The Art of Letterpress

Posted on February 2, 2012 by admin

More and more brides we meet with are falling madly in love with letterpress printing (just as we’ve had a romance with for the last several years) and to our delight they are choosing this antique art form of printing for their wedding stationery. From save the dates, to invitations, thank you notes and more, letterpress printed stationery evokes a striking impression upon all who are lucky enough to touch, feel and receive.

We recently ran across this wonderful video about the art form and wanted to share it with our readers. We hope you enjoy learning more about letterpress printing and we look forward to helping you select your perfectly pressed stationery.

Click on the link below to view the short film.

Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

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New Year Brings New Things…

Posted on December 28, 2011 by admin

As we prepare to enter 2012, we are excited to share new things that will be happening for us at The Cordial Cricket with all of you!

As our business grows, we are constantly evolving to adapt to changes within our industry. In the coming year, beginning February 1st, our Chester location will become a by appointment only wedding and event invitation studio, just as our West End studio location already operates. This means that we will no longer operate the Chester location as a retail gift store, after January 31st.

What does this news mean for you?
If you’re a bride, it means that you will continue to work with us just as you normally have, by scheduling an appointment at either our Chester or West End studios, whichever is most convenient for you.

Our Bridal Gift Registry Program will remain and we will continue to offer the exclusive formal and everyday dinnerware as well as the very popular Mariposa tabletop and entertaining line of products. Brides will continue to be able to select wonderful gifts and we will make exclusive one-on-one arrangements with shoppers who would like to purchase gifts for our registered brides.

This year our “After Christmas Sale & January Clearance” that we typically have each year, will include all of the in-stock gift merchandise that we have in our store (excluding only Mariposa and special order gift items). You will be able to take advantage of our largest sale EVER beginning Monday, December 26th. Items throughout the entire store will be deeply discounted for final sale.

After February 1st, if you would like to order invitations for an event, whether it be a wedding, birthday, anniversary or even a corporate event, you will simply need to schedule an appointment to meet with us to discuss your invitation needs and event details and we will be very happy to help you!

We look forward to seeing many of you soon at our After Christmas Inventory Sale and working with you in 2012 on all of your invitation and event needs!

As the focus of our business changes to be exclusively on weddings and events, we are also pleased to announce that we have partnered with long-time employee, Jennifer Eschbach, formerly of Details Weddings & Events, to offer new event consulting services for our clients.

Jennifer has been a certified wedding and event planner since 2005 and brings tremendous expertise to our customers regarding their weddings and events.

We will be announcing several new event consulting packages in January 2012, to include, but not limited to:

The Cordial Introduction Package – a 3 hour block of event consulting which brides or customers may purchase to discuss the most important details of planning their events with an event professional at the very beginning stages.

After their Cordial Introduction Package, clients may choose to purchase additional event consulting hours to use as they may need.

Day of Event Coordination – which brides/clients may purchase to have an event professional onsite at their event ensuring that every detail goes smoothly.

We will also offer other packages that cover everything in between as well as complete planning of your event with a professional from start to finish.

More details to come in January 2012!

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Small Business Saturday

Posted on November 18, 2011 by admin

What a great offer from American Express! First there was Black Friday, then Cyber Monday. November 27, 2010 was the first ever Small Business Saturday. Small Business Saturday is the day we celebrate the Shop Small movement to drive shoppers to local merchants across the U.S. Did you know that they have designated this Saturday, November 26th as Small Business Saturday? On this special Saturday, all American Express card holders are encouraged to shop at independently owned small businesses and will be rewarded for doing so with a $25 credit on their next monthly statement! What could be better!

All you need to do to participate in Small Business Saturday on Nov 26th, by doing the following:

Click here to register your eligible American Express Card. You may only register one Card for this offer. Using your registered American Express Card, you must spend $25 or more at participating small business merchants on 11/26/2010 to receive the $25 statement credit.

Yes, we are a participating small business merchant and we do accept American Express cards at our store!

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A Sixpence In Your Shoe…

Posted on November 15, 2011 by admin

Something old
Something new,
Something borrowed,
Something blue
and a
Sixpence
in your shoe!

Sixpence Card from our friends at Haute Papier.

We think this is THE perfect little greeting for any bride, whether it’s right after she gets engaged, for a shower or on the morning of her wedding!  The two color letterpress adds a little luxury to go along with the vintage sixpence coin. What bride doesn’t want the fortune of having a real sixpence in her shoe on her big day.

We are pleased to now carry these delightful sixpence cards in our store and we are even going to give one away to a lucky bride! To enter our contest to win your very own sixpence card, you simply need to leave us a comment on this post, Like our store on Facebook and/or Follow our store on Twitter, post a link to this contest on your Facebook and/or Twitter profile. The more things you do, the more times you’ll be entered. We will select the winner on November 30th! Good luck!

