wedding calligrapher — Order She Writes

Calligraphy styles! My favorite way to get inspired. I think one of the most fun reasons to work with me is that I offer so many different styles of calligraphy, each with different looks that make you feel a certain way, for so many different occasions. Some seem more like your parent’s version of calligraphy, some seem more like modern art done by brushstroke. But they are all calligraphy, they are all elevated, and they were all developed by my own hand.

Don’t get me wrong—one of my favorite things is getting to pick the style of calligraphy we use to work alongside each client’s specific event and personality! But I think some clients really get a kick out of getting to pick a style for themselves.

Before I started my business officially, I knew what I wanted to call it, and I knew that I was going to name my styles after my girlfriends and important women in my life. I think it’s because as I started to learn calligraphy and kept practicing, the styles started to look remind me of people! Maybe not in their appearance, but in how they moved, in the energy that they seemed to give off, and the styles that I thought my friends would pick when presented with a choice. Once I began to develop more unique styles, I branched into characters in literature and movies.

I thought it would be fun to get the scoop on some of my styles and to get to know their namesake! The first style up, and my most widely used, is Jo.

Jo is the style that is the most natural in my hand. It’s my go-to! She is definitely a modern calligraphy style who looks the most like herself with ink and nib, but she is pretty unisex, with no decoration, no flourish, and yet super modern and smooth.

I do find it hard to keep her completely consistent, since she’s constantly morphing as I learn more and more about calligraphy, and I practice so much. The same goes for all of my styles, really! But I think that is what is so cool about it. It’s like live theatre in that way: never the same performance twice.

When a client comes to me with no particular choice in which style they want to use, I ask to see their invitations and go with a style that reflects everything they have done so far, or that works well with their Save the Dates or Invitations thus far. But if there really isn’t a lean in one direction or another, I go with Jo. She’s me!

As weddings and small gatherings start to creep back in to people’s calendars, or once upon a time you sent out a Save the Date, and everything paused since you may find it’s time to tackle your wedding invitations! Not something you know much about? No worries! Why should you? You’ll probably only be expected to do this once or twice in your life. I’ve got you. In this post, I am going to start to break down the many parts to a wedding invitation suite. Some are optional, all are pretty flexible. That way when it comes time to make decisions, you will have some clarity on what’s what. Often the parts of the wedding suite that you choose go hand in hand with sculpting the feel, the style, and the amount you wish to invest in to your beautiful paper goods.

Wedding Suite Components 101

The Invite Card - Gotta have this one.

The Invite Card in your wedding invitation suite is the main event, for both your calligrapher and for your intended guests. Filled with all the important information necessary for the big day, the invite card is the one you’re probably most familiar with. It’s the one you see in the movies when Katherine Hiegel’s ex is getting married.

You tell your guests who is getting hitched, when, and where they’re getting hitched. And you’re letting them know that they’re invited to the celebration! It’s the Who, What, When, and Where for the big day.

This card generally includes who is throwing the affair (whether it’s the parents, the kids, or everyone.) Some possible ways to word this part:

“Please join us to celebrate” - aka we don’t reeeally need to go in to details about who is the “host” of this wedding. We all put our money in in various ways, and that really isn’t very important to anyone or anyone’s parents, so let’s just keep it simple.
“Together with their families” - aka, our families are into this wedding! We are all helping to pay for this day and host the wedding, and we’re one big happy family who is welcoming you to the wedding.
“Mr. and Mrs. Stan Smith invite you to join in the celebration of their son/daughter” - aka parents of the bride/groom are the hosts of this wedding. And likely took on the lion's share of the cost.
“Mr. Stan Smith and Ms. Sara Williams and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Kelly invite you to celebrate the marriage between their children” - aka both of our parents pretty much split this, and we want to give them their big shout out to thank them by name!

You also want to give the date and time of the wedding, and the venue for the ceremony, if it differs from the reception and cocktail hour. (You can include the reception info on another card or on your wedding website if you don’t do it on the main invite card.) I always advise including a “general” address for the venue as well. I say ‘general’ since (in my opinion) I don’t like a ton of numerals busying up the main card, and because let’s face it: nowadays, people can look it up. But it’s usually a good idea to call out the street name, city, and state so that they can confirm the venue they found is indeed the correct one for the wedding. (You’d be surprised how many venues across the country and world have the same or similar names!) If the venue is somewhere really specific or has a fun name that will give your guests a very specific place on a map, you may not need to add much else. Use your best judgment!

If you have a reception in a different location than the ceremony, some people like to include that detail on the card as well, something like “Reception to follow” at the bottom.

Any particular dress code for the wedding? You could add this as well.