"Technically" they should be handwritten. My handwriting is awful, and I can't afford to pay someone, so I'm having my Mom do them. I asked her to do it "as a wedding gift" because she's already spending a lot to travel to our wedding, I don't want her to buy us a gift....and her handwriting is gorgeous.
But honestly, if I received an invite with a label on it, I would never think "OMG they're so tacky!" It's quicker, easier, and looks nicer if you don't have nice handwriting.
Of all the weddings I've been to, I can't honestly remember if any of them have been hand addressed or had labels.
I hand wrote mine. And I've just committed myself to the fact I have or will commit several faux paus, lol. At least our parents are good at telling us when we veer too far off the logical path!
We printed directly onto the envelope in a pretty font - my handwriting isn't the best but I really didn't want to do labels. This worked as a great alternative for both.
We put labels on ours. I never pay attention to the envelope so I didn't want to stress over it. I am stressing more over the fact that I didn't write "and guest" on the envelopes if the ppl were single...obviously I'm not much on etiquette...lol.
Labels are fine as long as they aren't boring white office labels with Comic Sans font. My friend ordered invitations that came with gorgeous, coordinating labels, and she printed the addresses on them in a nice, cursive font. You could also use clear labels.
You can also print directly on the envelopes, as another poster mentioned. I really like this idea since one argument I heard against labels is that the edges tend to accumulate lint/dirt during travel, so they can look sort of tacky. If you're using dark envelopes, though, this shouldn't be an issue.
My handwriting gets bad after writing for a few minutes, so I might do that trick where you print on the labels in a very, very light color and then trace over it with a black calligraphy pen. We'll see if I have the patience for that, though.
I will be handwritting mine. I handwrote the Save-the-Dates as well. I read somewhere that handwritting your invites is actually preferred seeing it's more personal.
I think it depends on if the invitations are important to you or if you are just mailing them just because you have to in order to get your wedding details out there. If you are trying to stick with etiquette I would handwrite them, especially if you don't have the budget for calligraphy. Another budget friendly option that still looks nice is to actually print on the envelope itself ( you are saving cost on the labels). If you paid a good amount of money for nice invitations, you might as well stick with it all the way through.
you could go with clear labels? I was originally going to do that but found that I could print directly on the envelopes really easily so I went that round instead so I could have it print even larger. Ended up doing the return addresses this way too since it came out much nicer than the self inking stamp I bought and cheaper than having the company do it. I'd say play around with your printer and see how you do with printing directly to the envelope itself.
Re: Is it tacky to hand address invites?
Married in Vegas - June 2011
J + A [4-15-13] + JJ [1-22-14]
MARCH SIGGY CHALLENGE (for April 2013 brides): Bridesmaid dresses
You can also print directly on the envelopes, as another poster mentioned. I really like this idea since one argument I heard against labels is that the edges tend to accumulate lint/dirt during travel, so they can look sort of tacky. If you're using dark envelopes, though, this shouldn't be an issue.
My handwriting gets bad after writing for a few minutes, so I might do that trick where you print on the labels in a very, very light color and then trace over it with a black calligraphy pen. We'll see if I have the patience for that, though.
If not, then label that bad boy!