What's Your Envelope Style?
Calligraphy, Hand-Lettering or Digital Printing?
So you’ve picked out your invitation design style, and started your guest list, but what about how you will actually physically get those guest addresses onto the invitation envelopes?
Luckily, there is an addressing style for every budget, and the overall options come down to three main categories: Calligraphy, Hand-Lettering and Digital Addressing
Calligraphy Addressing
Calligraphy is the art of pointed-pen handwriting, and it is a drop-dead-gorgeous art form that takes years of painstaking practice to perfect. It can elevate an envelope from “oh, sweet invite!” to “holy balls I am never throwing this envelope away”.
It also takes a lot of time to hand-write every single address in beautiful looping swirls, so the pricing of hand-calligraphy reflects that. This is a great fit for couples who want to invest a bit more in their invitation to really make their guests feel special and excited about their invitation, and to give envelopes a more formal feel. It’s also the best way to do a metallic ink for a guest address (drool!)
Hand-Lettered Envelopes
If calligraphy isn’t in your budget but you still want your envelopes to feel special, hand-lettering might be the route to go. It doesn’t involve a nib pen (usually it’s done with a brush marker) so the writing takes a bit less time and the style is a bit less formal.
This is fun for more casual invitations, but it does work best on a lighter-colored or white envelope, since the marker ink soaks into the paper (as opposed to calligraphy ink, which sits on the top, so it works well for dark-colored papers).
Photo by Photoflood Studio
Digitally Printed Envelopes
If hand-written envelopes aren’t in your budget, and you yourself don’t want to hand-write each address, digital addressing is a fantastic way to go. The benefit? You can match your envelope addressing exactly with the fonts in your invitation design, so everything feels super cohesive. And, addresses can even be printed in white ink, which works great for those darker-colored envelope papers.
Of course, you could always write the guest envelopes yourself, but why go through all of that trouble with designing a gorgeous invite, and not finish it off in the most elegant way possible? The address is the first thing the guest will see, and you want them to be excited to open your invitation when it arrives in their mailbox!
Curious about how to craft your guest list? Check out this post!