Local Vendor Feature:: Please Reply:: Birmingham, AL

In my continuous quest for local vendors I discovered a hidden away stationery and invitations store in Crestline Village. Over on Vine Street, just by the elementary school sits a little yellow house full of personalized items, gifts, and papers. The owners, Betty McEwen and Katie Smith were generous enough to let me overrun the store with my camera and my questions. 

Click on any image to view it larger.

The front of the shop is full of tote bags and goodies to personalize! I really enjoyed the "mommy agenda" bookshelf and of course, the display of Alabama merchandise (left image)

These onesies are precious, the one on the left has an elephant with a blanket on its back that says "roll tide" and the right is an airplane, both can be customized. The hand towels on the right would be such a cute bridesmaid gift.

And now for the good stuff, the event invitations! I picked some of my favorites from the shop, which actually carries a lot of local lines. I was really excited to see products from local Jenny Barry of Press Charming, she did our wedding invitations and her letterpress goods are absolutely gorgeous. 

The middle one is a new address that says "a new nest" and it makes me want to move so that I can have an excuse to send these out. 

(all three by Press Charming)

I love the colored envelopes, and the invitation on the right is for a crawfish boil!

(both by Press Charming)

Many of the products at Please Reply can be printed on for showers, parties, and announcements. The invitation on the left is a bestseller by Devonshire, the center pink bridal shower invitation is by Mindy Weiss from Arkansas, And the blue with lace is by Cat Seto from San Francisco.

These metallic invitations with ribbon embellishments are by local designer  Fabulous Designs.

The green on the left really stood out to me, by Cat Seto. The Thank you card to the right is by Prentiss Douthit from Birmingham.

All three of these designs are by Prentiss Douthit, the simple and colorful squares on the left are really fresh and the the invitation on the right has a very playful elegance. 

The really fun thing about stores like Please Reply is that you can go through the entire wedding process with paper in their shop! From engagement party invitations to save the dates, wedding invitations, shower invitations, thank you cards, and baby announcements. They have so many options for bridesmaid and groomsmen gifts and really lovely hostess gifts. They carry many luxury stationeries such as Vera Wang, Crane, and Kate Spade. 


Betty and Katie were so personable and they make an excellent Mother-Daughter team. Betty got started in the business over ten years ago when Katie was engaged and about four years ago Katie joined her mother in the Crestline shop. 


I can imagine having a wonderful experience there as a bride. Please Reply has a wedding room just filled with wedding books full of invitations which would surely overwhelm anyone if left to them alone, but Betty and Katie are there to expertly bring out the designers that best fit your taste. They also work with local calligraphers for customized invitations and have samples for brides thinking of having their envelopes hand addressed by an expert (samples coming up in a future post, if any local calligraphers would like to be featured as well let me know!)


Thank you so much Betty and Katie for your time and patience! 

Thank you notes (and poll)

 I just now (last night) finally finished all of our wedding thank you notes. It was a majory difficult task, mostly because the list of gifts weighed on me the same way a 50-pg paper would. I rarely send thank you notes out for gifts since I usually receive them in person and verbally thank the person when they give me the gift. I really like sending and receiving mail, but it's hard not to sound trite when you are thanking someone for a gift.

some of my thank you notes i purchased from night owl paper goods (right here in Owlabama!)

 No matter how you feel about thank you's, they are definitely viewed as a necessity when it comes to weddings. Older people especially expect them and if you think it will take you a long time to complete them, I would start with the older gift givers first (I didn't follow this and it came back to bite me).

I've definitely been to some weddings and given gifts that I never received thank yous for and honestly it didn't bother me at all. I don't know if that means the younger generations will phase out thank yous, but we rarely rely on written correspondence any more and some people even use the internet to send their invites. I love paper goods and thus would hate to see them come to an end.

 I would never have dared to not write thank you notes (unlike my refusal to write Mr. & Mrs. John Doe on the invites, I pretty much stuck to that unless it was clear that the recipient preferred it), mostly because I know it is indeed appreciated and that there would be no way for me to remember which people I had already thanked in person.

 Emily Post says you have 3 months to send a thank you note. Going by that I'm about a week and a half late on the last few (though the last few were mostly received after the wedding, not sure if that means there is an exception or not).

Just for comparison's sake for the curious, we had about 50 shower gifts and 50 wedding gifts to write thank yous for. How about you?

 And just for fun, if the married folks will vote as to how long it took them to complete theirs:

 How long after your wedding did it take you to send out thank you notes?

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  right away, less than 2 weeks
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  within 3 months
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  just over 3 months
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  4-6 months
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  a year
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  we never finished sending them

view results

Free vote poll