Over the years we have been runners up, finalists and shortlisted for many industry awards; Paper Awards, Wedding Industry Awards, The Henries… the list is endless. While each of these nominations has been a huge achievement in itself, we have usually been pipped to the post - But not this time!…

The Stationery Awards aim to recognise and benchmark good practice and innovation in the retail stationery sector, recognising manufacturers, retailers and rising talent.

We received fantastic news in an email on Wednesday morning, telling us that we had won the 2020 Stationery Award for Best Independent retailer – Midlands. We will be framing our certificate and displaying it proudly in store in due course.

The Stationery Awards, judged by leading industry players, was originally due to take place in April to coincide with the London Stationery Show but sadly was cancelled due to the pandemic. Even though the awards couldn’t take place in their usual format, organisers felt it was more important than ever to recognise the talent and hard work across the stationery industry.

We knew we’d been shortlisted back in August but still could not believe it when the news came in. When we opened the shop back in August 2018, we never expected it to be such a success. It was originally seen as an added bonus to a great studio space in town, where we could have a small retail area for our products and a select number of goods from brands and creatives we loved and wished to share with Shrewsbury shoppers.

The judges said: “We particularly love the support given to the lesser known artists, designers and makers by offering them a space to shine and for keeping the more traditional stationery offerings alive.”

Much of what is on offer in our shop is produced in house. For this reason, Artcadia’s unique shopping experience could not be truly replicated online. You can pick up a beautiful and tactile letterpress greetings card, whilst simultaneously watch it being run through one of the noisy old windmill presses behind the counter. We think this encourages shoppers to consider how the finer things are made, making it difficult to opt for the mass produced.

We are lucky to have a dedicated and loyal customer base who generously support our business and are happy to tell us what they love, but also how the shop could be improved. That is what drives the business and we hope to be a fixture of the town for many years to come.

Choosing whether or not to invite children to your wedding can be one of the most difficult guest list decisions to make.

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Hours were spent agonising over our own guest list. As I had three young children of my own when Adam and I got married, it was important for us to be able to share the day with them and other children being around meant they could all play happily and amuse themselves, for the more relaxed parts of the day.

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However, everyone’s situation is different, you may be aunt or uncle to what feels like a thousand tots, with an overwhelming sense of pressure to include them - screaming babies and all. You may prefer to have a more relaxed adult only occasion where parents are free of child care duties and are able fully enjoy the day, without the worries of feeds and bedtime.

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If you are committed to an adult only day, it can be a tricky subject to broach, so we’ve put together a few tips and recommendations for making it clear to your guests who’s invited, as well as some suggestions on diplomatic ways to word ‘adults only’.

If you’ve chosen your perfect letterpress wedding invitations, you may feel that the last thing you want to do is to handwrite on them (unless you happen to have very beautiful penmanship!). We advise that you address your guests on the outer envelope, clearly itemising the names of guests you wish to invite. A very simple way to invite adults only, is to omit children’s names from the guest name addressing on the envelope. If you worry that could still leave room for uncertainly, you can include a sentence or two on your details cards (if ordering), or on a wedding website to clarify the situation.

Brief Wording Suggestions

These shorter examples are suitable for inclusion on your invitation or RSVP card.

“Please note this will be an adults-only occasion”

“Adult (18 and above) reception to follow”

 “Adults only reception”

Longer Wording Suggestions

These examples are suitable for messages included on details cards. These longer explanations can sometimes soften the wording, helping to clarify your preferences. If your wedding is out of town, include information about babysitting (if possible) to assist your guests in making their childcare arrangements.

“Although we love your little ones, this is an adult only affair”

“The bride and groom request that this be an adults-only reception”

“Please celebrate with us at an adults-only reception immediately following the ceremony”

“Due to limited venue space, our wedding must be adults only please”

“Due to budget/space limitations, we are unable to extend this invitation to children”

“Although we love your children, we regretfully cannot accommodate them at the venue due to restricted numbers”

“Although we adore your children, due to budget/space constraints we ask that only adults attend.”