And when you’re looking for a wedding gift, Haute Papier’s luxuriously beautiful Silk Stationery Boxes can’t be beat!  With four sets of twenty-five letterpress correspondence cards, you can customize one set for the bride, one set for the groom, one with their names together and one their new monogram.  What better way than to send them off than with their thank yous for wedding gifts. That’s 160 pieces of personalized letterpress stationery for a retail price of only $180, which can’t be beat.


As a special offer for our blog readers, we are offering FREE shipping on any Silk Stationery Box order placed in our store until November 30th. Stop by soon to order yours!

Find out more about our friends Sarah and Erin at Haute Papier here.

Posted in General, Stationery & Invitations, Uncategorized, Weddings | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Birthday Memories

Posted on November 7, 2011 by admin

Check out this wonderful idea for a birthday gift at any age. Detail on how to create this memorable gift here.

Posted in General, Gifts for Babies & Kids, Gifts for Grown-Ups, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Congrats on Push Up Pops!

Posted on November 5, 2011 by admin

We are super excited for our friend and fellow party gal Courtney Dial of Pizzazzerie who has been working on her first book since last summer. Her cookbook titled, Push Up Pops is off to print and will be released in the spring, so stay tuned for more information on purchasing it!

Push Up Pops are a hot new trend in the party world and a wonderful new way to serve sweet treats from pies to frozen desserts. The book is FULL of recipes for serving up these yummies.

Posted in General, Parties, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Must Have Labels from demby+soloman

Posted on November 4, 2011 by admin

Leave your personalized seal using these clever, funny and stylish return address labels and gift stickers on your mail and gifts! Available for ordering in our store now from demby+solomon and also seen in O Magazine. Visit our store to select your custom return address labels or gift stickers. You can get 24 gift stickers for only $22! What a deal! You can purchase 150 return address labels for only $40 and they will even let you split a set of return address labels of the same shape into two different designs for no extra charge, so get 75 for you and 75 for a friend! (Other quantities are available).

Plan ahead and purchase holiday labels for your cards and gift stickers to use when wrapping your presents this year. Many more designs to choose from in our store, you may also view the designs on their website too.

P.S. I almost forgot, these cool labels are also scratch and water resistant! How functional!

 

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Photographer Spotlight – PW Photography

Posted on November 4, 2011 by admin

We are thrilled to share this feature about one of our favorite local photographers, PW Photography, with our brides and readers! We hope that you all enjoy learning more about what makes them unique and seeing some of their work.

Drawing upon artistic styles that are both complimentary and diverse, husband and wife photography team, Pete and Liliana Wright, have become sought after for their edgy style and intuitive ability to capture clients’ personalities through photographs. During his 24 years of working as a photographer, Pete has earned the degrees of Master Photographer and Photographic Craftsman from Professional Photographers of America. He also received Photographer of The Year honors from PPA (Professional Photographers of America) in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 and has been awarded multiple Fuji and Kodak Gallery Awards, as well as multiple images selected for the international PPA Loan Collection. Liliana has earned the degree of Photographic Craftsman and has been in the photography industry since 2003. Pete and Liliana have been featured in several national publications and are fortunate to have lectured to other photographers around the world about their passion for photography and photographed people from various cultures.

Pete and Liliana are based in Richmond, VA and their work is a reflection of their passion for life and family. They enjoy all aspects of photography including maternity portraits, infant portraits,and Senior portraits. As Richmond wedding photographers, they are also known for their unique and modern wedding photography style.

Why did you decide to become a wedding photographer? I grew up in photography, as the son of an amateur photographer and having worked as a photographer since I was in high school, it was only natural that I would eventually start photographing weddings. I started doing weddings in addition to the corporate and editorial work in 1997 and was fortunate to be joined by my lovely and talented wife, Liliana, in 2003 when she decided it was time for a career change. Liliana jumped in feet first and quickly became an extremely accomplished and talented photographer. We knew that photographing weddings was a great fit for us and our different styles were actually very complimentary.

Why do you think brides should book a professional photographer versus asking one of their friends or family to do it? First, I think a close friend or family member would much rather enjoy being a guest and celebrating your wedding with you. Secondly, and more importantly though, you shouldn’t trust something as monumental as your wedding and the documentation of it to someone that is not a professional. While it may save you a few dollars and allow you to spend more on other things for your wedding, what good is it to do that if at the end of the day you had a photographer that did not have the competence to capture those things that you invested that extra money on? If you are unhappy with the results, it could result in hard feelings with that friend or family member. Hiring a professional in each of the vendor positions of your wedding can be crucial in the flow, timing, and success of your event.

