We know we’ve said it before, but one of the biggest perks of working at Dauphine Press are all of the amazing retailers we get to work with every day. Today’s Store Spotlight highlights one of our favorites, Magnificent Milestones in Chicago, and specifically owner Kara Gordon, who is one of the main reasons we make that statement so often. We love working with Kara and the custom designs she and her team send our way are top notch! Last month, Magnificent Milestones held a Dauphine Press trunk show so you can bet you’ll be seeing the results here on our blog — as soon as the suites are printed and the couples are wed, we will share them with you!

In the meantime, we wanted to introduce you to Kara so we asked her a few questions about her and her business:

1. The beautiful studio | 2. The team | 3. Samples for the trunk show | 4. Sweet treats from the trunk show | 5. Giveaways for the trunk show

What inspired you to open Magnificent Milestones?

After college, I quickly realized that the corporate world wasn’t the right fit for me. In my particular situation, my role was lacking creative freedom, excitement and … color. I started designing invitations on the side and in very little time, my focus was set on opening my own invitation studio. It has been a fun and colorful ride ever since.

What did you do in your life before Magnificent Milestones?
I worked in the marketing department of a large international law firm. The environment was far too serious for me. I designed invitations and ads for the firm. But –like I mentioned above– everything was black and white, and it was hard to get attorneys excited about their next speaking engagement. Working with brides and grooms is the complete opposite: you work with so many different styles & color palettes and their excitement is off the charts. I love it!

When did you first realize that you had a passion for paper?
I enjoyed making things with paper at a very young age. I went through phases of paper snowflakes and scrapbooking before entering the world of luxury wedding invitations.

What inspires you?
Literally everything. I try to look at everything in a different light: food at the grocery store, the ways things are displayed at a boutique, colors that I see on a walk around the neighborhood. Inspiration is in everything.

What trends are you noticing/loving in wedding stationery?
We are seeing a lot of gold, mixing of patterns, oversized invitations and calligraphy-like fonts, which just happen to be some of our favorites!

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We hope you enjoyed meeting Kara! She is part of our extended team and responsible for so many of the great custom designs we share with you through our blog. As we reveal more and more Client Customization posts through the season you’ll be sure to see a lot of them coming from Magnificent Milestones. Here is a sneak peek of some of the gorgeous letterpress and foil designs we have created with Magnificent Milestones and will be profiling on The Fine Print very soon.

6. Custom illustration for a save the date | 7. A playful trifold save the date  | 8. Art Deco inspired invitation complete with pocket folder  | 9. Gorgeous custom foil design | 10. A save the date featuring the Chicago skyline

If you’re in the Chicago area, you must plan a visit to the studio. If you want to see more of what inspires Kara and her team you can visit their blog, Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook pages.

Here at Dauphine Press, we truly value our relationships with the retail stores that represent our letterpress lines. Our current spotlight focuses on Robin Marino of Couture Ink in Ridgefield, New Jersey.

Robin Marino founded Couture Ink in 2009. Working with Robin, it is clear that she has a great eye for design. While this client customization of Occidental stays true to the original design, Robin helped the couple select the perfect suite and color palette for their special day. Scroll down to see more of this sophisticated suite and to learn more about Robin.

What inspired you to open Couture Ink?
Having worked in the event industry, as a planner, I found myself focusing a lot of my attention on the creativity and design of invitations. When it was time to take my clients to pick their invitations, I would love to be involved in brainstorming for new ideas and design aspects to create something different then what was out there. It was then, in 2009, I decided to leave my career in event planning and redirect my energy solely on creating custom stationery. I am so happy I followed my passion because I love what I do!

What did you do in your life before Couture Ink?
Above explains…mainly event planning for an entertainment company, non-profit, and my last stop before the Couture ink train was pharmaceutical event planning (speaker programs).

When did you first realize that you had a passion for paper?
When I was a very little kid…I use to go to the neighbors houses on my block (of course with my mother) and take orders to make holiday cards. I would charge .25 cents and take custom orders and make the holiday cards they ordered with construction paper and crayon – I guess it was always a part of me!

What inspires you?
Everything! I try to find inspiration in all the things I do, see, feel, experience. My inspirations are limitless.  I love to read, research, watch movies, travel, old photos, etc.

What trends are you noticing/loving in wedding stationery?
Foil stamping! I love the appreciation for foil stamping nowadays. My clients are really blown away by the beautiful designs we have to offer and seemed compelled to use it in their invitation design.

For more about what inspires Robin, view her Pinterst boards here! 

