Wedding Invitations Inspired by Old-Fashioned Love Letters
Old fashioned love letters, the kind your great grandparents might have written to each other when they were courting, are inspiring wedding stationery again in 2026. In a modern world that rewards and reinforces hustle and efficiency, couples are turning once more to the scenic route - slower, more personal connections that feel warm and intimate, not transactional. Weddings are inherently romantic, and what could be more romantic than a love-letter-inspired invitation to make your loved ones feel like your favourite pen pals? This is how we can create vintage style snail mail for your wedding - no pigeon required.
Vintage materials to create wedding invitations that feel inspired by old fashioned love letters:
Receiving a love letter in the mail is a deeply tactile and emotional experience, so we start with making your wedding invitations feel sentimental and straight out of the handwriting age. Real vintage love letters are made of soft, time-worn paper that is off-white in colour, which we can recreate with beautiful handmade or cotton cardstock. Slight ‘imperfections’ such as deckled edges and fibre flecks, paired with cream, ivory or oatmeal tones for the base colour really add to the aged aesthetic. Add ink-coloured text on top, and you’ve got yourself a wedding invitation to rival Napoleon’s longing letters to Josephine.
For old fashioned love letters, it has to be handwritten:
To really capture the romance as intensely as Beethoven did in his declarations to his mysterious ‘Immortal Beloved’, only handwritten will do. Luckily, we have plenty of handwriting style fonts available to use now to express the emotion without sacrificing legibility. Many Scribed by Sophie couples already opt for hand calligraphy in certain places on their stationery, such as envelope addressing or names on place cards. There’s something about having your name written in looping cursive that feels utterly special, don’t you agree?
Typewriter fonts are also a lovely option, particularly when combined with a literary inspired stationery suite, and a combination of handwritten, pretty serif and typewriter fonts can be really impactful.
What you write is just as important as the font it’s written in:
Old fashioned love letters use thoughtful language and slow, romantic phrasing, formal openings and emotive closings. To create wedding invitations inspired by letter writing, consider:
Opening with wording such as ‘dearest’ or ‘beloved’, and closing with ‘yours always’ or ‘yours expectantly’
Make it personal and warm, from the information about what’s happening and where to the request for an RSVP
Use language that references waiting, longing or anticipating, to really elevate that feeling that the invitation is a letter sent from a great distance
For more wedding invitation wording advice, you can read my guide to help you say the right thing in all scenarios.
The little details that make your wedding invitations feel like long-lost love letters:
I’m willing to bet that John Keats’ legendary love letters included at least some of these elements, and your wedding invitations should too if you want them to feel beautifully vintage. The little details are the things that will make your wedding stationery feel convincingly archaic and your guests feel spectacularly special:
Wax seals, a signature element of old correspondence. Consider deep, classic coloured wax (navy blue, deep green, blood red) and imperfect impressions, and use them for both sealing and decoration
Vintage stamps and postmarks were signs that love letters had travelled, so how about using these on your wedding invitations too? This makes the envelope feel like part of the design story, rather than an afterthought
Folded invitations - because old fashioned love letters were almost always folded, handled, and refolded. Consider designs with tri-folds, layered stacks of information cards, and vellum wraps to hold everything together
For more modern-vintage detail pairings, read this blog - you might find even more inspiration for your love letter wedding invitations inside.
Give your wedding invitations a keepsake quality - just as old-timey love letters were stored and re-read over and over again:
Couples these days want more and more for their wedding stationery to be a keepsake, choosing to keep certain elements and seeking designs that encourage guests to take it home with them - I’ll bet Anne Boleyn never threw one of Henry VIII’s love letters into a black bin liner, so neither should you!
Using heavy paper stock, luxury printing methods and beautifully timeless designs that feel personally crafted all increase the likelihood that you’ll want to keep your stationery. So what should you do with it after your wedding? You could put together a creative collage containing your invitation, menu cards, your own name cards and even sections of signage, and put it together flatlay-style in a frame with decorative ribbon, a pressed dried flower or two, and a photo of the two of you from the big day.
Did you know Scribed by Sophie also creates stationery for other life milestones?
Honestly, designing wedding invitations inspired by old fashioned love letters is so perfectly aligned with how I love to work, so I’m thrilled to see this theme growing in popularity again. If you’re also into all things vintage, regency and archaic, you might also love:
Bridgerton inspired wedding stationery straight out of the ‘Ton.
Gothic romance wedding stationery…with bite
MUCH LOVE,
Sophie
x
