I'm a tech girl at heart: I tweet all day, I send emails and texts instead of calling or writing, and I always have the newest generation iPhone. I don't even know how much a stamp costs these days (I pay all my bills online).
Some say it's poor manners, but in all honesty, I have more contact than ever with my friends and loved ones! Maybe even too much contact. So, when Tony Schubert, our event planner from Event Eleven asked us to choose between letterpress, engraved or embossed invitations, I took one look at my betrothed and said, "Umm, what?!" The very idea of having to track down over 100 home addresses, find a stationer and design the cards sent me into a panic -- never mind those pesky RSVP cards (don't forget you need postage on them as well, and you end up getting frustrated and angry at those guests that never seem to send them back on time).
To put it mildly, I was dreading the entire invitation process, until I went online and found our solution: Paperless Post. My friends, bless them, were horrified: "No! You can't do that... Evites are for things like Halloween, birthday parties and Bob's last day at the office... they are so impersonal and informal." I love my friends, but had to ask, "Who really cares?" Does receiving a Paperless Post Evite make our wedding day any less important or any less formal? I don't think so. Are you not going to come because you didn't get tangible invitation in the mail? I think not. In fact, I think it reveals a lot about who we are as a couple: modern, chic, green, no nonsense people who also like to save money.
I have a confession: whenever I receive a wedding invitation in the mail, I'm usually overwhelmed and under-impressed. There's the actual invite, and then there are the maps, RSVP cards, day-after brunch invitations and suggestions on where to stay and what to do all shoved into one large envelope. Some even include a cute picture of the couple and how they met in poetic verse. I usually lose at least one or two of those various cards and the surviving ones end up with peanut butter or some other food product smeared on them. Not surprisingly, 90 percent of the time I'm also THAT guest: the one who forgets to send back the RSVP card, and then become the official wedding crasher (sorry to everyone I've done this to in the past). For us, Paperless Post makes sense! I don't need to worry about a designer, calligrapher, printing, postage or addresses. I don't need to worry about people crashing my wedding because they thought they sent in the RSVP card or it got lost in the mail and I don't need to worry about people showing up to the wrong place because the address is half covered with some foreign substance. This way, I can design the invite myself, email it and receive RSVP's almost immediately. Plus, it's eco-friendly!
And for those naysayers, who claim that people like to save wedding invitations, let me ask you this: "How many wedding invitations have you actually saved?" My honest answer is none. But, if you really want to save this one, just click file and print.