“Regrettably our chosen venue is unable to accommodate children. Professional babysitting will be provided at the hotel”

 “We hope you will understand our decision to make the wedding children-free, and take the opportunity to let your hair down and celebrate”

 “We wish we could include all children, but are unfortunately only able to invite immediate family”

“Due to necessity rather than choice, it is children of immediate family only”

We hope these suggestions are helpful. Do let us know if you require any further assistance with wording and etiquette.

A Save the Date Card tells your guest to do exactly that, reserve the date in their diary. While it does give some brief information about when and where your wedding will be held, the role of this card is to allow guests to plan ahead and also let them know that a more informative, formal invitation will be sent at a later date.

The information on your Save the Date Card includes the request (e.g. 'Please Save the Date'), your names, wedding date, location and a line of text to let them know they can expect a formal invitation. You can also include a wedding website URL if you have one.

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As it gets closer to your wedding date, you’ll need to send out your actual wedding invitations. The role of the invitation is both to invite your guests and to give more detail about the event. Your invitation should formally invite friends and family to come to celebrate the marriage between you and your partner with invitational lines written from yourselves and / or your respective families. Your invitation should also include all of the information your guests need to attend. This includes the venue/s and date/time on the invitation card itself, along with any additional information you want to include in additional insert cards such as RSVP, details cards, map card etc.

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When should you send a Save the Date Card?

 You will need to send some kind of official invitation to guests for your wedding. Save the Date Cards, however, are entirely optional. Generally, it is never too soon to send a Save the Date. Once you have finalised the important details, you can let your guests know. As a guide you want to send them out 6 - 12 months ahead of your wedding. For destination weddings, you may wish to allow a little longer.

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By sending these cards, you’re letting people know to reserve that date in their calendar, so they don’t make other plans for that time. They can then also ask for time off work, confirm travel plans, save money and arrange childcare if needed. The timing for formal wedding invitations is much later, usually 2 to 3 months before the wedding.

Letterpress is at the core of our business, and the presses we use are its beating heart. We wanted to write a short history of this revolutionary printing method, when it started and how it continues to endure.

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Letterpress printing is a type of relief printing, where a copy is made using a direct impression of an inked raised surface. It is one of the oldest known printing methods, with primitive forms of letterpress originating in China in the second century.

The first printing press was invented in the 15th century by Johann Gutenberg. Back then a wooden block would be delicately carved so each letter was raised, the block would then be inked and then placed on the paper to make its impression. In revolutionising the letterpress printing method, his mechanical machine eventually had moveable type – individually cast metal letters and characters.

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The method remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years, and was the main form of printing throughout the world, with the only changes made to improve the ease, quality and speed in which the printing could be done. Other printing methods only began to take the place of letterpress in the second half of the last century, which saw most of the machines sadly discarded. I say most, as we house two such machines that were made in the early 1960’s and they are our everything.

Starting back in the 1980s but increasing in popularity since, the charm of letterpress printing was brought back into focus by printers who wanted the tactile quality feel that the process produced. The original form of letterpress involved a “kiss print” method where the press would only touch the paper enough to transfer the ink, whereas in its revival, enthusiasts were drawn to the deep impression (referred to as “debossing”) that letterpress can make, on soft cards that make it immediately known that it can only be letterpress and nothing else.

As we know well, our traditional printing technique isn’t so much a substitute for modern printing methods but rather a separate art form that is well placed to produce a beautiful tactile product in small quantities. And this, for us, and our valued customers, is part of the main appeal – it becomes much more than the mere information it presents. It helps to take the customer through history to a time when printing was a craft that took time to create.

 We work on Heidelberg windmill platen presses. The basic operation has its roots in the earliest forms of printing presses, though on its release became an instant hit in print shops around the world for its speed, robustness and reliability.

 An air pump sucks up the paper, is picked up by a rotating gripper (giving the name “windmill”) and placed onto the raised surface which is inked by a roller that moves out of the way just before the press closes and applies a given level of impression onto the paper. We have a machine that has been converted to be able to print with foils as well as inks, and many of our work have both print methods on show on the same finished product.

