Babooche Calligraphy luxury wedding stationery crest

Real Wedding | Chantilly, France

Château de Chantilly Wedding Stationery

A Bespoke Invitation Suite for Stefania & Edouard

Die Cut Gates | Hand Illustrated Venue Map | Gold Foil & Blind Embossing



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Babooche Calligraphy designed and produced a bespoke wedding invitation suite for Stefania and Edouard’s destination wedding at Château de Chantilly in France, on 1 June 2024. The suite was built around a pair of die cut gates drawn by hand from the chateau’s own entrance, printed on 700gsm card in celeste blue with blind embossing, letterpress and gold foil.

Where It Began

The Brief

Stefania and Edouard wanted a glamorous chateau wedding, and the colour was settled in the first conversation. Blue, soft and cool, the celeste of a Parisian spring, carried across every piece.

They had seen a gatefold suite designed for a wedding at Villa Pizzo and loved the way it opened. What they did not want was the handmade paper it had been printed on. They wanted weight and refinement instead. Smooth stock, crisp edges, and printing precise enough to hold fine rococo ornament without softening it.

That single preference decided almost everything that followed. Handmade paper and fine detail pull in opposite directions. Choosing detail meant choosing a heavier smooth card, and choosing a heavier card opened up the embossing and foil work the suite is built on.

Blind embossed monogram pressed into the flap of a celeste blue wedding envelope for a Château de Chantilly wedding

Forty Minutes North Of Paris

Château de Chantilly As A Wedding Venue

Château de Chantilly sits about forty minutes north of Paris, surrounded by water and by gardens laid out by Le Nôtre. The estate holds the Musée Condé, with one of the most significant collections of old master paintings in France, the Grand Stables, and the orangerie where many couples hold dinner.

For stationery it presents a particular problem, and a good one. The architecture is ornate but restrained, pale stone and gilded interiors rather than heavy baroque. Design that matches it has to be detailed without becoming busy, and formal without becoming stiff. It also spreads across a large estate, which is why the suite ended up carrying a map.

Château de Chantilly reflected in the surrounding water, a luxury French wedding venue north of Paris
Gilded rococo salon inside the Musée Condé at Château de Chantilly
Carved stone staircase curving up through the entrance hall at Château de Chantilly

The Part That Mattered Most

Printing And Materials

Close view of rococo scrollwork in gold foil on the die cut gate of a Château de Chantilly wedding invitation
Macro detail of gold foil lettering and letterpress on the inside of a die cut gate

700gsm Card

The suite is printed on 700gsm card. For comparison, a good business card is around 350gsm, and most wedding invitations sit between 300 and 600.

At 700gsm the card does not flex when held at one corner. It has a visible edge, close to two millimetres, and it takes deep impression without buckling. It also changes how the piece behaves in the hand. A guest does not hold it like paper, they hold it like an object, and that is the difference the couple were asking for when they said thick and luxurious.

Blind Embossing

The rococo border around the main invitation is blind embossed, meaning it is pressed into the card with no ink or foil at all. The pattern is visible only through raised and recessed surface catching the light.

It is the hardest of these techniques to do well, because there is no colour to hide an imprecise impression. It needs a custom made die, correct pressure, and stock heavy enough to hold the shape permanently.

The monogram is blind embossed again on the envelope flap, so the first impression a guest has of the suite is texture rather than print.

Gold Foil

Foil is applied with heat and a metal die, pressing a thin layer of foil into the stock rather than printing on top of it. The result is genuinely metallic, and it catches light in a way no printed gold can.

On this suite the foil carries the calligraphy on the main invitation, and the names and scrollwork ornament on the gates. Because the gates had already been die cut before foiling, each piece had to register against a shaped edge rather than a straight one, which leaves no room for drift.

Letterpress

The typographic detail is letterpressed, printed from a raised plate pressed into the card so the ink sits below the surface. On 700gsm stock the impression can go deeper than usual without showing through on the reverse.

Die Cutting

The gates are die cut using a custom made steel rule die shaped to the drawing. Die cutting is what allows the invitation to open as two shaped panels rather than a straight fold, and the shape of the cut had to follow the illustration exactly, which meant the drawing and the die were developed together rather than one after the other.

The gatefold alone required three processes on the front: die cutting to shape the gates, letterpress for the linework, and foil for the names and ornament. Each is a separate pass through a separate press, on stock that had already been cut, so there was no margin for misregistration.

CMYK Digital Printing For The Map

The map sits inside the gates and is printed digitally in CMYK, four colour process, because a watercolour illustration needs continuous tone and a full range of colour. Letterpress and foil cannot reproduce a painting.

So the gatefold carries two opposing print philosophies in one piece. The outside is impression and metal, no tonal range at all. The inside is full colour with no impression. Closed, the invitation is architectural and restrained. Opened, it becomes a painting.

