Addressing your invites

sarahufl · April 2014

We are getting ready to start assembling and sending invites (!!!) and so far haven't decided how we want to address them. We don't want to hire a calligrapher, so I am interested in hearing how other people did theirs. Print directly to the envelope? Some sort of fancy wraparound labels?

Thanks for the ideas!

ohmrs2014 · April 2014

We printed our directly on the envelope. Most people would say to handwrite them instead, but I have horrible handwriting and instead of using labels, we just printed them right on there. We had the place that we bought our invites from print the envelopes.

carliealissa · April 2014

I'm handwriting my own. I hate the look of printing or labels though on wedding invitations, something about it just seems a lot less personal. Just my own opinion. If you can't do calligraphy you can always do some other kind of interesting handwriting, I've seen all kinds of cool examples on etsy or just google. Or just your own natural handwriting.

jdluvr06 · April 2014

We're printing directly on the envelopes.

manateehugger · April 2014

I stressed about this for months and then realized no one will really care in the long run.

I bought a couple calligraphy pens, practiced for a night, and then just wrote them myself over the course of a couple evenings.

phira · April 2014

No one will care. I'm addressing all of the invitations because I have neater handwriting than my partner does, but I'll be taking about 2 months for it so I don't get cramps or reactivate my tendonitis.

If my handwriting sucked, I'd print directly on the envelopes, or I'd pay extra for our vendor to do it for us.

mysticl · April 2014

I have horrible, awful, terrible handwriting. So I printed directly on the envelopes. DH was not available to address envelopes as he was on an aircraft carrier somewhere in the Atlantic.

smalfrie19 · April 2014

we are using clear labels..people aren't going to care that much what's on the envelope..its going to get thrown away.

doeydo · April 2014

Get a pen/pencil and write them out.

mschristie123 · April 2014

I wrote them in best cursive on the envelopes. It was just easier than dealing with setting up labels in microsoft word or excel. I'm better with writing than I am with technology, I guess

Kauris · April 2014

I have wanted to learn calligraphy for awhile now, so I took a few classes from the lady that designed my invitations. I figure if they look jacked up at least people know I tried. Or hired a total amateur.

mysticl · April 2014

Something else to keep in mind is that the post office says you should print or type the delivery and return addresses on envelopes. The most important thing is that the invitation gets where it is going. Fancy writing could get in the way of that.

CMGragain · April 2014

The proper way to address a wedding invitation is to hand write them personally. I did my daughter's invitations, and the post office had no problems with my cursive handwriting.

mysticl · April 2014

CMGragain said:

The proper way to address a wedding invitation is to hand write them personally. I did my daughter's invitations, and the post office had no problems with my cursive handwriting.

I'm just saying that I looked up the post office's guidelines for addressing envelopes and it says to print or type. While they may not have had problems with yours I can guarantee they would have had problems with mine.

Also, schools are dropping cursive from their curriculums so in the next few years we most likely won't be seeing anything done in cursive.

CMGragain · April 2014

Yes, and this is so sad. One day when I was substitute teaching, we ran out of assigned tasks, so I taught the students to sign their names in cursive. Some students really liked it.

mysticl · April 2014

CMGragain said:

Yes, and this is so sad. One day when I was substitute teaching, we ran out of assigned tasks, so I taught the students to sign their names in cursive. Some students really liked it.

I agree it's sad.

silver0319 · April 2014

I ran my envelopes through the printer with a cursive font. I am a perfectionist when it comes to cursive, but have horrible spatial awareness when writing an address on an envelope.

mysticl said:

CMGragain said:

Yes, and this is so sad. One day when I was substitute teaching, we ran out of assigned tasks, so I taught the students to sign their names in cursive. Some students really liked it.

I agree it's sad.

I agree. My school doesn't teach or enforce cursive due to our unique special ed population. Many of my students have dysgraphia and do most of their work on the computer, but they need to at least know how to write their names. I've had students encounter issues when they've traveled to other countries and struggled signing their names on customs forms.

Peaseblossom55 · April 2014

I stressed over this for weeks. I wanted to hand write them I couldn't find a good pen that worked with the envelope. My handwriting wasn't as perfect as I wanted it to be. Eventually I caved in and printed the envelopes. I used the Edwardian font which was a bit like cursive and fancy. They came out really nice. I stressed over thought about something most people were going to toss a minutes after they receive it..

I'm so sad they aren't teaching cursive anymore....

CMGragain · April 2014

The professional calligraphers love it! It means more money for them, hand addressing invitations. Personally, I think calligraphy is a waste of money.

mysticl · April 2014

CMGragain said:

The professional calligraphers love it! It means more money for them, hand addressing invitations. Personally, I think calligraphy is a waste of money.

But does it? These kids are being raised in world where they type everything. They will think nothing of printing their envelopes and will probably see calligraphy as some archaic custom gone the way of the VCR and rotary dial phone.