Here at Dauphine, we truly value our relationships with the retail stores that represent our letterpress lines. We work with the finest, most fabulous stationers in the country and are proud to introduce a series of Store Spotlight posts. We kick off the series with our recent conversation with Libby Pettit of byrd + bleecker based in Fort Worth, Texas.

What did you do in your life B.B.B. (before byrd + bleecker)?
BBB, I was working in corporate real estate for Sony and an attorney in New York City. Which in layman’s terms meant I was finding space to build music studios, movie lots, gaming development labs, retail stores, etc, then negotiating and drafting the leases to get the deals done. It was an incredibly rewarding job and I loved everyone I worked with (and the traveling, movies and music that were concomitant with the job), but the nuts and bolts of my work meant I was usually around people who had problems – their office was too small, the building had too little parking, a wall fell down and the landlord wouldn’t repair it – so when was I going to be around someone who had joyous news? At least once every other week, for a release, I would walk into my favorite neighborhood stationery store (they know who they are!) and decompress, buy a few cards, zone out running my fingers across all the letterpressed goodness. Sooner rather than later, I realized I could do this too! And it helped as I was getting older, with my savings I could afford to take a risk that I might not have been able to take when I was younger. I just needed to find the right place to jump in, head-first. NYC’s bubble had yet to burst, so I chose Fort Worth, Texas, packed up and convinced the boyfriend, now husband, to follow me! We miss NYC dearly, but Fort Worth has been such a welcoming town, full of genuine and interesting people, and my clients have impeccable taste. And here, I was able to adopt the world’s Most Awesome Dog, which I could never have done in my BBB days. (Luckily, he gets along with the world’s Most Streetwise Cat.)

When did you first realize that you had a passion for paper?
When my dad would buy us personalized stationery as a kid and I would get so peeved if I messed up addressing an envelope. That was an envelope with my return address printed! Those just don’t grow on trees, ya know! Of course, I now realize that I have spent my entire life around inordinate amounts of paper: from heavy school books to leases the size of those same textbooks to now owning a stationery store (that sells lots of coffee table books), I must have been personally responsible for the denuding of several small forests. Thank goodness so much of what we all do in the printing business today is recycled or 100% PCW! What’s that they say about karma?!?

How did you develop your letterpress stationery line with illustrator Izak Zenou?
When I began my business, I knew I needed to have a look that communicated the chic, urban, sophisticated client I wanted to attract (without the track record of already having done so). I needed artwork that immediately told you this is a cool store and a cool person with which to do business. Izak immediately understood that and was an amazing, collaborative partner for my branding identity. Then, last spring, he announced he was ready to do licensed artwork and I jumped on the opportunity. We already had a working relationship, he understood the consumer and lifestyle, and I knew the printing and market niches into which we could fit. It was a natural partnership and I am very proud of our curated little line. Just wait until next year…we have big plans for our characters in the cards.

What is the Byrd + Bleecker design aesthetic?
Clean but not spare; elegant but not staid; aspirational but not unattainable; whimsical but not juvenile; friendly but not saccharine; confident but not haughty; feminine but not girly.

What inspires you?
I love anything “graphy” – typography, photography, cinematography. I also live to travel, so I love gathering design inspiration and color palettes when I travel. If something was built in the 1500s and has retained its beauty until today, chances are the glass green, cornflower and saffron tiles they paired together are as timeless a color combination today as it was contemporary back then. Even if you and I wouldn’t think to immediately pair all those colors together.

What trends are you noticing in wedding stationery?
From printers, I see a trending toward finding ways to make suites more affordable either by offering flat printing or changing the shape and size of designs to reduce postage costs. I’m also seeing tons of the “DIY” looks so incredibly popular on blogs like SMP, RitzyBee, 100 Layer Cake, Design*Sponge, Brooklyn Bride, Once Wed, Snippet & Ink, etc. From brides, I see lots of brides trying to personalize their designs using custom calligraphy (there’s another -graphy I love!) and/or monograms instead of through multiple variations on the design itself. If your name is already something unique to you, why not display that in a unique way that no one else can? Also, I see brides skipping inner envelopes entirely appreciating the simplicity and ease of the reply postcard.

What are the hottest trends or must haves for weddings in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area?
In Fort Worth, it has to be purple, purple and some more purple. TCU (Texas Christian University) grads especially love any combination of the colors. We have also had a number of pewter and verbena brides.  Another must have I see is corner rounding. It never ceases to amaze me how such a simple finishing process can change the whole tone of an invite. Lastly, brides here are still very sensitive to etiquette, so I see a lot of them requesting tissue or glassine sheets for inserting in between the pieces and advice on how to address everyone properly.

Photography by byrd & bleecker and Fred Egan