Wedding invitations: handwritten vs labels

I'm old school and think invitations should be written by hand (calligraphy being ideal).

I found a font I liked and printed the STD envelopes on my home printer. Turned out great. Might do so for invitations too.

@IKD: Yes! It feels SO much more personal to me to get a hand written invitation, or one with calligraphy, than something printed. It sets the tone that you're a valued guest and that what's inside is different from the 10 other pieces of mail I got today. I don't care if the writing looks like chicken scratch, it makes a much more personal connection for me.

@Kristin F. My fiancé and I started out printing one at a time to make sure they looked ok. When we realized they did, we started testing to see how many we could do. We were able to do them in batches of 10. In all, it took us about an hour to print return addresses on 160 envelopes, addresses on 80 of those (for STDs - we will do the invite envelopes later), and 80 rsvp envelopes. It went by quickly!

I'm going to be printing mine directly on the envelopes. No cramped hands, no extra cost for calligrapher, no tacky labels.

Labels or using a printer may be easier but on a wedding invitation a label tells a story, and that story is, "I'm junk mail." Sure, you won't remember years from now, or guests won't remember that you used labels, but a piece of mail with a stick-on label could easily be mistaken for an offer or other marketing piece, and land in the circular file without a backward glance.

Advertisers figured out years ago that making ads and offers look like personal invitations worked to get people to open junk mail. Now most of us know better, and we don't get caught opening these faux invitations.

Seriously. Open your mailbox, see a hand addressed envelope these days and you'll know it's worth opening. It is indeed personal, a little vulnerable (bad handwriting is endemic) and totally sweet. I say write your peeps names on their invites. Write them and smile, because you're doing what brides have done for hundreds of years. Don't throw away a lovely tradition because you can't do it perfectly. No one needs perfect. Your guests just need you.