HisGirlFriday13 · April 2014

I hand-wrote all of ours, but I have really good handwriting AND I learned calligraphy one summer at a summer camp.

If you buy a calligraphy pen (even a faux one that just has a special nib), you can fake calligraphy pretty easily.

Just address them however it will be easiest for the USPS to read it and deliver it.

MyNameIsNot · April 2014

I have horrible penmanship, so I planned to just print the envelopes. We ended up going with metallic envelopes that didn't agree with my printer, so it was up to my husband.

Lucky for him, my awesome sister and mother ended up volunteering to help address them one night when they were over for dinner. Between the 3 of them, all 100 envelopes were addressed by the time I got dinner on the table.

If you can print on the envelope, I'd go that way unless you have a FI or a volunteer with decent handwriting.

AddieCake · April 2014

The fact that schools are dropping cursive blows my mind and appalls me. Kids are now sitting there struggling to sign their damned security oath on the SAT. As for invitations, I wrote ours out. The post office has been delivering mail with cursive handwriting forever, so I don't know why it would be any different with wedding invitations.

sarahufl · April 2014

I have decent handwriting and use cursive a lot, actually. So I may go that way.

And I agree- I can't believe kids aren't learning it anymore.

mysticl · April 2014

The rational I've read for why they aren't teaching cursive anymore is because there simply isn't time. They have to make sure they teach everything the kids need for the state tests plus the tests themselves can cause students to miss a week or two of instruction because they don't teach while testing is going on. Something had to give. Handwriting isn't on the test.

jdluvr06 · April 2014

mysticl said:

The rational I've read for why they aren't teaching cursive anymore is because there simply isn't time. They have to make sure they teach everything the kids need for the state tests plus the tests themselves can cause students to miss a week or two of instruction because they don't teach while testing is going on. Something had to give. Handwriting isn't on the test.

Gah! Those test are the down fall of our educational system. Instead of really teaching and having a comprehensive curriculum the teachers are forced to teach "to the test". My cousin is a teacher and it pisses her off to no end.

phira · April 2014

Honestly, given that the majority of people I know do NOT write in cursive, I'm not sure why dropping it is such a big deal. I'm all for penmanship; barring disability, people should learn how to write legibly. And I'm definitely NOT in favor of teaching towards standardized tests (which is something that's been dragging the MA system down--fucking MCAS!). But I really don't get why cursive is so important.

mysticl · April 2014

phira said:

Honestly, given that the majority of people I know do NOT write in cursive, I'm not sure why dropping it is such a big deal. I'm all for penmanship; barring disability, people should learn how to write legibly. And I'm definitely NOT in favor of teaching towards standardized tests (which is something that's been dragging the MA system down--fucking MCAS!). But I really don't get why cursive is so important.

For one thing they don't know how to sign their names. Even with all of our technology there are still things that require a signature.

http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/curriculum-instruction/5-reasons-cursive-writing-should-be-taught-in-school/

http://www.newamericancursive.com/learncursive

pinkshorts27 · April 2014

If I couldn't read cursive, I wouldn't be able to read my grandma's diaries. She has kept them since she was a little girl and is sharing them for the family to read. Her life was so interesting and it gave me greater respect for my life and my parents.

phira · April 2014

mysticl said:

phira said:

Honestly, given that the majority of people I know do NOT write in cursive, I'm not sure why dropping it is such a big deal. I'm all for penmanship; barring disability, people should learn how to write legibly. And I'm definitely NOT in favor of teaching towards standardized tests (which is something that's been dragging the MA system down--fucking MCAS!). But I really don't get why cursive is so important.

For one thing they don't know how to sign their names. Even with all of our technology there are still things that require a signature.

http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/curriculum-instruction/5-reasons-cursive-writing-should-be-taught-in-school/

http://www.newamericancursive.com/learncursive

I'm really not sure that signatures necessitate years of learning cursive, especially since my signature is illegible and I know people who don't sign their names in cursive.

mysticl · April 2014

phira said:

mysticl said:

phira said:

Honestly, given that the majority of people I know do NOT write in cursive, I'm not sure why dropping it is such a big deal. I'm all for penmanship; barring disability, people should learn how to write legibly. And I'm definitely NOT in favor of teaching towards standardized tests (which is something that's been dragging the MA system down--fucking MCAS!). But I really don't get why cursive is so important.

For one thing they don't know how to sign their names. Even with all of our technology there are still things that require a signature.

http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/curriculum-instruction/5-reasons-cursive-writing-should-be-taught-in-school/

http://www.newamericancursive.com/learncursive

I'm really not sure that signatures necessitate years of learning cursive, especially since my signature is illegible and I know people who don't sign their names in cursive.

What years? I'm pretty sure we only had cursive lessons for one year maybe two but then I spent the rest of academic career as well as part of my professional career using it.

Also, a printed signature is easier to forge.

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