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Is it completely terrible to hand address your invites? Do you find Calligraphy an unnecessary expense? Did you wrangle your computer into addressing each envelope?
Tell us what you plan to do or did and why!
I addressed by hand in my "best cursive."
A few things played into this -
I'm having a small wedding (only 40 envelopes to address)
I'm not that handy with a printer, didn't want to deal with that
I didn't think paying for calligraphy was worth it - and seemed like a pain (where would I even find one?)
We're addressing ours (currently!) by hand. Our wedding is more informal that most of yours probably are so calligraphy is totally out of the question (not to mention budget!) and I dont feel like messing with the printer/buying labels.
Is Hand addressing totally faux pas?
I personally find hand addressing the invitations to be much more personal. My wedding was fairly small (sent about 65 - 70 invites) and I hand wrote both the address of the person as well as the return address.
What is funny though-- I met a woman today and we chit chatted about our lives. The second I told her I'm getting married very soon she asked me if she needed a calligrapher because she has "addressed thousands of wedding invitations". Too bad I didn't need her services because that would have ben awesome timing, given that my invites arrived today.
I love the look of calligraphy, but it's certainly not in the budget. We'll probably do them by hand...but then again my invites are still a while away and we might change our minds. :)
I have a cousin who does calligraphy and she did our invites as a gift to us...BUT I think computer printed envelopes (not labels) would be fine.
@snake: Actually, printing on a computer is said to be the major invite faux pas. Not sure I agree with that though.
I just wonder how much calligraphy would be for invites. anyone have a guess?
I'm calligraphing (is that a word?) myself. I bought lots of extra envelopes in case I make mistakes. Thank god, I got a great deal on them. 
@stlginkgo: Oh good distinction between labels and computer-printed! :)
honestly computer printed on the envelope compared to a hand done job I can't tell the differnece between, its when you add a label in there that makes it look odd....
I have HORRIBLE writing. So i am using the work printer like I do for everything ;)
I am hand addressing them-right now. It is always appropriate. Our reception is 250 people, so that is about 140 invites. I am just doing 20 a day for a week.
My invites are printed in a sans serif block print font, so I am printing them in a similar way.
Computer.
I don't want to pay a calligrapher, and fiance and I both have HORRIBLE handwriting.
I hand wrote them in my best printing. I'll admit it - when I see a label slapped onto a beautiful wedding invitation, I judge. It looks lazy.
I split mine up over two nights and hand-wrote all 100 addresses and return addresses. It is NOT that much effort.
We used a calligrapher because: our hand writing is horrible, we have a large wedding, a lot of our friends are students so they move over the summer and it is easier to communicate address changes with the calligrapher.
They lady we hired did an amazing job! They turned out so beautiful!
I did about 100 invites when it was all said and done.
I printed the outer envelope (also a design that matched the invite on the inside)
I hand addressed the inner envelope with the names of all the family members invited. Some families were just Mr. and Mrs. John and Jane Smith. Others were Mr. and Mrs. John and Jane Smith, Becky Smith, and Johnny Smith.
@snake- etiquette says that hand addressing is best. Seriously!
We have terrible handwiritng, so we did ours by computer so they would look more professional. I guess the custom is that handwriting looks like you are a "great host that cares about each and every guest." That is not MY opinion, that is what I have researched on etiquette.
My handwriting is not that great and calligraphy is just not a budget priority, so we're doing wrap-around labels on fancy paper. It's what we did for our save-the-dates too. Seriously, printing those things out, cutting them, spraying with adhesive, and then placing them on the envelopes probably takes as long as writing it out. I hope my guests realize we care about them!
Computer printed labels.
I was not about to pay people to write on an envelope that goes in the garbage right after they get it...its not about the money, but more the principle..I've received dozens of wedding invites over the years and can't remember what one envelope looked like..
For the save-the-dates we used labels that I made online for each guest by uploading the guest list and for the invitations we hired a calligrapher. I wish I could do calligraphy but hiring the calligrapher made such a great difference for us and to me it was well worth the money...that said, my cursive isn't very pretty!
I was going to do the faux-calligraphy that a few bees have posted about (tracing over a computer printed font) but I decided it would be too time consuming. I used the computer. The font was called "Invitation" so I figured it was acceptable :)
One of the bees printed hers on the computer and then hand-traced them. While this is a lot of work, she got the hand-lettered look at a fraction of the price. I am going to try it with a couple envelopes and see what I think.
We hired a calligrapher, and just got them back today--they look amazing! In answer to the question about price, we paid $1.15 per invitatin set (address on outer envelope + our address on RSVP envelope) which is a pretty good deal.
I'm having my soon to be sister-in-law/BM hand-address them. She has perfect handwriting and took a calligraphy class. :)
We're doing invitation jackets not envelopes, so we can't run them through a printer. They came with labels which I planned on utilizing as we BOTH have horrendous handwriting... but now y'all have me all self conscious... Oh, and the jacket is BLACK.
I'm going to use a light-board and hand address.... well, my jerry-rigged light-board. I'm got a peice of glass that I'm going to stick a lamp under. lol.
I would do the printed "faux"ligraphy, but my printer sucks big time.
I'm surprised more girls don't do more of the faux calligraphy by tracing over the computer font if they're really looking for calligraphy look at a more reasonable costs.
With that being said, I will be doing computer printed labels. I just don't care enough about etiquette to hand write them.
Traditionally, addresses were supposed to be hand-written. However, calligraphy was out of our budget, and neither NotFroofy nor I has particularly good handwriting. We decided that getting the envelopes to where they were supposed to go was more important than following tradition, so we used a nice computer font.
I hand caligraphied all of our invites... They look pretty good (the guy at the post office actually made a comment about how nice they were and asked who did them). That being said, My hand will never be the same. Carpol tunnel here I come! :)
can't afford calligraphy/not a priority for our budget, both have bad handwriting. so I planned to print on the envelope but then we lined the envelopes before doing the printing, now I'm not sure if the envelopes will be too thick for the printer, sigh. will just do labels in that case. i seriously think that if anyone judges us for using labels, they don't belong at our wedding. with our guest count and all the other DIY projects we're doing, hand addressing is out of the question; I'm already super overwhelmed. there are other ways to show your guests that you care that will have more of an impact. if you didn't care, you wouldn't be inviting them to your wedding. just my 2 cents.
If you want to do calligraphy for cheap, you might consider asking art students at a local college. That's how I ended up doing calligraphy for my friend's sister's wedding a few years ago. There were about 100 invitations, and it took me two days, but they paid me $30, invited me to the wedding to hang out with my friend who wouldn't know many people, and fed me pizza one day. I felt okay about it, and they ended up with gorgeous invitations.
Computer labels. I just couldn't see spending money on an envelope that is just going to go in the trash. And I got lots of complements on my invites! (which were also super cheap, from vista print).
IFor my STDs, I printed the addressed on index cards using a font that I liked and that was easy to trace, then put the cards in the envelops and traced them using an ultra fine sharpie and a light box. Obviously a lot of steps, but they looked great, and I saved the index cards so I can do it again for invites and thank you cards.
i hand addressed the STDs, and computer printed directly on the envelopes for the invites in the same font as the invites. well except for like 3-4 envelopes since my printer had a fit. lol so those people got my horrid handwriting for their envelopes LOL
i am not a fan of labels on anything period, it seems so unpersonal, but if you have like over 100 envelopes to address i see how its easier. personally though i couldnt care less how the envelope gets there. its like stamps. who really cares?
We printed our envelopes. Partly because it made it clearer to see and we were sending them overseas so we didn't want our handwriting confusing post offices overseas and partly because I was too lazy to address them by hand.
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