Ephemera - Letterpress Stationery, Calligraphy + More

I worked very closely with Tara on my wedding invitations--she was extremely helpful, always available and had amazing suggestions. She was absolutely wonderful to work with and I have recommended her to many people, in fact my friend is now getting her invites through Ephemera too! I've been married for almost 2 years now and people still compliment me on my invitations!

As my fiance could tell you if you could ask him, I spent hours and hours scouring websites of letterpress and other methods of finding the perfect invitation. I found Ephemera relatively quickly and saw all the glowing reviews on the wedding blogs. Still, I continued spending countless hours making sure that I was doing the right thing. Yet I kept going back to ephemera. I finally realized that ephemera was the one for me.

Tara was easy to work with and created the perfect invitations for me. I gave her an idea, and she created exactly what I imagined! Hard to do for such a finicky bride, too! When I got the proof I was excited, but nothing like the excitement that came over me when I opened up the deliciously packaged bundles of my letterpress invitations.

EVERYONE, including the men who I sent the invitations to, have told me that these are the most gorgeous invitations they have ever received. In fact, many of them did not send back their RSVPs but sent me an email instead because they wanted to keep the entire invitation for their scrapbooks. The rave reviews keep coming: they are stunning. I know they are. After all, I have seen some of the most beautiful invitations there are out there - and I still get the chills when I look at my perfectly assembled letterpress invitations made by Tara. She's a wonderful artist and absolutely delightful to work with. She doesn't push, only giving suggestions - which if I were you, I would take and let her run with it.

My wedding is in two weeks, and I cannot wait until my photographers take pictures of those beauties! If you are going with letterpress, go with ephemera. You won't go wrong.

We loved our invitations and got so many compliments on them. I was committed to getting letterpress invitations, but thought I was going to have to blow my budget to get them until I found Tara. She creates beautiful custom letterpress invitations for a reasonable price (for letterpress). I requested samples online and booked with her immediately after receiving them. We did not have a specific vision for our invitations – we knew we wanted them to be letterpress, that we wanted to incorporate our colors and that we wanted a tree image on them. From that, she created the perfect invitations for us. I would very highly recommend her.

I used Tara for invitations for my wedding in September 2008. Tara created a package consisting of the following (for approx. $1400):
125 2-color invitation sets (invitation and reply postcard printed in 2 colors, outer envelopes printed in one color)
125 additional 1-color enclosure
125 rounded corners on all cards
125 inner envelopes
125 lining of inner envelopes

I found Tara of Ephemera Press through weddingbee.com - I saw her work via a post by Miss Lovebug, who used Tara for her invitations and other paper goods. I had been looking on the internet for affordable letterpress, which I figured was an oxymoron, because I was not able to find anything that I could afford. I went to Tara's site and checked out the prices - very affordable considering the labor-intensive process that letterpress requires - and decided to order a sample packet. Between the rave review on weddingbee, along with the GORGEOUS samples she sent, I knew I had to book Tara ASAP.

Tara was willing to create a package that worked for me, which was greatly appreciated. Throughout the entire process, Tara was energetic and excited, regardless of how busy she was. Through the service she provided, you could really tell that she loves what she does. Planning my wedding was very exciting, but also very stressful, and Tara was always willing to work with me and always made me feel very calm and confident about my choice in invitation companies.

Many times I asked her to make decisions for me - because she is the professional, and I think she would know better than I would, but mostly because I trusted her taste 100%. I was insanely happy with what she produced for me. The invitations got rave reviews - even from big, burly guys that I know! I look forward to using her again for some personal stationery.

I used Tara's calligrapher as well, and I consider her calligraphy to be art. She was able to match ink colors and fonts beautifully, and it hurt me to send out the invitations once they were all sealed up in their pretty calligraphied packages. But I wanted people to know about the wedding, so I had to send them out. But I did not do it happily!

I live in NJ, so all communication with Tara was via email or phone - but she was always available for my questions and any issues that arose. Distance (basically the entire width of the US) was never an issue.

I would recommend Tara to anyone that would listen - not only is she an artist and a true professional, but she's a pretty awesome chick too. I'm for sure an Ephemera groupie - Ephemera for life!

Tara is wonderful. I couldn't ask for someone to work with on something that was so important to me. She was SO responsive and flexible. I had a lot of changes to make to some of her initial ideas and she took my input and made it even better. She was also a GREAT value for letterpress invitations.

