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It pained me to blur out any of the information, so I took some pictures of our inner envelope (you need one to keep, after all!) so you can get an idea of just how beautiful they are…

Based on the glowing recommendations from Mrs. Onion, we used Michele Clark in NYC. I honestly can’t say enough about her- she’s so great to work with, is so affordable, had the envelopes back to us earlier than expected, and even blended two of her regular fonts together for us because I am an indecisive freak and couldn’t pick one. We also did something a little different and opted to have Michele print the return address on the back flap of our envelopes, instead of having them printed with our invitations:

I couldn’t be happier with the results! They’re truly so pretty that I don’t want to send them out Michele doesn’t have a website, but you can reach her via email at calligraphybymichele (at) verizon (dot) net. She books up early, so plan to call her in advance!
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I can’t use Wite-Out if my envelopes are blue! What if I mess up and scribble on the envelope and I can’t use Wite-Out and I run out of envelopes and someone gets an envelope that doesn’t match the others and then finds out that theirs was different than all the others and gets totally offended and doesn’t come!?Yes, these are the things that keep me up at night. I shove those qualms about foreign affairs aside and devote my worries to handwritten invitations. Seriously. This has to be some sort of sickness.

I decided to give myself a little assignment. Since I also act as the administrative assistant at work, I would perfect my handwriting by practicing my cursive on any packages or letters that had to go out to clients. This lasted all of Monday, until I realized that I couldn’t handle the pressure of having to have impeccable handwriting. I kept getting nervous and crossing my l’s and dotting my o’s and before I knew it, I was on Google researching calligraphers.

That’s when I came across this gem, Betsy Dunlap. The totally affordable, down-to-earth calligrapher who declared me as her new best friend in our last e-mail correspondence. She is the bomb dizzle, if I ever saw one. And yes, I just used the phrase “bomb dizzle.” I’m quite relieved to know that I won’t have to stress myself out over misspelled addresses and non-matching envelopes in the near future!

(This is the style we’ve decided to go with)

We decided this one was a little too informal, but still love it.

Fiesty.

Gorrrrrrrrrgeous, but a wee bit hard to read for the old-fashioned folks.

(All photos courtesy Betsy Dunlap)

Have any of you decided to tackle the calligraphy yourselves? Any pointers for those brides with more patience than myself?
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I need to do a little more reading and a little less cheating by going to the pictures of the letters and the little arrows rather than learning the technique. I was going to post pictures but I would rather hold off until I am a little more confident. A class may have been a better route. Has anyone had any luck with this book or one like it?
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Anyone else calligraphing their invitation envelopes/table place settings/menus/everything ? « Hide it

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Beautiful, yes?? Well, it turned out that these weren’t the fonts we ended up using though, because Mrs. Snow Pea was so nice to customize a font in a way that I wanted. She asked me to send over a few inspirations of script fonts that I liked, and then she emailed me back with some customized styles, and we went back and forth until it was exactly the way I wanted. Our font ended up being something in between the two you see above, primarily drawing on inspirations from the first one with some adapted letters from the second. I sent off my list of addresses and shipped the envelopes to her, and it was out of my hands!

Imagine my surprise when a mere TWO DAYS later, she emailed me…not with a question, but to let me know that she was done! I was shocked at how quickly the process took, and then just went giddy with excitement when I saw the teaser pic she sent over (the ferrero rochers are mighty tempting too )!

When I finally got the envelopes back, I have to say I did a little dance! Having gone the DIY route with the invitations, there was something about the instant gratification of receiving a huge box of hand prepared envelopes in the mail yet without having lifted my own finger!

Here are a couple more finished products, to give you a sense of how our font ended up looking…

Thanks, Mrs. Snow Pea!!! It was so fun working with you!
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Thinking about it for a few moments, I decided right then and there that I wouldn’t be able to calligraph my own invitations and with our guest quantity, it would just be too much work. So I set out to find a local calligrapher.

Out of all the great options out there, we decided on Mrs. Onion’s fabulous calligrapher, Michele Clark. I’ve been in contact with Michele via email and phone and she is super responsive and quick! During the whole invitation design process, I would share ideas with Michele about the envelopes and she was always great about answering my questions. Now, we’re down to the wire and finally get to pick the font and are deciding between two. Michele was gracious enough to sample both fonts on the actual invitation envelopes (which are gold and didn’t scan so well, but look SOOO great in person) and got them back to us in less than a week’s time!

Here are our two choices:

Fine Chancery Italic

Fine Script

Our initial choice and overwhelming favorite was Fine Script; our only issue is that for invitations traveling to Asian countries like China or Thailand where the Latin/Roman alphabet is not primarily used, they might get lost. Our solution: create a separate list of addresses that will be in Fine Chancery Italic. Problem solved! And it’s not like many of our guests live near each other and compare, “Hey you got Fine Script and I got Fine Chancery, no fair!”

Michele books up months in advance, so it might be tough to get a spot for this season, but if your wedding isn’t until later in the year or next year, book early! Her rates are very reasonable.

Michele doesn’t have a Web site, but you can email (calligraphybymichele@verizon.net) her and she can send you samples and a quote.

If you prefer a more whimsical approach to calligraphy, Jenna Hein would be the perfect match. Jenna is also a local New Yorker, based in Brooklyn and her work has been featured in Anthropologie and Real Simple. Visit Jenna’s Web site/blog for some samples of her work. You won’t be disappointed!

