Making the invitation

Early in our engagement, Zach and I were enamored with the work of our super talented friend, John Passifume, a graphic designer in NYC.  A family friend and calligrapher in Chicago, helped us create an homage to Passifume’s work, which was hand letter pressed at the historic Werner Printing factory in downtown Chicago.

When we were eating lunch at Chicago institution, Ina’s Kitchen in May, Joyce and Zach surprised us with a trip to Werner Printing to watch our very own invitation get pressed!

We walked into the industrial building to find…

Carlos! The talented employee of Werner, who is the only letterpress and foil-stamping expert left at the company.

He had our dye on the press to show us..

..which we got to inspect very closely.

In true party planner form, Joyce brought Champagne for us to enjoy while we watched Carlos work on our invitation.

Carlos was very excited to share with us the other forms of printing that he does, as well as the evolution of letterpress since he started with Werner.

The hand off!!