How appropriate are Wedding invitations through e-mail?
Only if the wedding is very, very informal. When one friend got married, she set up an Evite for her reception. Their wedding was immediate family only, and their reception was in a performance space where she worked. They didn’t do the white dress or tux or any of that. Very non-traditional, very casual. So casual, that formal invites would have seemed weird. So if your wedding is of that type, then by all means use email. PS… This is me being perhaps judgmental, but if I was invited to your typical wedding with a lot of guests, a nice venue, the bride & groom formally dressed, etc, I would be a little disgusted that they cheaped out on the invitations. I mean, you can spend $3000 on catering, but not $300 on invitations? C’mon now.
Email invites are fine by me. I wouldn’t interpret them in a negative light at all. You can’t control it if someone does, though – because there will always be someone, no matter what choice you make, who goes out of his or her way to find fault. I think email invites are practical and environmental, and I’d admire a couple for not caving to societal pressure. I know a lot of people wouldn’t, but those aren’t people I have very much respect for anyway. Hopefully, the people you want to invite to your wedding are loving and supportive. Judgmental snobs are so tiresome and boring. However, I do think relatives who are uncomfortable using computers should be invited a different way. You need do nothing extravagant; a handwritten note or a phone call is enough. I know I’ll get a lot of thumbs down for this answer. That’s fine; I’m fairly used to it by now! But those with a problem with this should recognize that breaking social convention is not the same thing as being rude. And why do any
I think it probably means “I’m saving money and time with this pretty lazy way of doing my invitations” but it likely has nothing to do with your value to the inviter. It may be a bit tacky, but if everyone was invited the same way you’d have no way of knowing if you were the one who was invited because of etiquette or not!
Definitely do not recommend doing blasting out an email as your official wedding announcement. It’s better to put something in their hand that they can hang up and refer to in the house. Emails can get deleted and they are kind of tacky for a wedding announcement. Check out www.SanLori.com. They have quality, low price announcements pre-made so you don’t have to do too much work in putting them together. There is also a very wide variety so you can select the style that fits you. Definitely worth checking out and taking care of this part of your wedding.
I know we live in a technologically savvy world today and e-mail invites are cost-efficient and quick, but I will honestly say that I am not a fan of them at all. I find them to be cold and impersonal and just on the tacky and lazy side. It’s one thing if the couple were techies and very into computers, then I understand it (I do know someone who is a graphic artist and she married a computer engineer and they set up everything via the web and e-mail but it made sense). However, I find that for others they think they’re being clever somehow or cute and it doesn’t come off that way. For weddings, I still think a regular invite is great and would prefer that.
