There are many pros and cons to using paperless or email wedding invitations. I discuss the benefits and shortcomings below.
The Pros:
1. Digital communication is easy and inexpensive. For casual and very informal weddings, people seem comfortable communicating through email and Evite invitations. A good friend of mine had several small wedding receptions around the country and used email to send out the invitations.
2. Etiquette expert Peggy Post notes that many couples think of email or paperless wedding invitations as "practical, thrifty and green." Couples who are very focused on creating an eco-friendly wedding -- which is definitely in vogue these days -- may want to reduce the need for paper products at their weddings.
3. There are several online stationary companies such as Paperless Post that create beautiful wedding invitations designed for email. Email invitations can be beautiful and combined with personal style elements.
4. Paper wedding invitations can be quite expensive, with costs easily running over $1,000 for a wedding with less than 120 people. For couples that want to cut down on expenses, using email stationary or Evites for wedding invitations can be very helpful.
5. You can always opt to use paperless invitations for your engagement party and save the date notices. The Knot.com and Mashable recently revealed their social tech wedding planning survey results showing two out of three, or 64 percent of brides use paperless invitations for wedding-related events such as engagement parties and rehearsal dinners. The survey also revealed 12 percent of brides feel comfortable using paperless wedding invitations for the wedding itself.
The Cons:
1. Most etiquette books still recommend paper wedding invitations. Formal weddings merit a formal wedding invitation that is consistent with the formality and tone of the wedding. Do you want your guests showing up at your formal wedding casually dressed expecting a backyard barbecue?
2. With an email wedding invitation or an Evite, it can be rather unclear whom you are inviting. If a parent with children at home receives the Evite via email, does it include the whole family? I recently received an email wedding invitation and I really couldn't figure out exactly who in my family was invited. In the end, I chose not to bring my children to the wedding. I always believe in respecting the wording of the invitation. If my children aren't specifically listed on the invitation, then I take that to mean they are not invited. And that is okay.
3. As with paper invitations, it is rather impolite to state in an Evite or email invitation that children are not welcome at the wedding. With paper invitations, one can signal who is invited by specifying to whom the invitation is addressed. Users of email and Evites can't always do this.
4. Some traditionalists in your family may feel slighted receiving your wedding invitation through email. As a wedding enthusiast, I believe you can still use traditional invitations that are eco-friendly and still maintain the finesse and formality of paper invitations. There are elderly people who still don't use the Internet. My mother's generation still believes that something as important as wedding warrants the elegance of being delivered through the postal mail. Invitations in paper and ink convey a sense of importance.
5. Spam filters can be tricky. My spam filter has swallowed up a lot of Evites and even some important emails with large attachments. It would be terrible if many of your guests didn't receive your email wedding invitation because it got lost in their Spam filter.
Have you received any wedding invitations over email or through an electronic invitation? If you are a mother of the bride or a mother of the groom, how do you feel about your children using wedding invitations sent via email or through paperless options like Evite or Paperless Post?