FAQ's
book a meeting
what to expect
business brochure
wedding brochure
Your stationery will be professionally printed to the highest quality, before being carefully assembled and quality checked. We'll then package it all together beautifully to give you a wonderful opening experience upon delivery!
PRINTING & DELIVERY
We'll invite you to join your own private online design collaboration board, where we'll guide you through the process of compiling your invitation information, showcase your designs for review and where you'll chat directly with the design team in an easy to use online environment - so that you're involved with everything we create. You can even upload any inspiration images for us to reference!
DESIGN
We meet our clients at the studio (or over Zoom if preferred) to discuss their ideas and start the process of exploring their individual style with our expert designers. All over a cup of coffee and a piece of cake of course!
We'll then send through an overview of ideas and costs for you to consider following the meeting - taking the hassle away from planning your stationery budget.
THE INITIAL MEETING
The
design process
Book a meeting
The design process
FAQ's
Book a meeting
What to expect
The design process
We are excited to meet you both and get chatting about all of your plans for the big day!
If you have any ideas already in mind, we encourage you to send them over to us prior to the meeting (Pinterest boards and pics welcome!) so that we can hit the ground running and have lots of relevant samples ready for you to rummage through. No detail is too small if it is important to you! Think colour schemes, motifs and things that you consider integral to your wedding.
When you arrive for your meeting, we will get you settled in with a drink and treats, ready to chat all things stationery. We will then delve into your design ideas, nail down your vibe and get you familiar with our design system - looking through plenty of physical samples along the way.
After the meeting you will receive a quote to consider and help make the all-important decision on whether we are the right stationer for you.
What to expect in a meeting
FAQ's
book a meeting
what to expect
the design process
FAQ's
What to expect
FAQ's
Book a meeting
What to expect
The design process
If you'd like to talk in depth about your exciting stationery vision and are choosing our bespoke route, let's talk about it over coffee and some delicious treats in our Nantwich based studio. We also have many customers who come from different areas and overseas, so virtual appointments are also available if preferred.
Check our calendar for availability and book your appointment:
OPTION 2: IN-PERSON OR VIRTUAL MEETING
EMAIL US TO schedule a 30 min call
If you're just starting out on your wedding stationery planning, and are unsure whether to go down our bespoke or house collection route, this call is for you! Simply drop us an email and we can schedule a call in.
OPTION 1: 30 MINUTE CALL
Would you like to discuss how we can work together to make wedding visions come to life?
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digital printing
wow your guests with our
hot foiling
give your suite a glow-up with
specialist finishes
Elevate your stationery with
Ordering Process
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Etiquette
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Ordering Process
Unsure on when you should send out your Save the Dates? Or how many invitations you need to order? Perhaps you want your wedding day to be an adult-only affair, but don't know the best way to word your request to your guests?
Well fear not lovelies, for our wonderful team have put together this handy guide of frequently asked questions to help guide and inform you through all stages of the wedding stationery ordering and printing process. After over a decade working in the wedding industry, it's safe to say that we're often asked the same questions over and over again - after all, the majority of couples only plan to get married once!
It's perfectly natural to feel overwhelmed when planning your wedding day. Often the biggest celebration of a couple's lifetime, there are many tasks to juggle - and scarily big financial commitments to navigate through. We hope that you find this guide makes things a little easier, but feel free to reach out to our friendly team here if you need any further guidance.
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We have a 50% booking deposit option available for our bespoke design service customers, and those wishing to spread the cost of their order - just ask a member of the team for more information if required.
Can I Spread the cost?
Here at The Little Paper Shop, we like to do things a little differently!
It was important to our Creative Director Cara to create an experience for our couples, that allowed designing their wedding stationery to feel just as special and exciting as choosing, say, their venue or wedding dress.
We therefore recommend that after reviewing our website and pricelist to ensure that we're a good fit for your style and budget, you book in for an initial design meeting with the team - allowing us to talk through your ideas in detail, before presenting you with a personalised quotation of the options discussed for your consideration. We'll support and guide you from there should you decide to go ahead and book in!
You can opt for an in-person chat over a coffee and cake at our Cheshire creative studio space, or go virtual with a Zoom meeting if preferred. Choose a date and time to suit from our online calendar here
NEW FOR 2023 - for our more budget-conscious customers, we'll soon be launching a selection of pre-templated designs, ready to buy as required through our online shop. Contact the team if you'd like to be added to the launch list!
How do I place an order?
With the above timescales in mind, we always recommend that our couples order their wedding stationery well in advance of their actual preferred send-out date. Certain times of year are particularly busy for wedding stationers, and our design diaries can fill up months beforehand. January / February and the summer months are particularly hectic times, as couples plan to invite their guests in the new year to their typically summer celebrations.
We recommend initially getting in touch around the 8-10 month mark prior to your Big Day for invitations arriving with your guests around 4-6 months in advance - consider reserving your space in the diary even earlier for peace of mind; we'll handle the rest for you!
Should I order in advance?
- Simple digitally printed designs: 1 - 2 weeks
- Hot foiling or specialist finishes: 2 - 4 weeks
- Bespoke design and illustration service: 4 - 5 weeks
How long will it take to receive my wedding stationery?
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Have you fallen in love with something printed that we don't appear to offer as a standard technique? Then please just ask! We love experimenting with new ideas and adding new processes to our repertoire. In fact, our popular origami wraps and curved shaped pockets were originally born from bespoke customer requests, so feel free to reach out to our experienced design team to talk through your ideas and receive a personalised quotation here - we love a creative challenge!
