atelier 8048

On her own about page, Nina Ruchti names the 2 objects that gave her, in her own words, an early taste for "hochwertige und originelle Papeterie", quality, original stationery: her own birth announcement card, and the wedding invitation her parents sent out before she existed. That is the founding story atelier 8048 tells about itself. Not a couple's wedding she designed first, but 2 pieces of family paper she grew up around long before she ran a business.

She turned that into a studio in 2017, working from a home office in Zürich Altstetten, the district whose 8048 postcode gives the atelier its name. She grew up one postcode over, in Uster's 8610. The site now counts more than 180 completed projects across 4 portfolio lines: branding, business stationery, birth announcements under "hello baby", and weddings. She is also a named, out member of the Swiss Queer Wedding Association, stated plainly on her own about page under the heading "LGBTQ": "ich bin stolzes Mitglied von der Swiss Queer Wedding Association", I'm a proud member of the Swiss Queer Wedding Association. The SQWA badge sits in the footer of every page on the site, the wedding portfolio included, so a same-sex couple isn't left guessing whether this studio wants their booking.

The wedding portfolio itself runs to 9 finished sets, each photographed by Nora Brumm of foundbyheart, and read together they say more about her actual craft than any product list would. One, made for a wedding on the Brissago Islands, pairs pastel illustrations of the location with cards cut to rounded corners. A summer wedding in Piedmont got a wine-red monogram printed on glossy pearl paper. A celebration in Zermatt got a hand-drawn Matterhorn on an extra-thick, laminated card with an autumn-orange colour running through its core, not just its surface. One grey-and-beige suite puts the couple's initials in blind embossing, a raised, colourless impression, rather than foil or ink. A separate wine-red set prints its own location sketch in white ink directly onto the dark card stock. A midsummer outdoor-ceremony set was, by her own description, printed in Zürich on recycled paper. None of this is letterpress and none of it is hand calligraphy. It reads as graphic design paired with paper finishing, embossing, white-ink printing, lamination, pearl and recycled stocks, rather than one signature historic press process, and the site never claims otherwise.

Testimonials extend that range past the 9 showcased sets, and they name real couples, not initials alone. H. & N. praise the wedding invitations she designed for them; D. & V. list invitations, menus, bar cards, a seating plan and a welcome sign as one commission; Nadine's testimonial runs through save-the-date cards, menus, table cards, printed handkerchiefs and thank-you cards from a single suite; Anja & Silvan credit their name and menu cards with pulling compliments from wedding guests; Gabriela & Dario had a fully digital save-the-date, invitation and menu set made rather than a printed one. Giovanni & Pascal, a same-sex couple, also left a testimonial thanking her for "die angenehme und professionelle Zusammenarbeit", the pleasant and professional collaboration, on their own wedding stationery, a concrete example alongside the SQWA badge rather than a claim standing alone. Katrin & Sven, another customer, call the finished cards "handgefertigt", handcrafted, in their own words. Between the portfolio and the testimonials, "wedding stationery" here covers the whole day's paper trail rather than just the invitation.

What a couple can actually plan around

atelier 8048 publishes a 7-step process on its own site, running from first enquiry through delivery, and it is specific about 2 things that matter to anyone budgeting a wedding from outside the country. First, there is no minimum order quantity: "Es gibt keine Mindestbestellmenge," stated flatly, so a single custom card gets the same policy as a full wedding suite. Second, cost only comes up after that first exchange by email or phone, and only then does Nina send a quote. Nowhere on the site is there a published price list or a "from CHF" figure for wedding work, unlike the fixed shop prices on her general greeting-card line.

Lead time isn't published as a number of days or weeks either. Her own terms state that the delivery deadline "entspricht den bei Vertragsschluss vereinbarten Konditionen," meaning it is whatever gets agreed at the point the contract is signed, and she reserves the right to extend that agreed date by up to 1 month if needed. A physical print sample gets made once a design is locked, and mailed out before production runs, but her own process page warns that isn't possible for every method, "bspw. bei Druckveredelungen," for example with print finishes, which is worth knowing given how many of her own showcased sets lean on embossing or specialty stock rather than plain flat printing.

Booking and paying from outside Switzerland

She can ask for a deposit before starting bespoke design work, though no percentage is published, and any invoice she sends is due within 10 days of billing. A free consultation runs about an hour; if it doesn't turn into a booking, she charges a flat CHF 100 for the time. Her terms also grant a 10-calendar-day right of withdrawal, but that clause covers ready-made products bought through the online shop, not commissioned pieces like a wedding suite once work on it has begun. Beyond the consultation, she has no shop or showroom of her own: she works from a home office, sells her general stationery line online or through a handful of Swiss retailers, and books wedding consultations only by appointment, with the basics settled by email or phone first. Finished orders go out by Swiss Post's A-Post service or bike courier, and shipping is billed to the customer unless stated otherwise.

Her site runs in German only, with no language switcher, and nothing published states whether design conversations or the type itself can run in English.

The gap worth naming plainly: nothing on the site prices wedding stationery in CHF, so there is no way to compare atelier 8048 against another studio before that first free call happens. What she does publish is unusually specific everywhere else: a stated no-minimum policy, a named process, real finishing techniques tied to real projects, and a founder who says outright, on her own page and in her own words, who she is and who she built this atelier for.