Paper Wedding Invitations vs Digital E-vites

There are many decisions that need to be made whilst planning a wedding; what entertainment should you have? What kind of food and drinks might you serve? And what about the venue? But one of the key factors in ensuring all your loved ones get to where they need to be (on time!) will come from your wedding invitations. But how will you send out your invites, and what will they look like?

Wedding invites have become quite a hot topic for newly engaged modern couples. Do you go offline or online with your wedding invitations? Or a bit of both? Spoiler alert: there is no right or wrong answer. There can be benefits and drawbacks to either. But what are they? In this article, we’re going to go through the pros and cons of paper invitations vs online invites. This is in the hope that when the time comes, you can make an informed decision that works for you when planning your wedding invitations.

First up, paper ‘offline’ invitations

Let’s be honest here; traditional paper invitations are more expensive. There, we’ve said it! But that’s because you’re creating a beautiful, tangible souvenir of your big day. How can you not love a weighty card invite with elegant calligraphy and embossed details? Whether or not physical invitations are a priority to you, there are some advantages to having them which are worth considering.

The biggest is that they are a keepsake of one of the most important and transformative days of your life - a keepsake for you, of course, but also for your close friends and family. If you do choose to go down the paper invitation route, you can support creative small businesses that specialise in crafting bespoke wedding stationery. These can vary wildly in design and be totally unique to you, from a watercolour depiction of your wedding venue to clean, modern, and minimalist with luxe features such as embossing or debossing and beautiful gold foil flourishes. You set the brief with traditional invitations.

The practicalities of paper wedding invitations

Stepping away from aesthetics, from a practical point of view, if you’re sending printed invitations, you have to collect everyone’s addresses which will make it so much easier (and personal) when the time comes to thank them for their gift/donation etc. after the celebration is over but can be a bit of a logistical and timely exercise when you have a lot of other wedding planning tasks to action!

Also, it’s easy to think that everyone has access to and uses the internet on a daily/hourly basis. Well, not everyone. Consider the older relatives and less tech-savvy guests in your wedding party and the fact that they might not be able to access your website, however easy it is to use!

‘Online’ wedding invitations

There is a LOT to be said for digital wedding invitations. Firstly, as we mentioned earlier, digital invites can save you a lot of money. It may cost little to create your wedding website initially, or you might choose to upgrade your account to include additional features (Say I do is free to set up). But these expenses are never going to amount to the same as printing them on fancy paper and forking out for postage.

You will also get back a lot of precious wedding planning time if you decide to send your guests an online wedding invitation. Traditional invites include a number of factors that could result in delays outside of your control, including design, printing, and posting time, as well as waiting to get your RSVPs back. You'll also be saving your guests time by offering them the option to RSVP online. Returning their digital RSVP card is as simple as clicking a button, and they can confirm they will be there! No stashing the paper invite in a safe place, never to be found again! There are also no postage fees to pay and no need to locate a post box.

It’s fair to say you get quite a limited amount of space on a traditional wedding invitation. If you then need to add additional sheets to cover accommodation, maps, instructions etc., this can end up costing quite a lot. This is another great reason why hosting everything online and sending out online invitations can be such a big benefit. You don’t have to miss any information, it can all be safely stored in the same place, and your guests can check in on the information whenever they need to - eliminating any tricky issues that may arise with lost post, mislaid invitations, and miscommunication!

Create your own personalised central hub

Digital invitations can be especially effective if you manage them through a personalised wedding website and request that your guests RSVP online. As soon as you press send, they receive them immediately in their inbox and will (hopefully) respond pretty promptly too. This means you won’t have to spend ages chasing people up and encouraging them to pop their RSVP card back to you in the post. While we’re on the subject – just take a minute to consider 50+ RSVPs dropping through your letterbox, which you then have to organise and keep a close eye on manually. Now compare this to an online system which does it all for you and tracks your responses in real-time… exactly!

There is a fantastic range of wedding website builders out there that offer great-looking templates for you to choose from. Pop in your wedding details, and you can be up and running in minutes! Say I do not only offer you the opportunity to design a gorgeous-looking website using one of their many beautiful templates, but they also offer additional handy features such as a personalised to-do list, guest list manager, email communications, and much more!

Drum up excitement and create a fun space for your guests to come and visit in the run-up to your big day by sending out digital wedding invitations. Why not add additional pages to your website and add a personal touch by uploading photos, sharing your love story, and adding honeymoon photos when the time comes? The sky is the limit when it comes to how much information you can add to your wedding website and digital invitation, depending on the template you've chosen, of course. It's important not to get too carried away during the process though, and ensure the essential details of the day are clear and easy to find for your guests on the homepage.

At the end of the day, it's your call

We will never not love a beautifully crafted traditional paper invitation, so if you can afford to, we’d say go for it (in tandem with a wedding website). But, if you go down this route, ensure you have enough time to play with and have time carved out in your planning timeline for printing, posting and receiving your RSVP cards back from guests.

You can’t deny digital e-vites are (practically) your best bet. If anything changes during the run-up to your big day, and let's be honest, some things are out of your control, but you can communicate any changes to your guests quickly and efficiently. By creating paperless wedding invitations, you can make as many edits as you like, there’s less admin involved, and you can feel a little bit smug knowing you’ve saved some money and some trees in the process.