Wedding Invitations: Labels vs Handwriting
So you have the invitations made and ready to mail out the door 6-8 weeks before your big day. How should you address the invitees? You could a) hire a calligrapher to elegantly address your guests, b) print labels on your home printer, or c) write out the names and addresses yourself, in your own pristine or atrocious handwriting!
If you have the time and budget hiring a calligrapher could be the perfect touch to your beautifully crafted invitations, making the guests feel that it truly will be a unique and special event. Oftentimes stationary stores or arts schools will know of someone local, or Craigslist will have calligraphers for hire. However, by the time you are two months from your wedding you may not have them time or money to hire a calligrapher which leads me to the next option of labels.
Labels have come a long way since the drab, office-white, rectangular style. It’s possible to get many different sizes, shapes and opacities. In addition there are software programs that allow you to add graphics or different fonts. (Avery does a great job of this). On a tight schedule they’re definitely the way to go. But, if your invitation is handmade or carefully crafted, a label may not be congruent with the rest of the invitation. We get junk-mail in our mailboxes everyday, and receiving a wedding invitation with a mail-merge label sometimes just doesn’t feel personal enough. It’s a shame to sometimes see an otherwise beautiful invitation ruined by a label, even a clear one.
A third option then of handwriting the invitations yourself? It depends on your handwriting and time allowance. My solution was to learn calligraphy. I’m definitely not the artsy one in my family, and was both elated and disappointed in fourth grade to receive the only “needs improvement” on my report card in penmanship. Who needs penmanship anyway? I thought. If only I had paid attention, I wouldn’t have been bent over a bunch of library books trying to crudely imitate the different alphabets of calligraphy. Surprisingly, it didn’t take too many evening sessions before I could properly address an envelope.
How to Learn Calligraphy Quickly:
1. Order a couple of calligraphy books from the library.
2. Go to your local arts store to buy a calligraphy pen. I used a Sheaffer pen in black and with a fine tip. In the Seattle area Aaron Brothers Art & Framing has a great supply.
Once in the groove they didn’t take that long to complete and I didn’t end up using as many extra envelopes as I thought I would. In the end I do think I managed to trick the few people (who noticed such things as the envelope on a wedding invitation) into thinking that it looked rather nice.
Here are two books that I found helpful from the library.
The Calligrapher’s Bible by David Harris
1-2-3 Calligraphy!: Letters and Projects for Beginners and Beyond by Eleanor Winters
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