For the wedding, and for the year before it

Twenty-two covers, in four kinds. Ten are a DEFINITION of one job on the day: the bride, the groom, the bridesmaid, the groomsman, the maid of honour, the best man, and the mother and father on both sides, each set out as a dictionary entry with their name beneath it. Eight are a THANK YOU to the same people in two lines, the job in a display serif and “because I couldn’t do this without you” in script under it, with a heart or a star where the full stop goes. Three are about the couple: two hands with their little fingers linked and your names lettered along the forearms, the same drawing with ENGAGED under it, or the whole day drawn along the base (rings, bouquet, cake, church and the car with the tins on it). The last is for the year before all that: Things to do before we say I do, a book for the to-do list and not a keepsake of the day. All twenty-two are drawn on screen before any money changes hands.

None of these covers is printed. The drawing and the names are cut into the hide itself by a laser in-house, so there is no ink sitting on the surface to lift at a corner in ten years, which for a wedding present is most of the point. Every name goes in before anything is made, and the preview shows it at the size and in the position it will be engraved. A wedding date does not move either, so here is how the making and the post work.

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The role covers and the couple covers are bought by different people

The eighteen role covers (ten definitions and eight thank-yous) are usually asked for, not chosen: a bridesmaid gift is usually bought by the bride, a best man gift by the groom, and what makes one land is that it names the job and takes it seriously. The definition does the work there, and the groom's side has its own mother and father covers, because nobody wants a shared one that reads as an afterthought. The couple covers are the opposite. A guest buying off a list wants something that survives the day and reads as having been chosen rather than clicked, which is what the symbols band does. The hands cover tends to be bought by somebody closer in, and it comes with the word under the drawing already set: ENGAGED for the year before, or nothing at all on the plain one, which then suits a proposal that has not happened yet.

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Where the names sit, which differs by cover

On the hands cover the names are lettered along the forearms, in the same unbroken line as the drawing, so they belong to the illustration instead of sitting underneath it. That rewards short forms: first names read beautifully along an arm and a double-barrelled surname does not. On the symbols cover the names sit above the drawing as ordinary typography, which is where a full name or a married surname belongs if you want one. Choose between the two on that basis. The picture is the part people notice; the names are the part they read.

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Before you type anything, settle three things

Whose name goes first, whether you are using the surname they have now or the one they are about to have, and whether a nickname is safe. The first is worth a moment because a cover is not a card and cannot be re-read the other way round. The second decides itself once you know when you are giving it: a present handed over at an engagement party with a married surname on it is a guess about a decision that is theirs. The third is the one that catches people out. A name only their friends use is a lovely thing to engrave and a difficult thing to explain to a grandmother, and the preview is where to find out how it looks before you commit to it.

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