In recent years the internet has come to play a major role in wedding planning. Couples go online to research reception venues, check out dress designers, and get recommendations for suppliers. Many have a dedicated website and e-mail address for their forthcoming wedding, and some write blogs on how their plans are progressing. It’s hardly surprising then that couples are also looking at electronic invitations as a contemporary alternative to a printed card.
Here are three pros and three cons of electronic wedding invitations:
Pros of electronic wedding invitations
Multi media invites
With electronic invitations, you aren’t limited to printed words and pictures; you can include music, animation, and even a recorded video message for your guests if you wish. You can simply e-mail your invitations, or you can make use of social networking sites to set up a virtual guest list and profile for your wedding.
Eco friendly
Going green is a key theme in modern weddings, and saving paper is one way to make your wedding more environmentally friendly. E-mailing your invitations may only seem like a small gesture, but it will save the energy that would have been used for printing as well as paper and envelopes.
Low cost
If you are looking for ways to reduce cost in your wedding budget, your invitations can be a good place to start. Having formal invitations professionally printed can be expensive, and you also have to include the cost of posting them, and possibly paying for the RSVPs. Assuming you can put together an electronic invitation yourself, you won’t have design or print costs, and e-mail is free.
Cons of electronic wedding invitations
Less sense of occasion
Receiving a formal printed invitation in the post is very rare in modern society, and it helps to add a sense of occasion to a wedding. Getting your invite via e-mail or through a social networking site may reduce its impact and formality, and your guests may take your invitation less seriously than they would if you posted it.
Easy to lose
While the post is never 100% reliable, there is generally more chance of your guests receiving a postal invite than an electronic one. You may have an out of date e-mail address, their inbox may be full, your invite may get directed to their junk folder, or they may accidentally delete it thinking it is SPAM.
Less chance of a reply
It may seem easier to reply to an electronic invite than a postal one; after all you just need to press reply and write a short note saying yes or no. In fact, couples that send electronic invites currently receive fewer replies than those who send printed ones. This may be because guests see the invites as less formal, with less need for an RSVP, or because once they have viewed the invitation they forget it as it isn’t sitting on the mantelpiece as a physical reminder. On the other hand, sending a printed invitation and asking guests to RSVP electronically, perhaps to a designated e-mail address, does seem to have a high success rate.
