Planning a Party of Presidential Proportions: The Invites

Bailey Edrington
Oct 11, 2016
3 min read

Invitations set the tone for an event. With one sheet of precisely cut and colored piece of paper, someone can get a feel for the ambiance of an event and will start to develop their expectations accordingly. I think it is safe to say that great invitations are the foundation for a great event.

That being said, I simply adore the idea of paper invitations: they are charming and classic and (don't laugh) I think they are absolutely magical. For me, there is something enchanting about the moment when I slide a lovely little piece of paper out of its snug envelope and fully experience the beauty of my personalized invitation.

For Annabel's dinner, I wanted to woo our guests. I wanted each alumna to be captivated by her invitation. So I planned on hand designing invites, sliding them neatly into crisp new envelopes, sealing each envelope by hand and meticulously placing stamps on each invite.

That is until I discovered the goddess of all evites: Paperless Post

Y'all. Bow down to the queen of online invites, the empress of all things electronic-invitation related, the holy grail of the digital invitation domain. These invitations are beautiful and classy-- kate spade and, my personal favorite, Rifle Paper Co. have invitations available on the site-- and they addressed my laundry list of my issues with normal evites:

Bailey's Reasons Why Evites Aren't Magical:

1. Evites are impersonal

2. Evites lose the "opening moment"

3. Evites aren't cute

So without further ado, and in typical Julie Andrew's fashion, here are a few of my favorite things about Paperless Post:

1. Pretty Perfect (Presidential) Personalization

Nearly every element of these invites are customizable from the backdrop the invite is presented on to the type of envelope and invitation. I wrote in everything I wanted on the invitation, I personalized a message to our alumnae and (my personal favorite touch) I made sure the front of each invitation had the name of the recipient on it. I was also able to send a personalized follow-up email to the invitees who had yet to respond, which was super helpful.

2. The M.O.M. (Magical Opening Moment) of Invites

As I mentioned, my favorite part of receiving an invitation is the moment when you open it. With most evites, the opening moment is quite underwhelming. But do not fret, my pet, this too has been solved by our dear friends at Paperless Post.

The red carpet is rolled out for these evites and they open just like a real invitation. You get to watch the invitation leave its darling envelope and you get to enjoy the magical opening moment! It really is the next best thing to having an invitation in your hand.

3. Cuteness You Can Count On

This one is pretty self-explanatory. I mean, just look at that invitation...enough said, right?

4. Bonus! Benefits When You're Ballin' on a Budget

When working on a budget, Paperless Post is definitely the way to go. You pay in "coins" which you can buy in packages. Each invite is worth a certain number of coins, which changes as you add things to your invite. Though they additions are super cute, I can promise you aren't getting a bland invite with the standard templates. There were very few things I felt the need to embellish on, and each invitation cost me 3 coins. I spent less than $40 on invitations and I was able to utilize the money I saved from invitations in other areas, such as our floral arrangements.

I think it is pretty clear these invitations are my absolute favorite, bar none. They met and surpassed my impossibly high standards for these invitations.

Logistically, Paperless Post is budget friendly and user-friendly. You can send follow-up emails to your invitees, your invitees can direct message you about the event and they can plug the address into their GPS directly from their invites, and most importantly, the invites are precious! It is the perfect alternative to paper invites, with more accessibility and maybe even a little more magic.