Letter-Werk

The press behind Letter-Werk's wedding stationery has no name and no motor. It is a German platen press, close to 100 years old, and Sabine, the studio's sole printer, runs it entirely by hand: no electricity, just rollers, a plate, and her own weight on the lever. She is a graphic designer originally from the Netherlands, and her own about page credits a great-grandfather who worked as a typesetter for the pull toward book printing. Every design goes through her computer first, gets printed out as a negative film, and is then converted into a metal cliché on her own cliché-making machine. That cliché mounts on the press, gets rolled with ink, and is pressed into the paper hard enough to leave a relief you can feel with a finger. She says plainly on her own site that the whole process is labor intensive, since everything is set up, checked and run by hand, and that this is exactly why her prices sit above ordinary printing.

What she does not have to explain away is the volume of people vouching for the result. Her homepage carries 13 testimonials, every one 5 stars, and 12 of them name a couple outright: Polina & Moritz, Désirée & Christoph, Isabelle & Michael, Céline & Flakrim, Sabrina & Michi, Elisa & Bastien, Gerarda & Dominic, Natascha & Dario, Barbara & Tobias, Fia & Beat, Petra & Fabian and Jessica & Adrian, plus one from a single reviewer, Milena Sucevic. That is an unusually specific run of names for a stationery studio to publish, on a page where most competitors settle for a star rating and no names at all. Elisa & Bastien wrote theirs in English, "we just got the invitations, we love them so so much", which fits a site that runs a genuine English-language version of itself rather than a machine-translated skin over German copy.

11 named designs, or a bespoke process with no listed price

Letter-Werk sells 2 different products under one roof, and the site keeps them clearly apart. The "Kollektion" line is semi-custom: the paper style and layout of each of the 11 named invitation designs, among them Bon Voyage, Elegant, Artisan, Elite, Royal, Au Jardin, Souvenir, Bohémien, Heritage, Chic and Novel, is fixed, and a couple chooses the paper color, the ink color and the envelope from what is on offer. The "Individuell" line is the opposite: a collaborative, ground-up design built together with the couple, full creative flexibility, no set catalogue to browse first. Neither the Individuell page nor the FAQ publishes a starting price for that bespoke half. If a couple wants a number before the first conversation, the collection is the only place to find one.

Every design in the collection can also be ordered 2 different ways. Letterpress gives the hand-pressed embossing described above. Digital print runs on the same handmade paper but skips the press entirely, and the site itself calls it the more budget-friendly, unembossed option. Ink color is mostly custom-mixed on request, and blind embossing, a relief with no ink at all, is offered as well.

CHF 7.65 to CHF 9.75 a piece, plus a CHF 35 sample box

The collection's own price list starts every one of the 11 designs at CHF 7.65 per piece. Opening a specific card, Bon Voyage, with one particular paper and print combination loaded by default, shows CHF 9.75 per piece, VAT included, with shipping quoted separately at checkout rather than folded into the unit price. A standalone Sample Box, letting a couple handle the actual paper stock before committing to anything, is a flat CHF 35. Paper itself comes in 2 forms on the product page: a deckle-edged handmade sheet or a straight-cut, heavier cotton stock. The English version of that product page also states the standard collection paper at 350 grams, sourced from Austria, a detail the German version of the same page leaves out. Menu and detail cards run on a separate transparent stock from Germany, and the envelopes most couples pick, at 135 grams, are made in England. Formats are just as specific: invitations in the collection print at A5 (148 x 210mm) with C5 envelopes, save-the-dates at A6 (105 x 148mm) with C6 envelopes, insert cards at A6 or DL (99 x 210mm), menu cards at DL, and place cards in 3 sizes, down to a rolled strip at 45 x 210mm.

Quantity is where the hand-operated press pushes back. Collection orders currently run between 25 and 100 pieces, because, in the FAQ's own words, all the printing happens by hand; anything smaller or larger needs a custom quote rather than a standard checkout. Letter-Werk's own sizing guidance is 1 piece per household plus 10 to 15 extra for late guests, keepsakes and day-of photos.

One proof included, then a lead time the site cannot agree on

Every collection order comes with one revised proof built into the price; further correction rounds are available on request, though no fee is stated for them on either language version. Printing does not start until that proof is signed off, and the order can still be changed right up to final approval.

What happens after that approval is where Letter-Werk's own pages stop agreeing with each other. The German FAQ gives the post-approval printing and assembly step as 1 to 2 weeks in one answer, and as about 2 weeks in the FAQ entry built specifically to answer that question. The English version of that same dedicated entry states 4 to 6 weeks for the identical step. Both were live on the site as this was written, and neither page acknowledges the other's figure. A couple planning against a fixed wedding date should ask directly for a number in writing rather than bank on either published one. Where both language versions do agree is on the earlier stage: after a couple picks a design and gets in touch, Sabine orders the paper and turns around a PDF proof in around 2 weeks, and her general guidance for the whole invitation cycle is to have invitations out 4 to 6 months before the wedding, or 3 months if save-the-dates already went out.

Ships to Switzerland and the EU, not further

Letter-Werk currently ships to Switzerland and EU countries; the FAQ does not mention the UK, the US or anywhere further out, so a couple planning a Swiss wedding from outside the EU should confirm delivery before assuming it is covered. As personalized stationery, orders cannot be returned or exchanged, though the studio says it will try to find a solution if a couple is unhappy with the result. Studio visits in Winterthur, inside the Kesselschmiede building the address is named for, are welcome but need an appointment even during posted opening hours, which themselves only run 5 of 7 days and include just 2 full afternoons.

The trade a hand-run press asks a couple to make

For a couple set on visible letterpress texture rather than a flat, uniform print, Letter-Werk hands you that choice on the same product page instead of forcing one on you, prices both the collection and the sample box in the open rather than behind an enquiry form, and backs all of it with a run of named, specific reviews rare enough in this category to be worth reading in full before reaching out. The one real planning risk sits in the timeline itself: get the post-approval production window confirmed in writing rather than trusting either published figure, and build in the same margin you would want anyway for a run that, everything else about the business having modernized around it, still comes off the paper one hand-pulled impression at a time.