn’t let the chance to use a Persian design motif go to waste. I sent her over this draft:

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Invitation Suite | The Postman's KnockNormally I send over initial drafts in pencil, but I was so excited about the design and I knew it wouldn’t translate how I wanted it to unless I had the nice, crisp lines that are only achieved with a tiny nib and ink. I also wanted to feature a mix of custom calligraphy and an elegant font — in this case, I chose Trajan.

    Once Emily gave me feedback on the invitation design, we tackled the other elements. I drew them with dip pen and ink as well, and sent over this quick Photoshop mock-up:

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Invitation Suite | The Postman's Knock

    While I worked on these designs, Emily had been thinking about what to include on her wedding map. She came up with five special places. They included: Sufi’s, an Atlanta restaurant with delicious Persian food; Piedmont Park, where she and Nima like to walk their dogs; The Fox Theatre, the wedding venue; The Georgian Terrace, a luxury hotel near the Fox Theatre; and Philips Arena, the location of their first date. I sent over this draft to her:

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Invitation Suite | The Postman's Knock

    After just a few tweaks, all the designs were deemed ready! I spent a couple of days working in Adobe Illustrator to make them into vector files; then I sent the files to Boxcar Press in Syracuse, NY, for foil stamping.

    As soon as the design for the gold foil wedding invitations was finished, I began the envelope calligraphy. After some consideration, I decided to give in to my urge to make the envelopes just as detailed and flourished as the letterpress design. I knew that this would take a long time — and it certainly did! Probably 15-20 minutes per envelope — partially because of the intricate design, and partially because I was using the Finetec gold and constantly needed to re-fill my nib with gold by using a brush. It was completely worth it, though; I really wanted to do all I could to make sure this suite was immaculate.

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Wedding Invitation Suite | The Postman's Knock

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Invitation Suite | The Postman's Knock

    For the return address, I created a custom paper embosser and impressed the address into the back flap of each envelope. I am completely in love with the elegant result. It complemented the front of the envelope perfectly!

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Wedding Invitation Suite | The Postman's Knock

    For a while, I wasn’t sure what to do about the RSVP envelopes. I knew that with the intricate design of the outer envelopes, I wouldn’t have time to hand-write all the RSVP envelopes. I also knew that I wanted something that really stood out and matched the outer envelopes. After some deliberation and research, I decided to heat emboss the envelopes with superfine gold embossing powder.

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Though the heat embossing did take a significant amount of time {and sneezing from inadvertently breathing in stray powder}, it took less time than hand-addressing would have taken. More importantly, it rendered stunning results. Hernán liked watching me melt the gold powder — he said it was like watching Rumpelstiltskin turn straw into gold. It is fun to see the heat gun transform the powder!

    To finish the RSVP envelopes off, I added generic USPS wedding roses stamps. On the stamp sheet, they looked a little gaudy to me {maybe because the image is a bit too romanticized?} — but once I got them on the envelope, I was surprised at how well they went with the soft pink tone. I ended up really liking the effect, especially because the tone in the center of the roses echoed the gold on the envelope.

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Invitation Suite | The Postman's Knock

    I briefly considered using custom Zazzle stamps for the RSVP envelopes, but I deemed doing so unnecessary and also impractical; I needed a small stamp, and Zazzle stamps are always relatively large.

    Emily did, however, opt for Zazzle stamps for the outer envelopes. For the longest time, I wasn’t sure what to use for the subject of the stamp. I knew Zazzle couldn’t print gold — and even if they could, it probably wouldn’t match Emily’s materials. So: I proposed a black and white photo of the Fox Theatre with a hint of the Persian design from her materials on it. I was very pleased with the way it complemented the calligraphy.

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Wedding Invitation Suite | The Postman's Knock

    When I received the letterpress materials, it was time to assemble the gold foil wedding invitations.

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Invitation Suite | The Postman's KnockI had procured all the non-letterpress materials {envelopes, tag backer, envelope liners and sashes} from Jupiter and Juno a month or so earlier, so I was all prepared! Though the gold of the invitations and the gold of the glitter liners were two slightly different tones, everything corresponded beautifully.

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Invitation Suite | The Postman's Knock

    I am so happy with the way that this suite turned out! You can check out individual photos of each piece in my portfolio — I don’t want to inundate you with too many photos here!

    Persian-Inspired Gold Foil Wedding Invitation Suite | The Postman's Knock

    I went to send out all 124 of these envelopes at 9:30 this morning, and I was absolutely thrilled to see there was no one in line at the post office. I had the perfect opportunity to ask to have the invitations hand-stamped {read the last few paragraphs of my vintage stamp collage blog post to learn more about hand-stamping}. I approached a clerk with my huge box of invitations and pleaded, “I just spent about 80 hours addressing and flourishing all of these … is there any way you could consider hand-canceling the stamps? I will come back with cookies if you want me to … or, I don’t know, a cake, whatever!” He gave me a strange look and said, “Yeah, um, we’re not busy so it’s not a problem.” It set the tone for my whole morning: I was ecstatic. {It’s the little things, right?} I was nervous to ask to have them hand-canceled because there were so many, but I had put so much care and time into making the calligraphy that I really wanted them to get VIP treatment at the post office!

    My sincere thanks to you for letting me give you all the details on these gold foil wedding invitations! I really enjoyed making them, and I really like talking about how I made things I love — who doesn’t?! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out! Thanks so much for reading — we’ll talk again soon!

    XO, Lindsey | The Postman's Knock