My RSVPs are starting to trickle in… and you know what I hear most often from guests about our invitations? “The writing on the envelope is so elegant!” … “I just knew when I saw the calligraphy that something special was inside”, and even “it was so nice to see our names written in such a pretty handwriting amongst all the bills that arrive daily!”  Just goes to show, my $1 per envelope calligraphy investment? Totally worth every penny.

My amazing calligrapher, Kristen, e-mailed me today with her mission. She wants to have the chance to have worked with brides in every state of the USA by the end of 2011. There are 30 states she hasn’t done calligraphy for yet — and so she’s offering to do calligraphy for those brides for free.

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Let’s talk about our invitations. Originally, the plan was to DIY them. I searched for inspiration, and then Mr. Magnolia created a design using Photoshop. We were going to order paper and supplies, and print them out at his work since his job had a super deluxe printer.

… but he changed jobs and very quickly, and we didn’t have time to print them. We had the design, but it wasn’t printed. So I started searching for having our design printed. I looked at having them flat printed, but in the process, fell in love with letterpress. I searched and searched for affordable letterpress (a walking contradiction, right?). Right when I was about to give up, I found Leslie from 4houndsPress. She understood my vision. She was in our budget. It was like a dream come true. After a few weeks of exchanging e-mails and making sure everything was a go, Leslie sent me our gorgeous invitations:

It pains me to blur out the details! From 4houndspress

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I’ve already disclosed the fact that I’m not a particularly crafty person.  However, I do sometimes enjoy learning a craft, more for therapeutic purposes than for practical purposes.  I knit, but not well.  That’s ok because I find it relaxing.  A couple months after Lotus Dude proposed to me, I decided to try to teach myself calligraphy from a book.  I didn’t actually think that I would be able to use this new skill for any wedding products.  I just thought it was something I might enjoy, and that may be relaxing.  Plus, with just the cost of the instructional book, a notebook and calligraphy pens, it wasn’t an expensive hobby.

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