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Make your own invitation to the Coronation!

Has your invitation to the Coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla got lost in the mail?  Never fear, you can make your own ‘replacement’ <g>.  Or more likely use the ornate graphics for some other purpose, not always so serious.

Here’s an ‘invitation’ made in PowerPoint with a name added (including compulsory Monty Python reference).  UPDATE: we’ve had a peek at some real Coronation invites and can now more closely match the font used for names and the text colour. Thanks to Camilla Wright for the tip.

I’ve had fun sending email/messaged personal coronation invitations to friends and, in some cases, their pets!  We’ll show how to do the same thing in PowerPoint or Word.

Blank Coronation Invitation

Here’s the official coronation invitation.

Source: Royal.uk

It’s an amazingly detailed artwork. Spend a few moments checking out the fine details. Eyes are drawn to the ‘Green Man’ bottom centre but look for a robin, bee and even a wild boar (bottom left corner).

The usual suspects like “Tatler”, “Harper’s Bazaar” etc talk about the intricate details of the colourful design, sometimes from their ‘palace sources’ aka the official web site.  Trust The Guardian to give a more jaundiced view of the ‘pagan’ design.

Download the Coronation invitation image from Royal.uk or above (right click on the image and choose ‘Save Image as …’ or similar option in your browser).

See also All 20 Coronation emblems and how to use them in Microsoft Office

Text Font and Colour

A close look at the lettering on the palace supplied image shows that it’s not a single ‘mid blue’ color but a mix with darker areas along the edges and a lighter shade in the middle of strokes.  All the lettering edges are ‘fuzzy’ which makes sense since the lettering is probably human calligraphy not a font.

The color we settled on is #2D2F75 (lighter) but you might prefer some other shades towards #1C1E64 (darker).

However, images of real invitations appear to use a darker colour either full Black #000000 or a very dark gray like #181818.

Font

We’ve revised our font suggestions having seen some real invitations with actual names. That adds confusion because there’s no consistency in the lettering. We’re not sure why that’s so – could all 2,000 invites have hand-lettered names? Our new font suggestion is based on the most common style used in the invites seen.

Various options for font.  Since the original might be hand lettering there won’t be an exact match.  A few close-ish free font we found is

Reynolds Chancery https://www.ffonts.net/Reynolds-Chancery.font.download# (not the ‘Deux’ variant contained in the same download.

or try our previous suggestions.

Quintessential  https://www.whatfontis.com/FF_Quintessential.font?text=Office%20Watch

Petitscript https://www.whatfontis.com/FF_Petitscript.font?text=Office %20Watch

For a quick job, use Lucida Blackletter font which is installed with modern Office for Windows or Mac.  It fits the style of the invitation while letting the name stand out from the rest of the text.

There’s no need to match the existing lettering.  You could use a scrawly handwriting font or even write names yourself to make it jokingly obvious that the invitation has been changed.

Whatever font you use, apply the right colour (see above).

Your own Coronation invitation

Now you have all you need.  The invitation, a font and the matching color.  A few moments in PowerPoint or Word produced this very sincere looking invite.

Adding a name

Simply insert a text box in the blank space then insert and format the text.

Queen Elizabeth’s invitation

The 2023 invite is a long way from Her Majesty’s version in 1953. One color and plain brown card as suited austere post-war Britain.

Why Norfolk?

Both invitations are ‘signed’ “Norfolk” with an embossed emblem representing the Duke of Norfolk.

Traditionally, the Duke of Norfolk organises coronations as part of his hereditary role as Earl Marshal.

Is this legal?

There’s no mention of copyright on the official web site but presumably there are some copyright protections available.  In practice, non-commercial / personal use is probably OK with little risk of the Earl Marshal or the Grenadier Guards turning up at your door.

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