Wood Wedding Invitations
Wood invitations are solid walnut, maple and cherry — real sheets about 1.1–1.2 mm thick — and the grain is different on every piece, which means the artwork has to survive an unpredictable background. Laser engraving burns the graphic in and gives a warm brown contrast; printing on wood works, but the grain shows through pale inks. Wood also moves with humidity, so thin, deep die-cut shapes are risky.
What people actually ask
- How is artwork applied to a wood invitation?
- Usually laser engraved, which burns the mark into the surface and shows as a darker brown. Screen printing and foil are possible, but pale inks lose against the grain.
- Will each wood invitation look the same?
- No, and that is inherent. Grain, colour and figure vary across each sheet, so every card is slightly different. If uniformity matters, wood is the wrong material.
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Wood invitations are solid walnut, maple and cherry — real sheets about 1.1–1.2 mm thick, finished flat. The material carries the whole piece, which is the appeal and the complication. Every board comes off the log with its own grain, so the same artwork lands on a slightly different background forty, eighty, two hundred times in a row. That's not a defect to fight. It's the reason to choose wood in the first place, and it changes how the graphic has to be built.
Laser engraving reads on wood in a way ink can't
Start with engraving. The laser burns the top fibers away and caramelizes the edge of the cut, so your names come up in warm brown against the paler field of the board. Nothing sits on the surface. The graphic is in the wood, and a fingertip finds a shallow recess where the letters are.
Engraving also sidesteps the grain problem entirely. Burn contrast reads straight through figure, streak and knot, because it's a change in the wood itself rather than a coating laid over it. Serifs stay crisp. Fine script survives. Dark species like walnut give you the least contrast, so open the letterforms up a little there.
Pale ink goes translucent over grain
You can print on wood, and it's the right call when you want color the laser can't give you — a deep navy border, a black script, saturated botanicals. Dark ink over pale wood holds.
Here's the landmine nobody mentions until the box arrives: blush, sage, ivory, anything cut with white goes semi-transparent on wood. The grain rises through it as texture, and on the streakier boards in the run that reads as dirt rather than character. If your palette is soft, engrave the type and let the wood be the light color. If your palette is dark, print freely.
Wood moves, so keep cut shapes fat
Solid wood is a living material. It takes on moisture in a humid room and gives it back in a dry one, and it expands across the grain rather than along it. A thin, deep die-cut — a narrow arch, a lace border, a monogram with hairline counters — leaves a slender bridge of wood holding two halves together, and that bridge is where a warp or a bump in transit finds its weakness.
So we build cut shapes with meat in them. Rounded corners, generous bridges, no long thin fingers running across the grain. Interior cuts want breathing room from the edge.
Common questions
Which wood should I choose?
Walnut is the darkest of the four, chocolate with black streaking, and it makes engraving glow rather than pop. Cherry runs warm reddish-brown and deepens over time. Birch is the palest and gives engraving the strongest contrast. Bamboo reads as tight parallel lines instead of open figure, which suits geometric layouts. Match the species to your palette first.
Will every invitation look identical?
No, and that's the point. Each piece is cut from a different part of the board, so one guest gets a tight straight grain and another gets a sweeping curve or a darker streak. The artwork registers the same on every one. The background underneath it won't. Design so the layout survives a busy field.
Can you print white or metallic on wood?
Opaque light inks on wood are a real question worth asking, because pale color behaves differently on wood than on paper — it either sits up as a thick film or lets the grain rise through it. Foil and engraving both give you a light-on-dark effect reliably. Ask us before you commit a design to white ink.
Can a wood invitation go through the mail?
Rigid pieces are handled differently than flat paper, and wood's risk in transit is a cracked corner or a bowed panel rather than a bent one. Most couples send wood inside a rigid mailer or a lined envelope rather than loose. Check with us on the right carrier for your size and thickness before you order.
Can you laser-cut a monogram or a shaped edge?
Yes, with proportions built for the material. Cut shapes need generous bridges and rounded interior corners, because wood expands across the grain with humidity and a hairline connection is where that stress lands. Bold monograms cut beautifully. Delicate lace borders and long thin fingers of wood we'd redraw with more weight first.
Need the entire invitation suite drawn?
Invitation, RSVP, details and envelope composed for this stock and finish, with press-ready files for each piece.