Wedding Invitations

print design • graphic design • calligraphy

Custom wedding invitations and stationery designed for our wedding. The design reflects a mix of analog and digital craftsmanship, creating a more personal feel that I really wanted to incorporate. 

Photography: Skillie, Kikitography
Location: Stellenbosch, South Africa

When I started designing our wedding invitations, I knew that I was going to hand-write all the envelopes for my invitations because I started my calligraphy journey writing letters to all my friends as practice. It felt like a full circle moment, where I felt like this was kind of a culmination of 10+ years of calligraphy practice. 

This was my starting point, so I started designing everything based on the fact that I was going to incorporate as much calligraphy as I could. Italic hand is my favorite calligraphy style and this was sort of my ode to it. I wrote many variations of the invitation itself to test and try out what we liked. 

I also knew I was going to letterpress my invitations because as a product designer (that graduated with a concentration in print design), when was I ever going to be able to letterpress anything? And here I was the client! I digitized my calligraphy for letterpress and went to town on some Pantone matching, which I haven't done since I worked at an agency. I've never digitized my calligraphy before, and the calligraphy part was fun and fast, the digitizing not so much. 

I selected Garamond as my supporting typeface because I love the italic version of it. I thought it paired well with my calligraphy, giving it a more delicate touch compared to the straight-forwardness of Italic. 

This was a labor of love and I really enjoyed creating something to celebrate our love and the people that came all the way to celebrate us.