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One of the main charms, for us at least, is that around the edges of the finished product, which has to be sharp, clean and precise, is a sometimes messy and labour-intensive process. The machine is old, it can creak and needs regular oiling, the inks need to be mixed and gets your hands dirty, the noise is sometimes clunky and tweaks to the machine made with various tooling before each print run are commonplace. But the result, the end product that you see, shows no physical evidence of that. You cannot see it, but it is there.

Long may this beautiful art form continue.

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We’re now over three months in and I’ve watched the wedding dates of many of our couples come and go, after their plans have been cancelled, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Months or years of anticipation and all the excitement of marrying your true love, now parked with little known of when new plans can be made.

 We’ve been contacted by couples who have decided to go ahead and set new dates, mostly choosing to postpone until summer 2021, by which time we hope, things will be back to normal. Change the date cards are a perfect means of communicating your new plans, if you had already sent out your wedding invitations.

Boris just gave the green light for weddings of up to 30 guests, so I conducted an Instagram poll to see how couples felt about this and followed up with some direct messages. Almost a 50/50 split down the middle - An allowance of 30 guests being welcome news for some, but not for others.

It is likely that we will see a trend in couples scaling back their plans and opting for more intimate events. Even before the outbreak, smaller weddings were growing in popularity, with couples choosing to surround themselves with just their closest loved ones. There are benefits of a smaller guest list - You can focus on creating an incredibly personal and unforgettable experience for you and your guests. What’s important to remember is that the size of your guest list doesn’t mean anything else needs to be small. You can go big on the dress, flowers, cake, stationery, food and venue if you so desire. There is something incredibly romantic about the idea of a ‘new normal’ micro wedding. I’ve been so touched by images on social media of couples who’ve found a way to marry their true love in lockdown and accessorising their wedding attire with a face mask.

For some, it’s just not workable to cull their guest list down to 30. When Adam I got married, the landscape of the event was severely off balance. I had very little family, whereas Adam coming from a large Catholic bunch had over 50 close family members, who you could say were non-negotiable. Regardless of our efforts to keep our wedding ‘intimate’ we ended up with over 140 attendees - None of whom we felt comfortable leaving out of the celebrations.

 We like you, are eagerly waiting for good news, a vaccine or miracle treatment. We’re hopeful that 2021 will be a bumper year for weddings and we can’t wait to get back to doing what we love most, creating special stationery for your wedding day.  

Standing still, not moving. The dust has (literally) settled on our small shop, frozen in time since late March, a time when like many others around us we felt unsure of what the future would bring. But here we are, today, venturing back to wipe that dust clean off the shelves, and metaphorical cobwebs off ourselves. The last bit isn’t strictly true: yes, the shop has been shut and much of the work that comes with it has dried up, but we have been doing as beavers do, and beavered. New opportunities have sprung up for us to fill our time, mainly in the form of our new moonlighting career as home school teachers.

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We have taken this time out to do those type of things normal circumstances don’t usually allow for. So, some fresh eyes on the website, the look and feel of it (‘we should write a blog!’), the customer experience and a complete overhaul of our wedding collection.

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A constant thought would be what our business will look like when things return. Running the shop will be a struggle with social distancing guidelines, as it is so small. People rightfully like to browse around it unhurriedly, our paper products need touching, fanning, pens need trying out and we don’t really have the manpower to corral and enforce some of the guidance when we also need to attend to the not insignificant task of printing (and everything else). So, appointment only? Wait until the kids are back at school? Eek. For now, we sadly remain closed to the public, but we will review all the time (I mean this, we avidly, obsessively digest government daily briefings) and for the time being wish all our independent shop friends all the best if they are able to open now.

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But we push on, and will continue to do so. There is more lovely stuff from our shop to buy online, if you are local we can probably deliver to you directly, we are excitedly talking to couples about their wedding planning for next year and beyond, and starting to get enquiries again for letterpress business card printing, personalised stationery, birth announcements, save the date cards, and plenty of ‘change’ the date cards too. The press is whirring and that’s our favourite sound of all. We are not standing still, we are moving. Not stationary, but back to stationery.