Calligraphy adds playfulness and charm to wedding tables and venues. A little sign here and there, a beautifully crafted calligraphy menu for the table, a quote or something quirky to help style your day.
Wedding calligraphy to inform your guests
Hiring a calligrapher is also a fabulous way to provide information to your guests.
They’ll be looking for their tables, their allocated seats… and handwritten stationery is a beautiful way to communicate everything they need to know.
I am always delighted to work with couples to create matching wedding stationery from calligraphy invitations and save the dates through to the on-the-day stationery.
If you decide to have paper goodies for your wedding day – and it’s all entirely optional! – you can choose from:
- a wedding timeline sign
- unplugged ceremony sign
- order of the day cards
- order of service cards or booklets
- calligraphy escort cards
- a full table plan
- or individual table plan cards (e.g. to stick on a mirror)
- folded place name cards
- flat place name cards
- place name tags with or without punched holes
- handwritten menus (these can also be printed)
- table numbers
- or table names – these are often forgotten until the very last minute, and are my most popular last-minute calligraphy order!
- mini signs for dessert tables
- drinks menu signs
- guest book signs
- anything else you can think of, which is unique to you and will be a first for me!
Sustainable card and paper wedding items
I write on paper and all kinds of other surfaces for on the day wedding calligraphy. The paper I use has to be of a very high quality for calligraphy, and I source from the very best manufacturers and paper mills.
All of the papers I use are FSC certified as a minimum. Luxury paper has to come from sustainable forestry to protect our environment. Wherever possible, I use recycled card for wedding stationery – and all of my packaging is recycled, recyclable and uses as little plastic as possible! (I only use plastic where orders need to be waterproof; we can’t have your beautiful calligraphy getting soggy if the postie drops it in a puddle. This is the UK after all…)
Alternative wedding calligraphy ideas
There are no limits to what you can ask me to write on for your wedding day!
Last year one of my couples brought an ancient wooden barn door to my little studio… it became their table plan, with hand lettering across the top of the door and escort cards pinned on with guests’ names in calligraphy!
Slate is also a favourite surface for wedding signage and calligraphy design here in the Lake District, alongside wood wedding signs, mirrors, glass frames with hand lettering, and chalkboards!
… I almost forgot the bird box. Creative projects are so much fun… whatever you’d like me to write on, please ask! I will be delighted to hear from you!
Last minute wedding day stationery
This is the work I love most of all – the little surprises from couples who’ve just discovered me when they search for place names on Etsy, and get in touch weeks before the wedding date. My summers are filled with elegant calligraphy place names and escort cards, and it’s wonderful!
I have an Etsy shop for all of my calligraphy place names, which are sold at very affordable prices. Many come with the option of silk ribbon or punched holes.
Ethical wedding calligraphy
There are a couple of calligraphy favourites I don’t do, and they’re plastic (acrylic), agate slices and imported shells.
I believe weddings should be as sustainable as possible, and it’s important to me to have an ethical wedding business. So I avoid the use of acrylic and recommend using framed glass (nkuku is a favourite) or wood items instead.
The mining of agate slices, popular for wedding calligraphy place names in recent years, has issues with workers’ human rights and conditions, and using shells imported from overseas for calligraphy place settings can have a very damaging impact on ecosystems. There are so many options for beautiful wedding calligraphy which is sustainable, and I can happily advise on ethical alternatives for your wedding signage and on the day stationery.
