A Reflex Letterpress Wedding Story
In the spring of 2021, I had a gentleman from Los Angeles email me through the contact form on this website. He was interested in wedding invitations; more specifically, in printing his own. To this end, he had purchased an “L Letterpress” and some paper and was now at a loss as what to do next.
Now, don’t get me wrong, an L Letterpress is a fun way to crank out a few simple prints… with an accent on the word “simple”. I asked about the paper he was intending to run, and also the number of colors. He replied that they wanted to use Lettra 220# (naturally), and they were thinking three color passes for the invitation and four for the map.
At this point I had to level with him. The therapy bills alone, I said, for attempting to do such a thing on an L Letterpress would cost more than getting them printed. But I would be happy to help him with design and logistics, because that’s just the way I roll.
So for the next three weeks we hashed out the design — they were getting married in Yellowstone, and they would basically live there in a tent if they could. He had taken a photo of The Thelonious Monk Trio and turned them into bears for the invitation, and he designed the map of Yellowstone with all sorts of little hand-drawn details interspersed with the roads and towns. There were technical problems and printing details to work out, but all-in-all, it was a fine design.
So we cleaned things up, and by the time we’d gotten the design figured out, he’d put in enough time trying to get the L Letterpress to work that he realized I wasn’t just trying the soft sell. The L Letterpress is fine for small, fun home projects, but it is most definitely not a production machine.
They had family on the Cape, and were visiting in July anyway, so the obvious solution was there before us., We figured out a date and time to actually get this stuff done on my real live Vandercook No 4. I ordered the paper stock — yes, Lettra 220# Fluorescent White — and the printing plates, and everything was ready for some production.
They arrived on a Wednesday morning in early July. I walked them through the press, how things worked, where things go, how to stay safe, and various production tips and tricks. I then shoed them how to select and mix PANTONE ink colors. After that, it was go time.
It took ninety minutes of uncertainty and trepidation, and then something clicked. After that, I just stayed out of the way. They divvied up the tasks, they cranked paper through. they mixed inks and did press washups, they cleaned and tidied, and in six hours we had 200 four-color Yellowstone maps in stacks drying. I was most impressed. They were a letterpress Power Couple.
The next day they came in and did the same thing for 150 three-color invitations. I went ahead and did the trimming on the guillotine paper cutter, and after ten hours total, they had a letterpress wedding suite that was personal, endearing, beautifully-printed, tactile and — quite simply — amazing.
I have no idea what something like this would have cost as a turn-key job, I don’t really want to know. I’m not here to make piles of money on unsuspecting couples. I’m here to showcase the art and craft of letterpress printing, and to try to hand-off some of my love and knowledge. I’d love it if you’d like to try your hand at it — with bebop bears in Yellowstone, or something else straight from your imagination.
Need more info to start your own wedding story? Here you go!