Internet Invites
Nov 23rd, 2007 by Jenny
I have a question for all the green brides today… what do you think about web-based invitations?
My fiancé Phil has built a website with all our wedding information on it (the venue, the plan of the day, maps and all the rest). He’s also made a database of the names and email addresses of all the guests, choosing whether they were a ‘full day’ or ‘evening only’ guest.
Everybody in the database got an email. They followed a link to the website, where they found a proper invitation, with their name on it and nice curly corners and everything. A ‘click here to RSVP’ button took them to all the other information and choices.
Every day since we sent the invitations, I’ve been pressing a button on my computer screen marked with a smiley face (this is about the limit of my technical capabilities). When I press the button, the chart in front of me updates itself with all the latest online responses. Every day I can see which guests have been to the website, who has responded to the invitation, and all the other important information about each guest such as any food allergies, whether they would like to participate in car shares, and the name of any additional guest they are bringing.
There’s also a ‘gift list’ page. We don’t have a traditional gift list, but a clickable map of our backpacking honeymoon. There’s a list of things we need to pay for, such as visits to eco-lodges, national park fees and overnight trains from one destination to the next. Each item is clickable, with a picture of the place or activity we’d like a contribution to.
Our idea is that people who want to buy us a present can buy us a chunk of our honeymoon – and so far it seems to be working well, with several contributions already sent to us. From the accompanying messages I think our guests are finding it quite an interesting way to give a present!
Most of all, it’s very handy to know who has visited the website. Not everybody responds to the invitation straight away of course – but if we can see they have visited the website and had a look around, we at least know they received their email about it. One or two people did not follow the link and visit the website. So after a while we contacted them to check they had received the email. After all not everybody likes to use email for things! Since sending out invitations to 238 people, we have found we needed to send only six paper invitations to people who do not have computers, or who are not regular email users.
When I think of the amount of paper we have saved (not to mention the money) I am delighted! I’ve always thought that sending out paper invites leaves you in a slightly difficult position – if you never hear back, you don’t know whether the person received their invitation. And nobody wants to hassle their guests to answer! But this way we know.
So, my question is, are internet invites the way forward for green brides? Or is sending online invitations just too impersonal for many people? Perhaps recycled paper is a better option… ideas welcomed!
This is what we have been considering too!
We thought about sending just a postcard with details of a website (that way we cut back on all the extra stuff that usually accompanies a traditional paper invitation) - not thought about e-mails! I still like the idea of just a postcard though, I know a lot of people keep this sort of thing as a sort of souvenir! Parents especially! I have kept invitations from my friends’ weddings, also family weddings I have been to.
But I definitely think a website is a great way to do things - you can have all the info about local hotels, travel info etc plus the details of the wedding. Having all that on paper does seem a waste, as it’s not something people will particularly be bothered about keeping. You can make it really personalised with pictures of the couple. I’ve also seen one where there were pictures of the whole bridal party with a little bit about who they were and so on.
And we are hoping for contributions to our honeymoon too, and I really like the idea of detailing the trip on the site and letting people buy individual ‘parts’ rather than just give money in general. It also lets people choose what they are buying, which people seem to like! Would make thank you notes more personal too, if you could include a photo taken at the eco-lodge, or on a certain train journey and so on!
When I consider our rough guest list, most of the people on it either use the internet regularly or at least have access. Those who don’t, like you say, can get a full paper invite. Thinking about it though, that would be very few people and I’d rather know that I was saving paper for the majority. If people find it impersonal then that’s their problem!! I think you should stick by your green ethics, and people should and probably will respect that!
There are also so many great recycled paper companies out there these days. I used http://www.twistedlimbpaper.com/invitations.htm
but I know there are many more. Another great option that I used is http://www.idoweddingmaps.com/ They will send you a pdf file of a direction card and then you can get it printed on the paper of your choice. You could even inbed the pdf into a website, but your guests still have something custom that they can choose to print or not. Hopefully they use recycled paper