An incredibly creative and meaningful wedding in Richmond, Virginia

When I say there are no words… I mean it. The depths of creativity were reached with this suite, possibly the best and move involved work I’ve ever done for a client. My husband and I became great friends with Becky and Nate, and Becky and I regularly have craft nights to this day because we just love sharing our creative energy.

We started with their Save the Date, written in the style of a 9:30 Club announcement, with simple line illustrations featuring their hometowns, where they were engaged, and their wedding venue. They chose a modern calligraphy style and paired it with a classic font. Becky has quite the eye for color, and chose a champagne paper with a bold burgundy envelope.

For their invitation, we pulled out all the stops. We want your Save the Date to make a statement, but your wedding invitation has to convince people that your day will be absolutely unmissable. I don’t believe in the adage “guests will just throw your invitation in the trash.” Not if it looks like this! We chose an art-deco inspired die cut, paired with a scalloped blind debossed border, and a bold copper foil on a deep green paper for a truly stunning invitation. Now of course we needed the reveal of the invitation to be even more dramatic, so I designed a vellum wrap with a subtle pattern of autumnal ivy on bricks, which would be the backdrop of their wedding ceremony. To add even more drama, I painted a watercolor of their ceremony location at Dover Hall for the envelope liner. Some clients want to stick to one design style, either watercolor or line illustration, but it can be really fun to mix both. On the back flap of the envelope, we designed a mix of their favorite flowers to give a little extra oomph at the mailbox, one of my favorite things to do.

Their detail card wasn’t only double-sided, but included two different pieces of paper. We had so many colors in their rich palette to fit in, so we took any excuse to include more. On the champagne side, we used the same flowers from the back of the envelope, but brought in some color. Then, on the sage side, we included illustrations to match and hand-painted copper flowers.

Because you can’t have too much copper, we decided to hand-paint the flaps of the response envelopes, one of my favorite details of the entire suite. It’s small touches like these that add an unexpected, playful element to your suite and really wows your guests.

Last but not least, where would we be without a wax seal? We designed a seal to use both on the Save the Date and Invitations, though in different colors. We featured their beloved dog Ollie as well as little details about the wedding day, on a brick background.

This suite was filled with color, texture, illustration, and a fun mix of non-traditional elements, while maintaining the level of formality befitting this incredible event. It was a pleasure to create this suite with Becky and Nate and remains of my favorites to this day.

Photography: Jenny Wagner Photography

Wes Anderson-Inspired Wedding Invitations in Estes Park

As far as destinations go, you can’t really beat Estes Park, Colorado. When you add clients who want to go as out of the box as possible with their invitation design… you really have something special. Shelby and Joe wanted to fill their invitation suite with easter eggs of things they love, which is always a challenge I’m ready to face. Fitting tiny details in, even if your guests won’t notice, is one of my favorite things to do when designing custom wedding invitations.

With an early November wedding, the couple knew they wanted an autumnal color palette. They chose some of my favorite paper colors, from deep forest greens to sepia and elegant blues.

We started on their Save the Dates with a vision in mind: a Wes Anderson-inspired movie poster. They wanted to hint at the stunning location of their wedding, just like a teaser trailer. My usual design style is done by hand, with watercolor or line illustrations first in pencil, then in ink. For this, we were going to go purely digital, a little out of my comfort zone. After a few sketches, we landed on a design with a gradient of trees into mountains into the sunset. They didn’t want any calligraphy, and we quickly landed on a very whimsical font that captured the Wes Anderson spirit with some lovely curves and light flourishes.

As always, we wanted the invitation to feel more dramatic, more important than the Save the Dates. What could do that better than custom cutouts of the mountains that would be in the backdrop of their wedding ceremony? You can see the sequence of the closed invitation to open, with the inside flaps functioning as the detail and response cards. I love this style of invitation, which doesn’t overwhelm guest with too many pieces of paper and can keep things feeling very simple.

Now came the fun part: the easter eggs! Shelby and Joe’s names were visible when you opened the envelope, peeping out from behind the mountains. Then, upon opening the mountain, you found a (surprisingly) accurate map of the different places that would feature in the wedding. The Denver Airport, of course. Then a scenic drive up to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Their wedding venue was the Black Canyon Inn, and we snuck in the Stanley Hotel just as a reference to The Shining. There’s a Magic: The Gathering reference, their cats, their musical instruments, and more.

