Kicky e-invitations for your Wedding
by Weddings Down East

Only a couple of years ago, the thought of sending out an electronic invitation for a wedding invitation might’ve seemed tacky, tacky. Think about what was available on the Internet back then —horrible clip art, goofy stock cartoons—not happening! But with technology ramping up the wow factor on e-invitations these days, it’s worth your time to take another look.

First of all, the pros of creating and sending an e-invitation are becoming more and more obvious. Not only does the “design-your-own” option allow tremendous creativity and interactivity with your guests, a) it’s free, b) you already have everyone’s current email addresses in your database, i.e., no hunting for everyone’s most recent street addresses, c) no licking stamps or stuffing envelopes with a disgruntled fiancé but also d) you can receive immediate RSVPs, which help with the rest of the wedding planning process.

Good old Evite (www.evite.com), the staple for fun, casual get-together e-invitations, has come a long way in only a matter of years. While it is somewhat limited in the number of wedding themes it offers, (some are serious, some light-hearted) the best option allows you to design your own invitation with a custom background and colors. The main and accent “wedding” images to go with the evite are also a still little too cutesy, so better to put your own stamp on it and upload your own.

What’s really appealing about Evite’s new features is the level of interactivity built in to the invite itself that you’ll never get with a traditional card. For example, you can:

• Import your own email database to Evite to customize your guest list.
• Include a pop-up map to your destination city.
• Add a link to your wedding registry.
• Add hotel info (through hotels.com).
• Provide you with a custom url to send to your guest.
• Add a personal message to your guests.


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And by the way—about that personal message to your guests? We’re not just talking about some simple, boring text box. Evite’s latest interactive feature allows you to insert your own “party personality” avatar through www.voki.com. In other words, you can literally embed a talking avatar into the invitation itself that looks just like you and relays the message in your very own voice. It’s a miniature Max Headroom version of you! As Evite suggests, “Now you can take your guest list comments to a whole new level — create your alter ego, share an inside joke, or show your excitement for the event.”

What’s really neat about Evite’s digital invitation is that it multitasks like a bride with three weeks to go. Your host invitation serves as a bulletin board so that you will get to see all of the guests’ responses (along with their own talking avatars). Best of all for the cell phone generation: you can send an automatic reminder to your guests of the upcoming event by cell phone.

For the social networking couple, Zoji (www.zoji.com) is another clever site competing with Evite’s customer base. Its strengths are not so much on the design side (as there is only ONE wedding “designer” skin you can use and it looks like a million others). However, it does offer “custom” textures and nature themes, which work really well with a wedding invitation (especially in Maine). Like Evite, Zoji allows you to import your own images, but makes it even easier by providing a built-in keyword search on Google for your main image. Just choosing the words “wedding cake” produced more than a dozen perfect shots to select from to insert.

In terms of links and wedding day logistics, Zoji offers pretty much the same features as Evite, but what makes Zoji really stand out are its tremendous communication features between the host and guests. The wedding invitation offers a guest “chatterbox,” which allows your guests to create their own social networking profile within Zoji as well as upload their own pics, music, background, blog, bulletins, comments, etc. So, guests from all different parts of the world can “meet” each other and get to know one another electronically before they ever shake it together on the dance floor. In addition, it gives the host all kinds of options to contact the guests directly. For example, let’s say a bride needs immediate input on the type of dress she’s looking at. On Zoji, she can upload a pic of the dress, call up a custom group chat through her wedding invite—and conflab privately with her BFFs (that’s Bridesmaid Friends Forever) to get their immediate input.

Everyone says the planning is half the fun. Well, the other half comes after the event. If the married couple feels like uploading their photos back to Zoji, the wedding invitation takes on a life of its own, preserving the memories like a scrapbook/social networking site.

Yes, we know that little tissue paper between the engraved invitation is very nice to feel between your fingers, but think about it. Can your traditional print invitation do all this? For the modern couple, the e-vite is the way to go.