And finally, for those of you still on the DIY kick or anyone who’s interested in more formal instruction, in New York, there are few places you can check out:

• The Center for Book Arts, has classes pretty frequently on specific styles.
  
• Society of Scribes, also has classes in various styles as well as a beginner’s course. The main website is a trove of information for anyone who has an interest in calligraphy as well as a very good directory listing of calligraphers in the tri-state area.

So how did everyone else fare with addressing envelopes? Did you hire a calligrapher, DIY, or make labels?
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Eventually I gave in and bought a calligraphy set complete with 6 nibs so that I could play around and see which size I liked best. I finally settled on the fine nib and I was super excited to get to work on addressing my invitations. I wanted to get some practice in first, though, just to be sure that I’d settled on a style I could actually accomplish before tearing into my limited supply of envelopes.

After about 10 pages worth of “practicing” this fancy writing, two things became very clear. One, I needed A LOT more practice and two, it was going to take FOREVER. A swirl would look pretty good, but then a loop would be all wrong. The grand and graceful part just wasn’t happening. Girly, though, that seemed a possibility, and even cute looked like it was making an appearance, so I just went with it.

The next task was figuring out how to write in a straight line. The idea of drawing lines in pencil and then going back and erasing them was just too much for me. I liked the idea of the card stock printed with heavy lines and it turned out that I could just see the template through my envelopes. The issue to solve was the whole centering question, so I did a little searching and found a wonderful How To on this very subject from The Bride of Rochester. The answer was why center, when you can stagger! Problem solved!

My Template

{The top is for the outer envelope, the bottom
is for the inner envelope.}

Since we mailed them from Singapore, I had to forgo the pretty present box idea. I don’t even want to think what the postage on that would’ve been. After perusing the stamp selection at our local SingPost, we decided to go with wildlife. At first I wasn’t so crazy about the idea of birds and fishes being on the invites, but then it struck me “Hey, they’re in pairs!” So then I made up this very Winnie the Pooh like song in my head, and every time I stamped an envelope I sang to myself “Deux birds of a feather, two fishes swim together.” And much like Pooh, that’s about as far as I got. Here’s a little close up of my little happy pairs…

Because it was airmail, I had to stick that nasty little sticker on the front, too. I’m glad the lady at the post office was nice enough to let me do it myself, otherwise who knows where it might’ve ended up on my envelopes.

And here they are, the finished product…

Done! YEAH!
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OK, so it isn’t the EXACT invitation. It’s a mock up I whipped up in about 5 minutes, but it’s pretty close. Our invitation is The Jane invitation in ecru linen from My Gatsby and I have to say, I couldn’t be more pleased. They have a nifty interactive tool and I basically got to design my invitation the way I wanted it. Considering all the time issues we’re having and last minute ordering, I think it turned out very well. I ordered these on January 9. They arrived at my parents’ house one week later and my dad sent them to me the next day. That’s two and a half weeks turnaround WITH overseas travel, ladies and gents! And I needed them as soon as possible so I can get to work on the (insert deep breath here)… address calligraphy.

{from Tracy Joe Calligraphy}

That’s right. I’m taking on the task of doing all the calligraphy myself. I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I have nice handwriting, and I’ve spent the last several months practicing “fancy-ing it up” a bit. I feel pretty confident that they will turn out nicely. I even went out and bought a cheap fountain pen to learn how to use. Now I’m thinking this might be a good excuse to buy that Campo Marzio pen I’ve been lusting after.

{The Minny Fountain pen in classic black}

So, any tips out there for a calligraphy virgin? What kind of pen would you recommend? How do you make sure to write in a straight line and not on a slant? (I hate it when I do that.) Any and all advice would be very much appreciated.Thank you.

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marina_marjina over at flickr, also from russia.

loaiza on flickr who also has some fantastic photos. He hails from Mexico.

pickupthephone over at flickr, from brazil, who also does some awesome lomographic work.

papernosh over at etsy whose other work features images of chandeliers and victorian furniture.
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I feel like a vandal even having to destroy her work in the picture as I’ve had to for the sake of hiding my address. It’s like I’ve tampered with art. (When the samples arrived, Mr. Petunia didn’t even believe that they had been done by hand and swore they were computer generated). I also loved that Betsy took the time to personalize the samples for me — from other calligraphers I’d just received standard names and addresses.

Miss Jasmine posted about calligraphy before and some readers voiced concern over whether some types of calligraphy would be too difficult for the post office to decipher — but don’t you worry about that. I wouldn’t call the font I chose (Betsy can do more than one: see her other options below) the most traditional, and yet all my invitations arrived without a hitch and people just loved the envelopes. My favorite comment was from someone who thought they looked like “an old scholar had sat down at a desk with a quill to write” them.

What a delight when my package arrived! I’m so excited about the whole thing that Betsy will also be doing our table and escort cards now… and if only I could afford it, I’d have her write out every imaginable thing that would ever need writing out (and I don’t just mean for the wedding either)!

Enjoy the other styles (the first sample shown above was done in the “Elle Reynolds” style but our invitations were addressed using the “Emily Abby” style):

ed. note: please see our editorial policy.
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