What is the number one question brides should ask when hiring a wedding photographer? We hear about all the questions brides should ask like “will you actually be the one photographing my wedding” or “do I get a disc with my images”. The main question should be “are you licensed and insured?”  This is a question that often never even gets considered. This question right off the bat weeds out a lot of the weekenders that have little or no experience photographing weddings and do not do photography as the bulk or all of their annual income and have the necessary wedding experience. License and insurance are two things that are important for two big reasons. One, if they are operating without a license, then they are operating illegally by not reporting all of their income for tax purposes and once they get caught not doing so, you may end up without a photographer after having paid for one.  Be sure that you have hired a competent photographer that is likely to show up and do what you paid them to do. Two, if your photographer is not insured and you or one of your guests gets hurt as a result of a piece of their gear, you will not be covered and are likely in for some lawsuits to get your expenses covered.  Any professional photographer should be operating with liability insurance to protect people that could be potentially harmed by a piece of their gear and also equipment insurance to cover all of their gear in the event that it is broken. A caveat to this is that you should always ask your photographer is they bring back up gear.  If they drop and break a camera or if they have equipment failure you want to have the peace of mind in knowing that they are capable of grabbing a second camera to continue shooting without missing key moments in your day.

Can you share with us some of your favorite shots over the years? My favorite wedding images are not the ones that our studio is known for.  We love to capture brides and grooms along with their bridal party in fun and unique locations in creative new ways, but the truth is our favorite images are the ones that we capture of genuine emotion filled moments.  The heart felt love we see during a father-daughter dance or during the vows are so emotional for us and to be asked to be a part of those moments is so special to us. It often evokes the same emotions in us while taking the image as the emotions that we are capturing.  Fortunately, we get to hide behind our camera so people can’t tell sometimes that we are getting choked up.  As parents, we imagine experiencing our children’s wedding day and know how important those memories are to the families.

What are some of your favorite wedding trends popping up this season? We LOVE event lighting!!!  We have been fortunate to work several times with Blue Steel Lighting Design and we can honestly say that in 14+ years of photographing weddings, nothing transforms a venue the way lighting does.  The splash of color and drama that are added to a room are something that is unmatched and can take an ordinary wedding to extraordinary!

View some of PW Photography’s favorite shots below:

 

Contact PW Photography to discuss your wedding photography, engagement or children’s portrait session…and be sure to tell them we sent you!

PW Photography
11341 Business Center Drive, Suite A
Richmond, VA 23236
804-560-8800

Visit their website: www.pwphotography.com
Read their blog: www.pwphotography.com/blog

Find them on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PeteWrightPhotography
Find them on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PWPhotography

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Finding Thalhimers

Posted on November 4, 2011 by admin

We’re pleased to announce that you can still find signed, hardback editions from the 2010 original release of Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt’s book Finding Thalhimers for sale at our store. If you’re from Central Virginia, this book probably needs no explanation. But for the rest of our readers, here’s the scoop on this book recounting a wonderful piece of our history.

Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt represents the sixth generation of Thalhimers living in America. For five generations, her family managed Thalhimers department stores, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, for 150 years. At its height, the store had 26 locations across Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Since 2001, Elizabeth has been an entrepreneur in her own right. She runs freelance naming consultancy Smartt Ideas. She graduated cum laude from Wake Forest University with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and earned a Masters degree in English from Virginia Commonwealth University. She currently lives with her husband Ryan, daughter Lyla, and pug Deacon in Richmond, Virginia.

Finding Thalhimers traces the author’s obsessive quest to find the true story of her father’s family and their beloved department store. Riveting and poignant, this multigenerational narrative weaves together history, biography, and memoir into an unforgettable portrait of an ambitious American retail family.

Guided by unwavering principles and visionary leadership, the Thalhimers store watched American history unfold, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement, from the arrival of ready-to-wear fashions to the rise of “big box” stores. Five generations of Thalhimers grew the business from a modest dry goods shop into a twenty-six-store chain. When the author reached the age of sixteen, the empire began to crumble when her father lost his job and the store became Hechts, and now Macys. The wrecking ball hit Thalhimers’ headquarters on her grandfather’s 90th birthday, striking an emotional chord for the author and her family.

Intertwining a genealogical treasure hunt with a powerful and unusual family history, Finding Thalhimers tells a true story both celebratory and bittersweet. Its words packed with every ounce of the author’s passion for carrying on her family’s legacy, this is a book to be embraced and treasured as much as the Thalhimers store once was.

This book would make a wonderful holiday gift for anyone who is familiar with the Thalhimers legacy. We are thrilled to still have a limited number of signed copies remaining for sale. Stop by soon to pick up a copy for yourself and those you know would enjoy!

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Southern Weddings Magazine

Posted on November 3, 2011 by admin

We are officially not getting any more work done today because this is on its way to our store!

A few of our favorite Richmond, Virginia area brides will be receiving a copy with our compliments very soon…so they can swoon too.

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