How to Choose Your Ink

Maybe you’ve deliberated for weeks to put together the perfect wedding palette —or you’ve known for years which colors will perfectly echo the spirit of your union.

The ink on your wedding stationery and wedding signs is pure color! It should amplify your carefully curated color palette. I understand the alchemy of creating custom inks that add extra magic to your wedding or special event.

On your wedding signage, table signs, and wedding stationery, ink color is one of the clever details that bind the total look of your event. In addition to your color palette, here are some other factors to consider in choosing your calligraphy inks.

Printer’s ink color

Allow me to custom-match these colors so all features of your invitation are in harmony.

Also, consider playing with this color to find a harmonizing or complimentary color; a pale ‘pinks and greens’ paper/printer color scheme on your invitation might be enhanced with envelope addressing in a dark forest green or rich raspberry. A very formal ‘black and red’ event might want gold or silver calligraphy ink.

This ‘French gray and ivory’ ensemble created the ideal opportunity for a perfectly custom-matched, ivory ink. The effect on the overall invitation suite was pure elegance.

Metallic inks -

Some couples or event planners contact me knowing they want gold ink everywhere! Other’s are delighted when they first learn this is an option. But there are an infinite number of shades of gold, from near-white to near-pewter, and from a cool near-silver to a warm and very trendy rose-gold. If your envelopes are gold-lined or your stationery is gold foiled, ask me about matching these tones. (No ink can mimic the reflective quality of foiling but the tones and hues can definitely be matched).

And…there are other metals! A green & black ‘dark faerie’ wedding wanted silver ink and it was perfection. A very formal ‘bronze and navy blue’ wedding decided on a bronze ink for a most striking wedding invitation.

Harmonize with your stationery colors -

White or light wedding stationery is the perfect canvas and can handle almost any ink. It mainly wants dark, or rich, or any metallic inks - except silver.

Black or dark wedding stationery wants light, white, or bright colored inks. This is the perfect opportunity to experiment with iridescent, opalescent, or interference inks. These are not for understated affairs! They’re sparkly and showy and demand your guest’s attention.

Interference inks

These shift between two colors as the light moves across your invitation envelope or your place card (green and gold, blue and lavender, etc). It’s not easy to get more dramatic than this without mixing ink colors…

Mixing ink colors

This can be done with any mix of the inks above. By feeding different inks into the pen as the calligrapher letters your addresses or place cards, the colors blend, merge, and shift and each item in your suite is unique.

Sepia or walnut inks -

Consider sepia or walnut inks if your theme is either traditional, rustic, or timeless. A copperplate script calligraphy in walnut ink effortlessly creates the look of a family heirloom. It’s impossible for a guest to part with such an invitation or name card after your wedding day becomes a happy memory.

A Final Tip:

For my calligraphy to be as beautiful as possible, your stationery should be smooth, non-fibrous, and not “polished”, i.e., nothing glossy or slick.

(Photo is a lux, but super fibrous handmade paper that I surface-treated to handle calligraphy pens and ink).

Fortunately, most printers of wedding stationery will use paper that’s appropriate for professional calligraphy. But they may also tempt you with lovely specialty hand made papers that are soft or fibrous. If these lux papers claim your heart, don’t despair! Ask your printer for a few samples so your calligrapher can test them out with your chosen inks. Your printer likely has a wealth of scraps to share — and your calligrapher will thank you! There are good remedies for many of these papers but experimenting is necessary before the best approach is found.