For those interested in a similar set up:

style "xfdesktop-icon-view" { 
    XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = 0
    font_name="Liberation Sans Bold"
    XfdesktopIconView::selected-label-alpha = 170 
    XfdesktopIconVIew::ellipsize-icon-labels = 1 

    XfdesktopIconView::shadow-x-offset = 1
    XfdesktopIconView::shadow-y-offset = 1 
    XfdesktopIconView::shadow-color = "#000000" 
    XfdesktopIconView::selected-shadow-x-offset = 0
    XfdesktopIconView::selected-shadow-y-offset = 0 
    XfdesktopIconView::selected-shadow-color = "#ffffff" 

    XfdesktopIconVIew::cell-spacing = 6 
    XfdesktopIconView::cell-padding = 6 
    XfdesktopIconView::cell-text-width-proportion = 2.0 

    base[NORMAL] = "#cccccc" 
    base[SELECTED] = "#cccccc" 
    base[ACTIVE] = "#cccccc" 

    fg[NORMAL] = "#ffffff" 
    fg[SELECTED] = "#000000" 
    fg[ACTIVE] = "#000000" 
} 
widget_class "*XfdesktopIconView*" style "xfdesktop-icon-view"

+1. I like my desktop icon font style to be different than the theme, but haven't been able to change them, even with the gtkrc file. This file only adds shadows, changes some transparency, and colors- cannot modify font or font style of the desktop at all without changing the whole theme.

LXDE has this option- which I use on some lightweight machines but prefer to stick with XFCE for most boxes

You can change it in ~/.gtkrc-2.0, you need a section like this

style "xfdesktop-icon-view" {
    XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = 75
    font_name="DejaVu Sans"

    base[NORMAL] = "#00ff00"
    base[SELECTED] = "#5050ff"
    base[ACTIVE] = "#0000ff"

    fg[NORMAL] = "#ff0000"
    fg[SELECTED] = "#ff0000"
    fg[ACTIVE] = "#ff0000"
}
widget_class "*XfdesktopIconView*" style "xfdesktop-icon-view"

note line 3,

LXDE has this option- which I use on some lightweight machines but prefer to stick with XFCE for most boxes