Planning a wedding is a mix of so many decisions. There are some vendors that are more standard and then there are some choices that are more of the extracurricular variety. One of these kind of hires is deciding whether to have a candy buffet or a photo booth. Another is deciding whether you need that special touch on your invitations. That special touch is hand written calligraphy. Sure, you could just have them printed through a printer, but there is something very special about the ancient art form of calligraphy. And if you have a professional hand write each one out, your guests will have an extra special feeling when they open your invitation and see that you went to all of that effort and extra money to make their invitation special. Keep in mind that this is the first time that many will hear of your impending nuptials. And now they get to feel like they are part of the royal court being invited to a coronation. As you can probably already tell, we are a huge fan of calligraphers making out the wedding invitations and envelopes. But in order to make this happen, you will need to seek out some professional calligraphers in the Raleigh area. Once you have a few in mind, use this guide to help you with your interviews and in making your final selection.

To start your quest, one of the best plans of attack that you could pursue is contacting the wedding vendors that you have already hired. Most experienced and knowledgeable wedding vendors are very familiar with every kind of wedding related skill and they should be able to provide you with at least a couple of calligraphers that would provide you with a start. You can also do a Google search for “calligraphers in the Raleigh area.” This should be very profitable in terms of the number of candidates that you see in the resulting pages. Start clicking on each link and researching each candidate's website. Decipher which candidates appear to be professional and of a quality that you would consider interviewing them for your open wedding position. Also, ask your family, friends and coworkers if they have ever hired a calligrapher that they had a great experience with or if they have ever seen an invitation that just knocked their socks off. If so, then track down the artists name and add them to your list.

When you sit down with each calligrapher, there are some specific questions that you will want to ask in order to determine which one will be best for you. Start by asking them how long it would take them to complete your invitations and envelopes. This is a great question to start with because if you are in a time crunch, you need to know if they can finish in a timely manner and within your time frame. How long have they done calligraphy? Where did they receive their training? We recommend that you look for someone who has had at least a few years of training because it does take some time to get the move down.

How much will their services cost you? This will be somewhat dependent on how many invitations and envelopes you need filled out and how complicated the information is. Do they offer other services like stamping, sealing, and stuffing of envelopes? Make sure that the one that you pick offers this, you will be happy that you availed yourself of it. Do they redo mistakes free of charge? The answer should be yes. These questions should give you all of the information you need to make an informed decision.