My wedding isn't until the end of Aug 08 but I have been working with Tara for about a month now on our invitations & she has been totally helpful, involved & great at following up & responding!! The samples of her letterpress work I receieved were beautiful & her prices are WAY more reasonable than any other letterpress out there. I would highly recommend checking out her website for more info.

Also - I'm based in San Francisco, so no fear...she can work with you long distance. It's been really easy so far.

More to come after I get my invitations!
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Update! Well I got my invitations back & they were WAY better than I had even anticipated!! They were lovely & beautiful & I couldn't be happier.

We also got calligraphy done by Brigitte - a woman that Tara works with - (who btw does not charge enough for her work in my opinion - that's how good she is) - and I was literally stunned when I saw them. I looked at them so many times before I had to send them out & each one was amazing!

Ok - I'm totally gushing, but they are gush-worthy I swear. I would recommend Ephemera time & again. I'm sure I'll make up some excuse to get more custom work done by Tara & Brigitte soon!

I really wanted letterpressed invitations but the cost was too high, until I found Tara on Weddingbee (Go Mrs. Lovebug!) Tara is a talented designer who custom designed a whole suite of wedding paper products for us, from invites to detailed envelopes, thank you cards to menus, 5-petal wedding program to favor tags. She worked with us to get the feel of the wedding we wanted to convey to our guest. Even though Tara is in WA and we're in NY, it wasn't a problem to shoot her an email or give her a call. She was always accessible and eager for new ideas.

Top notch all the way. I LOVED my invitations, and we got so many compliments about them. I'm actually kind of sad that I don't get to email/talk with Tara any more ... I may just have to think of an excuse for more stationary! :) Tara was a dream to work with -- so creative and intuitive about my wants and needs. I gave her a pretty random idea, and she just ran with it. Just awesome! Book her today, you'll be so happy you did!

Ephemera Press is a godsend. I was obsessing about letterpress but knew it was over my budget (and my budget was pretty good - $800). I searched and searched and searched for my little diamond in the rough and finally found her. Her name is Tara and she is da bomb.

I contacted her in December of 2007 about doing my invites. Come to find out that she was raising her prices come Jan so I booked her ASAP to lock in the 2007 rate. A few months later we started planning and putting ideas together. After a few proofs she hit the nail on the head. She did a fantastic job.

I can’t even tell you how beautiful the invites were and I got so many compliments on them. All in all, she was a tad over budget just because I added in matching TY notes But it was well worth it ($1200 for 140 invites, all envelopes, reply cards, direction cards and TY cards) For letterpress she is a total find. Im sure her pricing has gone up by now but im sure she is still a good deal compared to most.

Tara is great and super creative. She really goes above and beyond when creating something unique for you. This is very important to us. Thanks Tara.

I wanted to get something with letterpress. I have seen letterpress invitations before, and they are beautiful, and that was what I wanted. I found the Ephemera online, and I thought they had an amazing collection and selection to choose from. What made our decision easier was that we were able to order a sample pack from the company, so we could see how our wedding invitations would look. It is like nothing you see in the stores today. It’s expensive, but I think it was worth it. I still have people complimenting me on how beautiful the cards were. You can order just invitations, which is what we did, or there is a whole wedding package to choose from. We didn’t, but in retrospect we should have.

If I could give Tara of Ephemera Letterpress six stars, I would. She is fantastic!

I contacted Tara in March after our original letterpress designer got sick and would not be able to do our invitations. The only guidelines I gave her were that our wedding "themes" were vintage and incorporating ostrich feathers, as well as our wedding colors. She responded within one week with a proof of the invitation design. It was perfect on the first try -- a cream cardstock with a pale pink feather-esque swirl in the background with chocolate ink text. We had our invitations almost exactly in one month after we first agreed to work together!!!

Tara is exceptionally talented and, IMO, a great deal. I did not want to spend $20+ per invitation as some letterpress designers were asking. Our invitations are beautiful and were approximately $8.50 per invite. The invitation set included the invitation itself, the RSVP card, two color printing, pink RSVP and inner envelope, and outer envelope.

If you want quality work at a fair price, Tara is the way to go!

I was one of Tara's first clients when I decided to use her for my company's business cards! She created a beautiful card that I still get compliments on today! Her work is excellent and her creativity knows no bounds!!