Are you open to Trying new production styles?
We'd be happy to! Our most common methods are:
DIGITAL PRINTING - the most cost-effective printing style, this process involves reproducing your digital design on our luxury, heavyweight card stocks using professional printers that combine cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks (known as 'CMYK'). Perfect for colourful or illustration-heavy designs or for more budget-conscious couples (turnaround: 1-2 weeks)
HOT FOIL PRINTING - our absolute favourite, this traditional printing method involves heat and pressure combined on our studio press to imprint your design onto luxury, heavyweight card stock. Each design is created as a brass or magnesium plate to order, that the team then affix to the press. We then load your chosen metallic or coloured roll of foil, before setting up the machine and printing each individual card by hand. Multiple colour printing requires a plate and round of printing per colour!. Perfect for super fine detail or those couples looking for a luxurious finish (turnaround: 2-3 weeks)
Can you explain the different printing methods?
They most certainly are! It's very important to our studio ethos that our popular wax seals are hand-stamped, using a classic, artisan method - you won't see any machine-made replicas here! Both our House Collection and fully custom designs will be lovingly stamped one-by-one with human hands for a more organic-looking finish.
Are your wax seals made by hand?
Firstly, congratulations! We're so pleased to welcome you both as one of our official TLPS couples, and are looking forward to the fun, creative process of designing and printing some beautiful wedding stationery for you.
Your agreed design and production dates will now be confirmed in our busy design diary, and a member of the team will invite you at the appropriate time to join your private design collaboration board online. This password protected dedicated space and app provides copies of all your booking information (dates, invoice, contact details etc), as well as guiding you through the process and supplying the design team with the specific details needed to communicate to your wedding guests on your bespoke stationery designs.
This collaborative space is also where you'll be notified when your design proofs are ready to view, with the ability to click straight through on your mobile device to review and provide any feedback. Finally, your board remains open throughout the entire design process from Save the Dates through to your On the Day stationery and beyond, so you can relax and rely on the TLPS team to send you a nudge when we're ready to move to the next stage of your wedding planning.
What happens once we're booked in?
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Gift registries were typically set-up to allow the guests to help set up the couple for their future married life together. As the majority of modern day couples already have set up home together pre-marriage, this can feel somewhat inappropriate! Consider that your guests wish to support the start to your future life, and any guidance around what can help with this will no doubt be appreciated! Many of our couples opt to politely request financial contributions to purchasing / renovating a first owned home or dream honeymoon, and we have lots of wording available to assist our couples with this somewhat awkward request!
Is a gift registry needed?
As a design-focussed studio, we would always choose to advise against this - preferring instead to address envelopes only to preserve the integrity of your beautiful wedding invitation designs, and avoid cluttering up the spacing with information that is duplicated. However, separate guest name cards / mini-tags can be affixed to the invitation suite itself as a cute design feature if you feel strongly on this one!
Should my guest's Names be written on the invitation cards themselves?
If you're opting to invite some additional guests to your evening reception (as many of our couples do), then we recommend only sending a main invitation. Evening guests tend to need less notice as they usually don't have to consider long-distance travel or booking holiday time - and it would be disappointing for a guest to receive an initial Save the Date, assume they were invited to the full day's celebrations, before then realising they were evening invitation only. For this reason, if you decide as a couple that Save the Dates are a must for your evening guests also, please ensure you have a differently, worded version to your day guests to avoid any confusion.
Should I send Save the Dates to my evening guests?
Including a dress code with your wedding invitations helps to subtly convey the type of celebration you'd like to have - i.e how formal or informal an affair! Your guests usually appreciate guidance on this one to ensure that they feel prepared and dressed suitably on the day.
Should I include a dress code?
Ah, the big question - and one we hear ALL the time! As a rough guideline, we recommend the following:
SAVE THE DATES - aim to send these 10-12 months before ideally. Any earlier, and you risk your guests not yet having their work holiday entitlement available to book days off, or even diaries available to add the date to!
WEDDING INVITATIONS - traditionally sent just 6 weeks before back when the bride's parents formally hosted the wedding, today's modern weddings are months in the planning, and have many suppliers (and their deadlines) to co-ordinate. We therefore suggest mailing out to guests around 6 - 8 months prior, with ideally a minimum of 2 months for your guests to RSVP. This gives you plenty of time to chase any non-replies, and liaise with your suppliers.
Of course, you should always bear in mind the specifics of your own wedding day plans and individual guest list. If more notice is warranted, then go for it! For example, if you're hosting a destination wedding with your guests required to book extensive travel arrangements abroad, then more notice to research and book the trip would no doubt be appreciated.
When should I send out my wedding invitations?
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FAQ's
Holly & Daniel
Just to say a final thank you for all your hard work and all your on the day stationery.
Everyone complimented us on it and said it was stunning and that was down to you, you were a dream to work with!
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Catherin - The Angels Events
I just wanted to send you a note to thank you all so much for your work on D&M’s wedding stationery. The stationery was all of an amazing quality, designs were beautiful, and we thoroughly enjoyed working with your team.
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Lucy & Alex
Just wanted to say a massive massive Thank you to all of you! These invitations are honestly absolutely beautiful. You completely blew us away with your sketches, the details and time that went into them were incredible and we will be forever grateful for them.
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