My absolute favorite detail about this invitation suite was the movie ticket “response card.” Joe loved the idea of having RSVPs be at the front edge of technology (this was early 2023), but we also included a written url to be sure that any older guests wouldn’t be too confused.

As it happens quite often with my custom clients, we became quite close during the design process. The more involved and intricate the design, the more time we spend together, and the better we get to know each other! I’m happy to call Shelby and Joe good friends to this day, and was so honored to be entrusted with such an important creative part of their wedding story.

Photography by: Jenny Wagner Photography

Destination Editions: Rome

When in Rome… do as the Romans do? And what do the Romans do? Beautiful fountains and buildings.

I’ve had this idea forever, to pull inspiration from the places I travel into invitation suites. When we planned a quick weekend to Rome for my husband’s birthday, this idea came back to me, and I decided that I should start with Rome. This is mostly just a creative exercise, focusing on paper, color, and printing, rather than focused on calligraphy, artwork, and form. My goal is to create these suites in under two hours. I start with inspiration images that turn into a color palette, then translate that onto paper in a digital mock-up. All done by hand by me, by the way, without the use of AI.

So, Rome! What’s the inspiration? We stayed somewhere between the Trevi Fountain and the Borghese, and I was so taken with the soft yellow and pinks on buildings. Of course the patinas of the walls are absolutely unbeatable. The window shutters on one building we passed several times a day really caught my eye. There was very little light and dark contrast between the soft blush of the building and the shutters other than the shadows, which I found mesmerizing. Then, of course, there’s the Trevi Fountain. Again, other than shadows, the colors were of very similar value, which I loved. It felt so bright and light, almost weightless.

The star of the show has to be the invitation. It’s a delicate balance, to not make the detail card or envelope liner stand out more. Each insert is handmade paper, but on the invitation I added blind embossing with a stone effect, mimicking the patina of the walls. It also almost looks like an old letter, doesn’t it? Not mad about that. Then the detail and insert cards play to the softer cool colors, bringing in a subtle and unexpected contrast that I never would have created if it weren’t so location-specific. The invitation envelope is a gorgeously soft warm yellow, and the response envelope is a slight pop of color, with a bolder goldenrod. Of course, I had to bring in a desaturated warm mauve to the envelope liner, again playing with texture but this time a little more marbled looking.

I paired a lightly flourished but very classic script font for the couple’s names and the headers with an absolute classic all caps font for the rest of the text. Last but not least, I put some of the text into columns, because if you don’t notice the columns in Rome then you’re not looking.

Nothing is better than creating a unique invitation suite from scratch. I see inspiration everywhere, and am always translating colors and textures into paper and ways to print. If you’re curious about what custom design looks like, peruse some fully designed suites through the above button, and always feel free to reach out to chat about your wedding, no strings attached.

From DC to Milan... Stationery in many destinations

As you may or may not know, Calligraphette & Co. just moved from Washington, DC to Milan, Italy. My husband and I have always talked about living abroad, and decided to throw caution to the wind and make it happen. So, he got a job with an Italian tech company and I’m setting C & Co. up in Italy.

I first started doing calligraphy in 2015, and started C & Co. in late 2016, doing place card and envelope calligraphy. Then, in mid-2019 when I moved into DC from Arlington, I took the business full time, focusing on designing invitation suites from Save the Dates through Invitations and Day Of Paper.

Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of working with so many different DC-based couples. Over time, although I’ve mostly worked with clients based in DC, more and more of the couples I’ve worked with have been planning destination weddings. From Martha’s Vineyard to Mexico, and from the South of France to Puglia, I’ve started to feel like my niche is working with couples planning destination weddings.

Why do I think this niche of American couples getting married abroad is right for me? For starters, I planned a destination wedding in France (although we did have to cancel because international travel in September 2020 wasn’t quite the vibe), so I know the ins and outs of being far far away from your wedding venue. I’ve lived in France for about a year and a half over two study abroads, and both speak the language fluently and know the country very well. Besides that, with a decade of working in weddings under my belt (from being an operations manager at a boutique catering company, to assisting wedding planner friends, and of course spending months and months designing with my clients), I know weddings so intricately at this point that it doesn’t matter where they happen to be.

