...and I'm a big fan of etiquette. I consider myself to be overly polite most of the time, and I try really hard to not offend people. But right now I am horrified to think that I may have contributed to offending people.
I came upon an online debate today regarding baby showers and invitation etiquette. I was shocked to see that there are a ton of people out there who feel that evite invitations are incredibly rude and tacky for a baby shower or wedding shower. For both my wedding shower and my upcoming baby shower, my BFF (the host) sent out the invitation via evite. I recall that each time she offered to send out paper invites but I thought that an evite would be more convenient for everyone - the host and the guests. Plus, evite has such cute/fun designs available it just seemed like the evite was a good idea and most people I know are tech savy and well connected online.
My shower is going to be fairly small since I'm not really one for being the center of attention with a large crowd, and I really only wanted to invite the people I really want to celebrate my upcoming baby with; I felt like inviting a bunch of acquaintances would be in bad taste. I have gone to showers where I didn't know the guest of honor very well and I ended up leaving feeling like the reason I had been invited was for the purpose of giving the person a gift. It was not a good feeling.
It seems like in today's day and age of technology and online communication, an online evite would be perfectly acceptable. It's not like a shower is a formal event like a wedding. I see a shower as being more casual. Perhaps I am out of touch with proper etiquette? I just hope that the guests who were invited to my shower don't think it was tacky or cheap to be invited via evite because that was in no way the intention!
My mom is organizing a bridal shower for me and she did the invites on evite. I'm sure some people who are more traditional might be offended by something thats more casual, like evite, but in this day and age where everyone is insanely busy all the time, evite just makes it easy to say yes or no and stay organized. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Have fun :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Caitlin, you're totally right. I think I had a moment of over-reacting!
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you, it seems like you've been MIA for a few weeks now...
Hope things are going well :-)
To be honest I prefer an evite (and I'm a pretty traditional gal as you know). I always feel bad throwing away a hand made invitation afterward but also hate feeling like I have to hold on to it.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't in the least offended (and enjoyed the shower a lot!).