Calligraphy Wedding Invitations for Your Wedding Day, Elopement, Micro Wedding or Special Event
Calligraphy wedding invitations – what are they?
Calligraphy wedding invitations are invitations created by a highly qualified calligrapher or artisan hand lettering designer. He / she uses their calligraphy skills to create calligraphy directly onto the wedding invitations or the wedding stationery for the day of the wedding. Calligraphy can be used in a particular area, know as a spot calligraphy technique, or if the client has the correct investment needed, hand applied calligraphy can be used for the entire invitation itself as well as they hand addressing for the address upon the envelope (front and back).
You may think that calligraphy is a lost ancient art. However lately this art form has seen quite the reformation and a revival throughout the stationery industry.
I’m Rubana, the owner and designer of Crimson Letters. I adore playing with fine art wedding stationery. If you’re looking for someone to help you with a creative project, or you have a special event coming up, get in touch at rubana@crimsonletters.com or via the contact page.
Photography by Passionate
How are calligraphy wedding invitations different from conventional printed wedding invitations?
Following on from above, calligraphy wedding invitations that I spoke of previously are hand made, yet with printed wedding invitations, calligraphy can either be designed and digitalised especially for your custom project. Once it is digitalised, or vectorised, it can be used for many applications such as digitally printed calligraphy wedding stationery, letterpress or luxurious gold foil design.
Photography by Passionate
Photography by Passionate
How long does it take to make calligraphy wedding invitations?
This entirely depends upon the actual project, the amount of items that need to be designed, the scope of design and the complexity of design and lastly of course, it depends on how many items need to be hand calligraphed.
For a simple save the date and envelope as below, it can take about 1-2 weeks to design various design variations, design revisions until a layout has been agreed upon. The calligraphy layout is them followed by other artwork.
Envelope liner to compliment the handwritten wedding stationery suite:
As a stationery designer and bespoke calligrapher, I design other elements to pair the calligraphy wedding invitations with to really make a statement and an elegant way to raise the tone of their calligraphy stationery. Oftentimes an intricate watercolour illustration which can be an abstract loose floral painting or a highly detailed floral painting can be custom made. This takes extra time to create (see below).
Hand painted touches:
In addition to the above envelope liner, hand painted flowers can be added as an extra touch of luxury. This is created using thick acrylic paints and again needs extra time to design, agree to and produce.
All in all, for an order like the above mentioned, if you consider all the details and calligraphy, producing about 30-50 can take anywhere from 3-5 weeks for design, production and shipping.
To make calligraphy wedding invitations reduce your wording
As you organise all the information for your calligraphy wedding invitations, you must pay attention to the amount of wording / copy that you place upon each card. If you use too much text, you will not leave enough space for ornate calligraphy and it could easily end up looking cramped. This is where it is critical that you use the help of a stationery designer or a specialised calligrapher, who can help advise you on the text length and help you to place the text / calligraph out appropriately.
Try to reduce your wording / copy down to an absolute minimum. If you have lots of additional information, you can either present that text upon other pieces of stationery, or simply use a wedding website, to present your information in one helpful place that your guests can easily visit.
Can you make calligraphy wedding invitations yourself?
This depends on a number of factors:
- Are you a skilled artist or have great handwriting to train yourself? If so there are a number of workshops that you can attend online to gain the skills that you need. I would give yourself at least 3-4 to learn the correct movements and practise to the point that you are proficient enough and confident enough to create your own calligraphy wedding invitations.
- Do you have enough time? If you have something like 7-10 months, this is enough time to be able to gain the correct skills and source the right materials.
- Do you have enough time to create your calligraphy wedding invitations? Of you are a very busy professional and your time is very limited, it makes sense for you to hire a professional calligrapher. It will not be worth all the hassle and can certainly end up adding stress to your situation when you don’t need it.
Calligraphy wedding invitations video
Here below is a quick calligraphy step by step tutorial of how you can go about experimenting and going about using an ornate / modern- spencerian type of calligraphy to really add a sense of drama and an extra special touch of elegance to your wedding stationery.
Perhaps these blogposts might be helpful to you:
How Long does a Calligraphy Nib Last?
