All About Your Envelopes (Part 4 of 4)

Previous Posts:
All About Your Envelopes Pt. 1
All About Your Envelopes Pt. 2
All About Your Envelopes Pt. 3

In this final installment of "All About Your Envelopes", we will tackle basic list management and addressing etiquette.

YOUR LIST

You can save your computer calligrapher a lot of time if you format your list appropriately the first time. If one or more of the following steps are missed, your list will usually be returned to you with requests for edits.

For the most part, your envelope (as well as place card) printing is being executed by SOME sort of mail merge. Because of this, your columns/fields and how you separate them will be very important.

The fields/columns you should utilize (MAKE SURE THEY ARE SEPARATE):

TITLE
Mr. and Mrs., Mr., Miss or Ms.

FIRST NAME
First name of guest

LAST NAME
Last name of guest

TITLE 2
Mr. and Mrs., Mr., Miss or Ms.

FIRST NAME 2
First name of guest 2

LAST NAME 2
Last name of guest 2

ADDRESS 1
Main mailing address

ADDRESS 2
Apartment or Unit Number (if applicable)

CITY
City of Guest

STATE
State of Guest

ZIP CODE
Zip Code of Guest

I know it seems like a TON, but its really the best way to accurately capture your list information. These multiple fields will take into account couples who are living together and are not married, family members of guests, etc.

Miscellaneous notes:

• Spell out all street designations: Boulevard, Avenue, Court, Lane, Street, etc.
• Spell out all unit designations: Number, Apartment, Unit, etc.
• Spell out all State abbreviations: Illinois, California, District of Columbia, etc.
• Children living in the same household as parents that are over the age of 16 should receive their own invitation
• "And Guest" is appropriate if you are not able to find out the name of single guest's "plus one", but it is recommended that you try, if at all possible, to list their name on the invitation envelope

Here is an example of an excel document with the appropriate fields indicated:



**BONUS** Same example, only this time with an inner envelope column. I discussed inner envelopes in Part 2 of this series, and I want to make sure you realize how these envelopes need to be addressed, which is slightly different from your outer envelope:



AT-A-GLANCE: ADDRESSING ETIQUETTE

I created a document that I encourage you to keep as a very basic reference. There are dozens of different cases, however I have found that these are the ones I run into most often! I hope its useful for you!



Finally, this is the BEST resource I have found online for INTERNATIONAL ADDRESS FORMATS. Just wonderful.

Take care until next time!