Down with evites; up with paper

So it’s not the most environmentally conscious blog title I could have come up with but I will do my part and plant some trees come spring and justify my title in the post.

I am a self professed paper junkie.  There.  I said it.  Be it invitations, personalized stationary, thank you cards, save the date cards, basically anything that involves graphic design (outsourced), thick cardstock and colour and I am a happy camper. 

But back to the serious stuff.  Invitations for an event-

I understand that parties can be  expensive to host and that evites are a tempting alternative.  You can customize your evites, you can manage your guest lists and send out reminders.  But if I can make a plea- forget the evites. Don’t skimp on the inviations, just budget for them!

My pro invitation argument:  Invitaitons are memorable, personal, can set the mood/tone of what is to come and most importantly, people like receiving mail that is not a bill.  I don’t know about you but I smile every time I get a big envelope in my mailbox addressed in caligraphy.  I get excited to open it up and see what is inside.  How could you deny your friends and family that same pleasure!!

Contrarywise, when I see an evite in my inbox, maybe I glance at it maybe I wait for a few days (weeks) until I know I must send a response.  In otherwords, I treat my evites like any other email waiting for my attention.  Evites do not illicit the same sense of excitement or urgency-to-open.  People typically open their mail- especially if it is pretty mail.  On the other hand, if you are a heavy Internet user and receive loads of email a day, receiving an evite has a lower priority on the email-to-open list.  Just basic email hierarchy.

Here are a few solid invitation designs that I found online.  I hope they both excite and inspire.