An atelier for wedding stationery · London & Lyon

One wedding, told in paper.

We make the invitation, the vows, the menus and the thank-yous for twelve weddings a year — engraved, pressed and written by hand. This is one of them.

Begin ten months before

A complete wedding invitation suite on cream linen: engraved card, calligraphed envelope, berry-red wax seal, sage sprig and blush silk ribbon — Margaux & HenriProvence, June

The nib of a calligraphy pen drawing one unbroken berry-red line across cream cotton paper

It begins, as everything does, with a line.

Ten months before

The announcement

A writing desk in pale morning light: stacked calligraphed envelopes, an oblique dip pen resting on a pot of berry-red ink — No. I — The invitationengraving on 638gsm cotton

It began, as all our commissions do, with a letter. Margaux wrote from Lyon in September: a wedding the following June, at her grandmother’s house in Provence; two hundred and twelve guests; and one instruction — nothing that shines.

We proposed engraving on heavy cotton, and an ink the colour of late-summer cherries. The plate was cut in October. She kept the first proof; it is framed in their kitchen now.

ink mixed to match · edition of 212 · plate kept

Extreme close-up of engraved script pressed into cotton paper, the letters filled with berry-red ink — The impressionbefore the ink

The morning of

The vows

Two books, small enough for a jacket pocket. Henri’s bound in cream, Margaux’s in plum silk — she said he would cry onto whichever we gave him, so we chose the one that wouldn’t show it.

Sixteen pages each, written out in the same hand that addressed the envelopes, with room left at the end for what gets added at the last minute. Something always is.

handbound, silk & cotton · sixteen pages · one hand

Two small handbound vow books on blush linen — one cream, one plum silk — beside a letterpress ceremony program — No. II — The vow booksthe morning of

Read once aloud. Kept forever.

At table

Two hundred and twelve names

A long wedding table dressed in sage linen under soft daylight, a letterpress menu at every place and a berry-inked place card in the foreground — No. III — The tableProvence, eight o’clock

Provence, June, eight o’clock. One table for two hundred and twelve under the plane trees — at every place a menu pressed into cotton, and a name written in berry ink.

No two cards alike. The calligrapher’s hand loosens as evening comes, and we let it. By the cheese course the guests had begun trading them like cards.

menus, letterpress · 212 names · one hand, one evening

A calligrapher's hand writing a name in berry-red ink on a cream place card, finished cards fanned beyond — The 212th namewritten last

After dark

The evening

A candlelit dinner menu on deep plum velvet, a dance card with a berry silk tassel beside a glinting wax seal — No. IV — After darkmenus & dance cards

After dinner the light changes, and the paper changes with it. The dance cards came out with the brandy — a Longhand habit borrowed from another century — each with a berry tassel and a single line inside.

The candles were relit twice. Nobody kept time. The cards were kept anyway.

dance cards · berry silk, hand-tied · one line inside

The last dance is spoken for.

Long after

The day ends. The paper doesn’t.

A single thank-you card on rumpled cream linen with a broken berry wax seal, a dried sage sprig and one pressed blush flower — The thank-yousa year to the week

The thank-you notes went out in September, a year to the week after Margaux’s first letter. The flowers are gone. The music has ended. But the invitation is framed in their hallway, the vow books live in a drawer that both of them check on, and somewhere in Provence two hundred and twelve place cards are pressed inside two hundred and twelve books.

The wedding lasted a day. The paper is still working.

Commissions MMXXVII

Twelve a year.
By letter.

Longhand is four people, two hand presses, and a shelf of copper plates going back to our first wedding. We engrave, print, bind and write everything ourselves, in editions counted by hand.

Tell us the place, the date, and one true thing about the two of you. The true thing matters most.

enquiries@longhand.press

By appointment — 14 Bourdon Street, London · Croix-Rousse, Lyon

A berry-red wax seal embossed with the letter L, pressed onto a cream envelope against plum darkness — Sealed by handevery envelope

One wedding, told in paper.

The day ends. The paper doesn’t.

Twelve a year.By letter.

Twelve a year.
By letter.