Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Dude, labels are, like, everywhere

I must be kind of psychic or something. Very shortly after posting about how I was refusing to use labels for our wedding invitations, I made a visit to Weddingbee and was hit with not one but two posts from brides using labels, and countless comments in support of said practice. Using computer-printed labels seems to be much more common than I thought -- in fact, it seems downright fashionable!

Image from Martha Stewart Weddings
via www.weddingbee.com.
Invitation suite by Hello! Lucky


OK, uncle, I give! I will admit it: the labels above are very, very pretty. And no, my handwritten addresses will probably not be as pretty or flourish-y as the ones people print using computer script fonts.

But somehow, I just can't see myself using labels, even ones as pretty as these. There's just something about a hand-addressed envelope that I think is kind of, well, special. Almost everything I get in the mail these days has a computer-printed label on it -- 90% of my mail is either junk mail or financial documents, pretty yawn-worthy. But when I see something that's been hand-addressed, I get excited, because I know it's a card from a family member, news from a friend, or something else out of the ordinary.

I'm not crafty; I won't be hand-weaving any tablecloths or painting any murals for our wedding. But I do love pens and paper and getting old-fashioned letters in the mail. And so come April, I'll be busting out my fountain pen, turning on some music, and addressing my envelopes by hand. Yeah, I'm a square. But I'm OK with it :-)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish I'd had the balls to use computer labels, actually. The Beard's handwriting looks... well, odd. And my own handwriting either looks unreadably European (because living there I got used to their style of handwriting) or bubbly like that of a 13 year old girl. Not attractive, I tell you.

Bride in Exile said...

NtB, I lived in Europe for a while too, and my "Ts" still show it! And I feel you on the "partner with odd handwriting" thing. I think that's why Econo Boy is pushing for labels -- he's too progressive to feel OK about letting me address all the envelopes on my own, but he really doesn't like his own handwriting (his cursive is unreadable and his print is very round and boyish).