I've always just glossed over anything letter press because I assume that it's just going to be way too expensive. In the home stretch (and I mean in the last 2 weeks prior) preparing for our wedding, our attention turned to ceremony programs. I discovered Painted Tongue through the Japanese paper store on Union Street (name escapes me now) and was pleasantly surprised that we if we got letter press programs from Painted, it would be much, much nicer and a better value. (For comparison, Union St. Papery charges almost $3 a piece for in-house printing - and it's only laser on index card stock.) Working with Kim has been great so far. I went to her studio to pick out paper, ink and talk about design. They can match ink color with pretty much anything. We don't have the final product yet, but I've been so impressed thus far in the process that I had to yelp about it. She's been super accommodating despite our short time frame. We laid out some text in a word file and she re-arranged it to make it flow better, and visually appealing. They also work with you on the proofs until your happy. Just for perspective, on our invites, we worked with Minted.com, which charged us $50 per proof after the first two. Also, Painted customizes each design for you. Our project with the ceremony programs has been on a tight timeline and very execution focused - but I can only imagine what would have been possible if I planned ahead... The studio is in Oakland - a quick drive out of the city in non-peak traffic times. It's in a garage of a beautiful old brick building that used to be a laundry facility, which really stands out in the neighborhood. It's a fun experience to go, look through their previous work, see these old machines... If you're just starting to look into a wedding invitation suite, or looking for components (Save the date, programs, etc.) I'd definitely look in to Painted Tongue, even if you're working within a budget. read more