Drawn From The Chateau Entrance

The Die Cut Gates

The invitation opens through a pair of die cut gates. After a site visit, the couple’s wedding planner sent a photograph of the gates at the entrance to the chateau, and they were drawn by hand from it, the same way we work on any venue illustration.

Their names sit in gold foil on the inside of each gate, so that the piece guests are most likely to keep carries both of them. The gates close with a hand painted wax seal at the meeting point and open to reveal the main card and the illustrated map behind.

The sequence is the whole idea. Closed, the invitation gives nothing away. Open, it gives everything at once.

Wedding invitation with die cut gates closed and held with a hand painted wax seal
Hand painted wax seal holding the two die cut gates together, stamped with the couple's gold monogram
Both die cut gates opened to show Stefania and Edouard's names in gold foil

Die cut gatefold wedding invitation fully open, revealing the main card and a hand painted watercolour map of the Chantilly estate

Detail of the hand illustrated venue map showing the chateau gardens and the Grand Stables, each hand lettered

Painted In Watercolour

The Illustrated Map

The map was drawn and painted in watercolour, and marks the three places the weekend actually happened. Église Notre Dame de l’Assomption for the ceremony, the chateau for dinner, and Maison de Sylvie for Sunday brunch.

For a destination wedding this is not decoration. Guests travelling from abroad arrive without any sense of how the places relate to each other, and a drawn map answers that faster than an address list.

The same illustration carried onto the envelope liner and onto custom French postage stamps. Each building on it began as a separate venue illustration before it was painted into the map.

Two Days, Three Locations

Designing For A Wedding Weekend

A wedding spread over two days and three locations needs its stationery to carry more information than a single day wedding, without the suite becoming a folder of paperwork.

The solution was to split it. The main card holds the ceremony and the dinner. A details card carries dress code, accommodation and travel. A separate card covers the civil registry, which in France takes place at the mairie ahead of the religious ceremony and which international guests rarely expect. The reply card sits with a custom stamped envelope so guests posting from outside France are not left to work it out.

Celeste blue details card with a gold monogram setting out dress code and accommodation for the wedding weekend
Civil registry card and reply card in celeste blue with a fine gold border
Celeste blue wedding envelope with custom French postage stamps illustrated with the chateau

1 June 2024

The Wedding

The ceremony was held at Église Notre Dame de l’Assomption in Chantilly. Dinner followed in the orangerie at the chateau, all white beneath crystal chandeliers, and the weekend closed with brunch at Maison de Sylvie.

Black and white photograph looking down the aisle as the bride walks towards the altar at Église Notre Dame de l'Assomption in Chantilly

Chapel altar dressed with white flowers beneath a religious painting for the ceremony
All white reception in the orangerie at Château de Chantilly beneath crystal chandeliers
Bride and groom walking hand in hand through the all white orangerie reception at Château de Chantilly

What Was Made

Specification

Main invitation, 700gsm card, blind embossed rococo border with gold foil calligraphy

Blind embossed monogram on the envelope flap

Die cut gatefold, letterpress and gold foil on the front, CMYK digital printed watercolour map inside

Hand painted wax seal

Hand illustrated watercolour venue map

Illustrated chateau envelope liner

Custom French postage stamps

Details card, reply card and civil registry card

Celeste blue and gold throughout

The Team

Credits

Venue

Château de Chantilly, France

Stationery

Babooche Calligraphy

Photography

Maddy Christina

Planning

Scarlet Events

Flowers

Tony Marklew

For Couples Planning Their Own

Commissioning A Suite Like This

How far in advance should stationery for a French chateau wedding be commissioned?

Around ten to twelve months before the wedding for a suite at this level. Custom dies, hand drawn illustration and multiple print processes each need time, and invitations for a destination wedding are usually posted eight to twelve weeks ahead so guests can book travel.

Do you work with couples marrying abroad?

Yes. Most commissions are destination weddings in France, Italy and the United Kingdom, with many of the couples travelling from the United States. Proofing is done remotely and finished suites are shipped worldwide.

What makes a suite bespoke rather than semi custom?

A bespoke suite is drawn and designed for one wedding. The illustration, the die, the layout and the printing are all specified for that couple and are not reused. You can see the alternative in the semi custom collections.

Can the illustration be used elsewhere in the wedding?

Yes, and it usually should. A drawn venue can carry onto signage, menus, place cards and welcome boxes, so the design runs through the whole weekend rather than stopping at the invitation. See on the day stationery and venue illustrations.

Let’s Create Something Beautiful

Planning A French Chateau Wedding?

Every bespoke suite is drawn and made for one wedding, from the first illustration to the final envelope.

Tell us about your wedding in France, Italy or the United Kingdom. We will review your enquiry personally and come back to you with availability and the most suitable next step.



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