Photo Credit: Abby Murphy Stewart / Caption: Wedding stationery designer at Dodeline Design assembles a custom envelope liner.
At Dodeline, one of our favorite ways to customize an invitation suite is to lean on an envelope liner. It can be the perfect place for design compromise when it’s needed – maybe mom wants a super timeless and traditional wedding invitation, but the bride and groom want to be a little more artistic, for example. Well, the envelope liner is often the bridge for that gap.
But that’s not the only benefit. Let’s dive in!
The Perfect Compromise
We’ll start with the compromise factor as previously mentioned. Check out the example below – the invitation is incredibly formal, elegant and fancy feeling in blue letterpress. The other pieces maintain that same level of clean design and formality. And then we have this beautiful watercolor envelope liner that brings in the scenery for the big day and adds just a touch of whimsy. It’s the perfect blend of aesthetics that should satisfy all the parties involved!
Photo Credit: Samantha Jane Becker
Privacy
Many people do not realize that the original purpose of an envelope liner was to make it so you couldn’t see through the envelope. This feature is perhaps even more important these days as so many couples opt not to do an inner/outer envelope combination. If you have a light colored envelope, especially a white/off white, consider a solid or printed envelope liner just to make sure you don’t see the shadow of the invitation text through the envelope. Ask your stationery designer to show you what we mean!
Leveling up
Off the shelf invitations are not usually going to have a unique envelope wedding. Choosing to level up that first impression, especially with a custom watercolor envelope liner, will set your wedding invitations apart from the rest.
Give sneak peeks to the big day
The envelope liner is the perfect place to give some hints about the style and décor to expect at the wedding. For example, we’ve done liners with happy puppies running along the beach under Christmas light adorned palms for a Florida destination wedding, but we’ve also done them with very formal feeling patterns pulled from the linens in use at the wedding. The range of possibilities with custom envelope liners is pretty much endless!
Photo Credit: Abby Murphy Stewart / Caption: a formal green wedding invitation features an envelope liner inspired by the wedding day table linens.
A good use of budget
For many of us, planning a wedding is a constant push and pull between budget, desires and needs. Most of our wedding stationery clients are working through that balancing act and we as wedding stationery designers pride ourselves on helping them navigate that process. When invitation budget comes into play, certain things add more cost than others. At Dodeline, for example, it usually costs a lot more to upgrade a flat printed invitation to letterpress printing than it would to add an envelope liner. So if you’re looking to get a little bang for your buck, an envelope liner is a good option.
What are the drawbacks?
It comes up in almost all of our design conversations – “but people just throw the envelope away!” Yes, we know you were thinking it too. That may be true for some people, but certainly not everyone. However, even if they do, the first impression of a quality, beautiful invitation was still made.
Secondly, occasionally people bring up letter openers. We may be wrong, but we tend to find most of the younger generations are not using these anymore, as they get most of their bills and things electronically. If you want to be sure to avoid that problem, using an inner and outer envelope and making sure the liner is in the inner envelope is a good plan.
The only other potentially drawback would be that it does add some cost; however, most things do, and it can often be a good way to make your budget work well to go for an envelope liner.
How do I get a cool envelope liner?
You call us! We’ve been wedding stationery designs for 15+ years and we have a huge library of art that we’ve created over that time, particularly for Charleston weddings. We would love to help you make your beautiful wedding invitations come to life.
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