Innovative Invitations

​Invitations are one of my favorite parts of planning an event. As Oscar Wilde put it, “You never have a second chance to make a first impression.” The invitation is the first contact you make with your guests before a party, and it sets the tone for the whole occasion. Invitations also provide all kinds of important information for attendees. In addition to the essentials, guests may look to the invitation for attire hints, such as formality and color schemes for weddings, or gift ideas for showers, and may even partially base their attendance decision on how appealing they find the invite. That is a lot of pressure for one piece of paper! Here are 2 examples of Pinterest-worthy invites that no one would dream of turning down!

​Will you be my bridesmaid?
Did I say one piece of paper? Scratch that, because this bride said, “I’ll take your paper invitations and raise you a bottle of champagne!” One of my dearest friends just chose Trump winery in Charlottesville, Virginia, as her wedding venue and presented me with a truly jaw-dropping invitation to join her bridal party. Her fiancé is a whiz with design and printing, and he put those skills to work in a big way. He created personalized champagne bottle labels for each bridesmaid, wrapped them around a bottle of champagne from Trump Winery, and his wife-to-be presented me with this fabulous invitation. The front looks like a normal bottle of champagne, but the back includes not only my name, but also a short poem ending with a very special question. Not only was this classy and creative, it cleverly played on the theme of the venue and gave a personal salute to her favorite adult beverage, champagne. Needless to say, I accepted with pleasure and I can’t wait until next year when I can drink this fabulous invite! 

​Do I get a plus one?
One major problem a bride can run into is adequately communicating whether or not guests can bring a date or children. When a date or kids are invited, this can sometimes be indicated by including “and guest” or “and family” on the front of the interior envelope. However, this can get tricky because an invitation may not have an interior envelope, or some may feel it is rude to not know the name of everyone in the party. Furthermore, when a bride doesn’t want her guest to bring a date or children, it is even harder to communicate. Most of the time, there is simply a lack of indication that anyone but you is invited, which can often cause confusion. I recently received an invitation from my cousin with a brilliant solution to this conundrum. His wife included a line on the RSVP card for us to fill in stating that ___ of 2 will be attending. In my opinion, this was a perfectly classy yet completely clear way to communicate the number of guests invited. Granted, I ended up bringing 2.5, but I believe they forgave me on account of Baby O&O still being in the womb! However, if Baby O&O were already born, I would have known from the filled-in 2 that we would have needed to get a sitter. Way to go, Amy!

​Happy inviting!
Victoria