So, we moved to Milan. I have a wonderful relationship with my main artisan printer (and a few other printers I’ve been working with for nearly a decade each), who is based in New York and able to fully handle production and ship suites out to brides. I also have my former assistant at the ready for any assembly needs that need to be done in the US. For any couples planning on getting married in France or Italy, I can be a semi-local source of knowledge, especially as my Italian skills improve. I can hand-deliver your day of goods, and can source unique paper and embellishments that fit your specific location. And, above all, I can be an American in an otherwise foreign place, sending the quick email responses we all know and love, and being a predictable vendor in a sea of customs you’re not quite used to.

So, what’s going to change now that C&Co. is technically based in Milan? Not much. My DC LLC is still there. Other than the tax structure of C&Co., which absolutely no one needs to care about but me (even then, I wish I didn’t have to care about it), I don’t plan on changing much. I would still love to keep DC as my home base, as that’s where my business grew from nothing. All of my wonderful wedding industry friends and connections are in DC, and I love nothing more than a DC wedding. Focusing more on destination weddings doesn’t have to mean only destination weddings. I love a classic black-tie ballroom wedding at the Willard. I love an arboretum wedding. And I know DC so well, how it works, and what the wedding industry is like. So, whether my clients are planning a local DC celebration (in one of the best cities in the world, in my opinion) something farther out in the US, or something as far away as you can get (Sardinia is high on my wishlist), C&Co. is here to help make your vision come true!

Spot the destinations… in this gallery we have: Sonoma County, The Willard, Miami Art Museum, Cape God, Maryland, Nantucket, and The Hay Adams.

Photography: Jenny Wagner Photography

Julia & Max 11.1.25

Some clients come to me with a vision, and then some clients come to me with a VISION. When the bride works at MoMa, you know the design inspiration is going to be top notch. Elaine Lustig Cohen was their source for color and design inspiration, and I re-created a font by hand to use for their invitation suite, inspired by a book cover. On the invitation, we used three colors of letterpress ink, with the white text as just the paper itself showing through. To provide a bit of contrast, the envelope liner featured a checkered blue and white pattern. The detail and response card pulled inspiration from other pieces by Lustig Cohen, but within the color palette of the invitation.

Some clients are particularly meticulous, which I think some designers could consider a hindrance to the process. I feel the exact opposite. Whether a client doesn’t know what they want and need a lot of guidance in looking through options, or knows so precisely what they want that we spend a lot of time tweaking small small things to make everything perfect… I’m 1000% here for it! I view my job as being vessel through which a client’s personality and vision can come through onto paper, whether they know that that is or not. A quick design process, or less attention to detail would result in something less than “that’s exactly what I envisioned,” and that’s not why you choose to work with a designer for your wedding invitations. I loved everything about working with Julia and Max, and everything about their suite.

“Just wanted to say THANK YOU one last time for all the amazing work you did for us. Both sets of invitations, cute fonts and envelopes and liners, the welcome poster, menus, table numbers, matchbooks...they all looked so great. I know when we originally reached out we had designs in mind that were a little outside your usual wheelhouse, but you totally understood our vision. Hopefully we didn't drive you crazy in the process. We are eternally grateful!!”

An intricately planned destination wedding On Martha's Vineyard

When an old friend from graduate school reached out and asked if we could chat about her upcoming wedding on Martha’s Vineyard, I was thrilled. The three of us met at The Line in DC and quickly started diving into their relationship. I knew that working with Yasmin would require careful attention to detail and symbolism and was thrilled to dive into a conversation about their travels, the places that were most meaningful to them and the imagery that we could subtly pull into their invitations.

They were planning a formal wedding on Martha’s Vineyard, so the main focus during the design process was highlighting the location of the wedding and staying true to that spirit. We quickly landed on a dramatic Adriatic blue, with touches of pink and yellow on the detail card.

The highlight element of the design, for me especially, was the vellum wrap. David really wanted the wrap to make geographic sense, so we designed the first page to be a map of the parts of the world that made up their story, from Jordan to Italy to Washington, DC. Then, the flap on the inside highlighted their current love story, with where they live and where the wedding would be. Then the detail card sitting on top of the invitation was a map of Martha’s Vineyard, the perfect zoom in from the world, to the day of their wedding and all of the markers guests would need to help orient themselves on the island. You can see the full sequence in the last 5 photos in this gallery.

My favorite detail is the small bird in the crest of the invitation, representing Yasmin’s beloved mother who passed from sudden cancer a few years prior. A lot of Yasmin’s inspiration for her wedding came from her mom, who loved flowers and the color pink. She was even more of a presence on the day of the wedding, in the beautiful surroundings and floral arrangements.

Photography: Jenny Wagner Photography