Weddingbee boards

We found these great deep hunter/forest green envelopes for our invitations!

Our first thought was to use clear address labels (I assumed that plain white labels wouldn't look very nice on such a lovely envelope) and then print on them with white or gold ink so the ink would show up. FAIL. I can't get light colored ink to show up on the clear label against the dark envelope to save my life. And dark ink doesn't show up either against the deep color of the envelope. Is there a way to make that work?

Then I discovered the wrap around lables that everyone is mentioning. Great idea! I was thinking about using long white avery labels and just printing cute DIY fonts, colors and designs on them to glam them up a little.

I mentioned this to my mother and she was aghast. I guess you are supposed to hand address all invitations. I thought calligraphy was just a fun little DIY thing some brides chose to do to add a nice personal touch. I didn't realize it was rude or tacky to print address labels on the computer instead of hand addressing them. Is this still true today with modern weddings - or is that an idea of the past from my mother's generation?

Any ideas? Thanks!

There are definitely two schools of thought on this.  A lot of more traditional brides would say that they shouldn't be printed on at all.  But i personally think the wraparound labels or directly printed envelopes look really good.  It also probably wouldn't hurt for it to reflect the formality of your wedding.  If you are having a super formal wedding, it would probably make more sense to hand address or calligraphy them.

But, I think you should address them however you want!  Even if that means doing it in crayon!

traditionally, they should be hand addressed.  however, in recent years, things like wrap around lables have become more acceptable.

they should reflect the formality of your wedding - so it you're having a casual back yard wedding, wrap around lables are fine. 

another way to hand address them with out hiring a calligrapher would be to hand address them yourself using a metallic paint pen (you can pick them up at michaels)

For our more formal wedding, I did faux calligraphy http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/01/22/calligraphy-101/ using a calligraphy pen with sepia ink and very very light gray ink. I think caiigraphed envelopes add a nice touch.