Weddingbee Blog

Several months ago, I took a short calligraphy class at my local Paper Source store in hopes that I would become great enough to address my own wedding envelopes (and thus, save us some coinage). I have been exposed to calligraphy before — we had to learn a little bit when I went to Catholic school as a child; and I kind of look at samples of calligraphy and attempt to emulate. The class was excellent for a beginner like me. She taught us some fundamentals of writing and spacing that were seriously lacking in my writing before. After approximately three hours of class, I felt confident that if I kept practicing, I could do a good job addressing invitations.

Fast forward about four months.

After deciding that I didn’t want to pay someone $200+ to address our envelopes, I took on the task of calligraphing (calligraphying? calligraphically? who knows??) invitations envelopes. I am by no means a master calligrapher, but I think the results came out pretty well. Unfortunately my scanner isn’t cooperating right now and I can’t find my mini USB cable to upload pics from my digital camera (I know, boo to me), but they look quite fabulous. I promise to post pictures soon!!!

For those who are interested in this as an option, here’s some advice:

1. Take the class! The three hour class from Paper Source cost $55, but if you sign up with a friend, it’s only $50 per person.

2. If you decide to address your own envelopes, be sure to purchase a pen with a metal tip. The felt tip markers wear out over time and start to fray, which lends itself to a rough, messy look. I purchased a metal tip pen with several different colors of ink cartridges for under $20 from Office Depot.

3. Use a fine tip nib. The medium tip nib is too broad and you will run out of room on envelopes. Trust me on this one.

4. Only write a couple of envelopes per night. After a while, your hand gets tired and lazy and your subsequent envelopes will look like crapola. Spread it out over time so all your envelopes look great and fresh.

5. Save your VIP envelopes for when you feel comfortable with addressing. This might sound shady, but oh well. If you know there are family members or friends who are really into scrapbooking and might save your envelope or people who take the whole invitation thing really seriously, do it at a time when you’re comfortable with calligraphy and thus, more likely to do a great job. No one else will really know and you’ll look like an even bigger rock star than you undoubtedly are!

6. Even if you decide not to do formal calligraphy, consider at least using a calligraphy pen. My personal thought is that it looks nicer than just using a regular ball point pen and tends to fancy up even the plainest (or maybe messiest) handwriting.