Traditional calligraphy has seen a resurgence recently as people become more drawn to old fashioned crafts to make their wedding invitations more unique. 

Whilst it can be a lot of fun to learn dip nib calligraphy, it can be a long time because you’re happy with the results. There is an option to give the appearance of the contrasting thick thin lines a lot faster as well. 

This can be really helpful if you want to incorporate handwritten elements into your wedding invitations. Either by creating a custom monogram of initials, or writing out the couple’s names and scanning them into a computer to be printed. 

First, you can write out whatever word or name you’d like to convert in cursive. It’s recommended that you don’t write this too small. All of these first few steps can be done in pencil as they are just outlines. When you’re happy with them, you can trace over in pen and erase any pencil marks you use for a guide. 

Traditional calligraphy works because everytime the pen goes downward on a line, the tines of the nib slide apart, creating thick lines before closing again as the pen writes an upstroke to create the thin line. Using this idea, take note of which parts of the letters you write with down strokes and which are upstrokes. 

On the down stroke lines, draw in outline of how that line could be thickened. Generally these thickened lines taper off following the curve of the lines as they change direction. 

Once you’re happy with this, you can go back in with a pen to outline and colour in what you’ve done. 

Now you have your name written in a calligraphy style. The key is that it’s supposed to look handwritten, don’t stress too much over wobbly lines or bumps, it’s all part of the charm! 

This can be a great project for wedding place cards, you can buy any kind of card and write all your guests’ names by hand. Everyone appreciates a handmade touch. 

If you wanted to include calligraphy into the wedding invites, you can do this too. 

Once you write out the names of you and your fiance using the technique above, you can then scan it into a computer or take a photo if you don’t have a scanner ready. 

You can order any of my wedding invitations online and Paperlust can customise them to include the names you’ve written yourself. This way, you only write the names out once, and we print them on all your wedding invitations. They can even be done in real foil and you can tell all your guests that you made a personal contribution to the design.