Bumblebee Calligraphy gets married!

In July 2023, Mr and Miss Bumblebee tied the knot!

Did we combine our artistic skills to completely personalise the day? You betcha!

Let’s set the scene: we married in a beautiful Kent golf course on a perfectly warm July day. The venue and staff were incredible.

I designed my own save-the-date cards on terracotta-coloured card with black ink in a modern calligraphy style. They were no bigger than credit card size as I wanted something that would stand out but not take up too much space on a refrigerator, memo board or wallet.

Did I stick to a colour pallette? Nope! I love colour and didn’t want to limit myself and as it was my wedding I was prepared to play with all different colours without a strict theme. I loved the freedom of that.

I designed the invites on Canva and hand-wrote the names in gold coliro ink, in a modern calligraphy style with a Nikko G pointed nib. The envelope colour was chosen by Mr Bumblebee - we went for teal. Why didn’t I choose it myself? I wanted it to feel very much like OUR wedding, not MY wedding and I value his opinion. He has a great artistic eye and we often find ourselves talking about tones, hues and colours used in artwork, home decor or even car colours! I trusted his opinion and he chose well!

Something I wanted to do very much and was ridiculously excited about was our own wax seal! I still have it and bring it out to seal envelopes for cards we send, when I can. This felt like next-level wedding personalisation and something I hadn’t seen other people do (although I’m sure they have!). I used gold wax and a mix of red and gold seals to give a bit of variety. I love the imperfectness of that which is very ‘us’; there’s so much beauty in non-uniformity. The seals also came in handy when we needed extra confetti pouches; instead of ordering more, I sealed some c6 powder blue envelopes I had, opened one end and filled them with biodegradable petal confetti. Repurposing envelopes that I already had felt great. I wanted to limit any waste.

Our wedding wax seal

Designed by Bumblebee Calligraphy (London based calligrapher and engraver)

I used a fudenosuke brush pen to hand letter the handful of reserved seating signs, the table setting board I made and the table signs. The birds were beautifully drawn by Mr Bumblebee (I told you he was arty!).

The welcome sign was painted and lettered using acrylic paints and posca pens in white.

Each table also had a square jar of mint humbugs with our initials and the words ‘mint to be’ lettered in pink posca pens for guests to enjoy.

Finally, the placecards. I decided long before that I wanted to use Indian handmade Khadi paper with hand-torn edges to create a classic, romantic look. I wanted a rich Cadbury purple tassel and a watercolour wash along the bottom. I ended up choosing gold to give an elegant touch and a great compliment to the purple. I didn’t want the lettering to be gold too as I felt it would get lost on the cream coloured paper. Sumi black would stand out enough to grab the guest’s attention and make finding their seat easy (and a joy). These doubles as personalised bookmarks for our guests and pretty much all were taken home! So impressed were the staff when we delivered these the day before, I made a couple extra for them as thank yous.

Could the design of the stationary have been better co-ordinated? Sure. Could the colours have stuck to a theme? Absolutely. Could I have added more calligraphy and personalisation to the day? Yes. Would any of this have been necessary or made the day better? No way. It was perfect.

Happy Anniversary Mr Bumblebee!