Wedding Invitations

American Wedding Invitations

The baseline for building such a large and powerful nation like the United States of America is the well known democracy, with principles like the freedom of speech or equal civil rights. Things weren’t always the same and those rights weren’t entirely respected, but the US were built to sustain the new life of the european renegades but also for those who wanted to get far away from the dark european continent which offered no possibilities for an acceptable future.

Certain european customs reached the american shores when the era of colonization began, spreading throughout the whole continent.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the custom of sending wedding invitations was adopted by the Americans.

Back in Europe, sending a wedding invitation was considered to be a privilege reserved only for the elite society and its members and was regarded as just another form of entertainment.  Receiving a hand written wedding invitation was considered to be an act of respect for the higher-ups and in England or France the wedding invitations were passed only among nobility and the royal families.

In America things were a bit different because the citizens didn’t consider themselves socially inferior, instead they had the opportunity for a new start and to earn themselves a better and opulent life. The social hierarchy was not important because all people came to America only to seize for their dreams.

Still though, America had its own elite society and among them the hand written wedding invitation had the same importance as in Europe. Hand written texts were used only by the wealthy for their expensive wedding ceremonies. The printing press was a life savior for the poor and facilitated the mass production of wedding invitations.

If people still couldn’t afford to buy wedding invitations, they could always use the local newspaper to announce a wedding ceremony. If the news reached the ears of relatives or close friends of the future married couple then lucky them, they knew when to attend to the ceremony. If the opposite happened then to bad, the wedding had to go on with fewer guests.

Mailing the wedding invitations was another big problem at the beginning of the twentieth century because the distances were now far greater; the development of the postal services made things a lot easier.

As in Europe, the wedding invitations used by the Americans had a simple design, the card was usually white and contained only the basic information about the wedding ceremony. Things are not that much different today except the fact that they come in a wider variety of colors, designs or patterns.

The wording etiquette is pretty much the same as in all westernized parts of the world, with some minor differences, related to religion, original nationality or personal preferences. For example note the different uses of the word “honor” and the British “honour”: “Request the honour of your presence at the marriage of their daughter…”.

The text on the wedding invitation can either be hand written, giving a classy and elegant touch to a wedding invitation but it is a bit expensive, the printed text, engraved or use the common thermography procedure to obtain a raised letter effect. The rest is basically the same and tips for a correct wording can always be found on the Internet.

The custom of the double envelope and tissue is still maintained but it’s not that necessary, you have to think about the final costs of the wedding.

The final step is to wait for the wedding ceremony, which can either have a traditional American theme like the Wild West or you can just stick to the modern wedding theme or borrow some exotic elements to make it more special. It all depends on your choices!