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An electronic wedding invitation – Oh please !

Electronic Wedding Invitation

Well, we knew it was coming.  We have been pinging emails to each other for years, and christmas ecards are becoming ever more popular…. but a wedding einvite ?  It is time to make a stand and say no.  It is fair to say that wedding invitations have become more contemporary and less formal in recent years but there is no excusing the informality of an invitation that will ultimately end up in your guests trash folder when the wedding day is over.  American firms Evite and Pingg have introduced the electronic wedding invitation, primarily to the US market but of course, like the internet, it is open to anyone with a PC and a modem.

Wedding einviteI could have based this article around the theme that the first environmentally friendly wedding invitation has arrived.  This is one of the main selling points that the developers of these ecard sites like to portray and to a certain extent I have to agree because the absence of a paper card, envelope and stamp is certainly eco friendly.  However, I do not view a wedding invitation in the same vein as a birthday card, christmas card or any other kind of invitation.  It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to invite your friends and family to one of the biggest events of your life.  More importantly for your friends and family the wedding invitation means more than the paper and card it is made from.  It is a physical item that will be kept and treasured like a gift long after after the event and will trigger happy memories of your wedding for years to come.

Traditional wedding values have already been eroded over the decades but I think that this is one leap to far.  What next?  You may as well just set up a Facebook group and send all your guests an email to join it if they can make it.  Oh what the hell, they will probably be busy, why not do away with the invitation altogether and set up a webcast so your friends and family can watch the nuptials from the comfort of their own sofa.  Then, if they are busy or there is something better on the telly they can download and watch it later.   When you are back from your honeymoon why not upload your wedding video to YouTube so the whole world can comment on how you looked in that dress.

Rant over.  Let me here your opinion on the electronic wedding invitation.  Is this the future?

There Are 5 Responses So Far. »

  1. I am preparing a wedding website for my friends which are both getting married for the second time in their lives. I sent the save the dates over email and everyone absolutely loves them. They are discussing the possibility of sending electronic wedding invitations, because it is a little more convenient, they already have had a test run at the junk folder of the email addresses, and when there is already so much going out as far an expenses are concerned it just makes more sense sometimes. The website offers online RSVP’s and they could go there to let them know both who is attending and what entrée they desire.

    A new age brings on changes as I am sure you know. The internet has opened up for a more paperless society and frankly an invitation can get lost in the USPS mail as easily as it can be re-routed to the junk mail folder of their email even in this day in age. If the bride and groom are not concerned about saving the invitation themselves, I do not believe anyone that will be attending their wedding will be hurt if they are not able to collect yet another invitation from the many they have probably attended in the past. I personally have been to several of my friends other weddings and have not felt the need to hang onto the invitations except when I saw a good idea for my own wedding. Maybe the trend to move more to email then snail mail is not in the proper etiquette. The proper wedding etiquette originated at a time when there was no internet, and the fact that more and more people are connected to it should launch proper etiquette into a new era. I’m not saying this will be an overnight occurrence, but people will eventually grasp the idea as a possibility.

  2. I’m getting married overseas, and the majority of my friends and family are back home in the States. The majority of them will not be able to make it to the wedding due distance and time constraints and cost. A single roung-trip ticket costs about $1500 or more. I completely understand this predicament. I, in no way, would want my friends and family to feel pressured to come to my wedding under these circumstances. I found the perfect solution to be a wedding e-vite. It does give a less formal feel to whole event, and perhaps less pressure as well. They can RSVP online easily and conveniently. There is no need to go to the post office to figure out how much it will cost for international postage. In my case, the wedding e-vites are a fantastic solution. We still are, however, sending proper paper invitations to the elders in our family since this is what they will be expecting and may have a hard time understanding the whole concept of an e-vite.

  3. I have to disagree, so much of our lives are now organised with email, facebook, text messages, its really just taking that one step further. The cost savings are significant, its easy for everyone – especially if there is a website with an rsvp (like that idea Nancy) and its perfect for large families who are strewn across the globe. I do think its a nice touch to send printed invites to those who do not have email, perhaps the older generation, but this is how it will be. I’m afraid you have to move with the times – a wedding website will become integral to the whole wedding plan, it makes total sense. And yes, why not upload your honeymoon video for friends and family to see (you don’t have to use YouTube).

  4. Gosh, at the age of 36 I’m feeling exceptionally old fashioned in my views. I would hate to receive a wedding invitation by e-mail and I certainly would not entertain the idea of sending one. Yes I do run a wedding stationery business, so I do have other reasons for not agreeing the the e-vite, but even before that I have always had very strong feelings about how we communicate and the fact that we are losing traditions such as letter writing and diary keeping. I am a traditionalist who loves the feel of paper when reading a book and to receive letters from friends through the post, there’s nothing like the anticipation of finding out what will be in that envelope when you pick it up off the floor. We received a beautiful invitation through the post from relatives in America, but I certainly didn’t feel any pressure because there was no way we could make the wedding and now I have my little piece of their day that I can keep. Next we will all be attending virtual weddings based on the idea of cost, simplicity and because we can because we’re rather clever now, rather than valuing the family traditions we are constantly eroding away because of technology.

  5. Our wedding will also be a destinations wedding but to relieve the pressure on our guests to make the expense of attending, we are hosting a cocktail party at home for the justice of the peace ceremony in order to celebrate. Because most of our budget is allocated to our main wedding on the beach (which is VERY expensive, I might add), we have no budget and very little times (literally 2 weeks) to print and distribute formal invitations to both parties. In addition, we live in Mexico where the postal service is very inefficient and you NEVER mail important notices unless you don´t mind that they arrive two months later or more likely, never… Therefore, we have chosen formal invitations for the main wedding ceremony and electronic for the cocktail party, and we are sending a Save the Date via email for the formal as well. I think this is a reasonable compromise given our circumstances, and to be honest, I am not so judgmental as to say a couple who doesn´t fall within “etiquette” cannot have my approval and same enthusiasm for their celebration. Let’s get back to basics and remember the true purpose of a wedding, shall we? Electronic or not, I would bet we will all be equally happy for the couple and willing to join them…

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