Invitations can be tricky for gay couples, but they don’t have to be
WRITE it right | Pay attention to details on invitations and make an elegant first impression.
BY HOWARD LEWIS RUSSELL
Face it: The day after the wedding, no guest ever recalls clear details about the event, except (possibly) that the bride managed to meet her goal weight by aisle date and even look halfway virtuous for once, and that the cake afterward at the reception was worth the calorie splurge (despite having been only served the barest micro-sliver of a slice). Nobody remembers what kind of out-of-season floral exotica draped the nuptial knot gazebo, or whether it was sea bass, steak kabobs or free-range organic chicken satays impaled upon plastic pink flamingo skewers. And certainly nobody in a zillion years ever recollects with lucid rapture the cleverly elegant invitation mailed them, or what even happened after they dropped off the gift.
The agony of indecision same-sex couples endure, sighing over their invitations’ border-edging of whimsically esprit “Lilacs in the Sun” versus majestically ceremonial “Winter Palace Mist,” or the slightly “naughty” font type of “Roman Bacchanalia” over the cursively sedate and proper “Mrs. Astor Regrets . . .” goes completely unappreciated by wedding guests the morning after — if it ever didn’t when they first opened an ornately faboo envelope in their snail-mail pile stone sober six weeks earlier.
Such beautiful, laboriously detailed ornamentation engraved upon 70 percent Egyptian pima cotton rag with raised, natural-dye embossing (never tested on animals) should be a cherished keepsake treasured by every guest forever rather than yet-another piece of cardboard detritus blankly thrown into a recycler the next day. And yet a hand-scribbled invite Xeroxed on canary yellow doesn’t capture the gravity of the event … and seems downright tacky.
Therein lies the crux in this new age of austerity: Where to spend the bucks for the biggest bang at one’s betrothal of fabulosity?
Invitations may seem the most natural area in which to trim wedding-cost corners. But since it will be the first swanky entrée for your guests to see, it sets the tone of whether this ceremony is actually worth RSVPing to.
So why not have things both ways — simultaneously saving needed money (and face) and blowing your guests’ lavender carnation boutonnières off? If you can’t gild the rainbow a bit on your wedding day, then when should you?
All that glisters can be gold, gay and even groovy; plus, at least where wedding expenses are concerned, you won’t have to hock your ring two weeks back from that splendiferous Puerto Vallarta or P’town honeymoon simply to pay for the invitations.
Of course, you can use an online resource like GayWeddings.com, which offers a revelatory “Simply Sensible Line” of any and all essential stationary options, while the “Essentials Package” starts at only $114, for 100 invites, and includes extras like blank outer envelopes, response cards and a pre-printed return envelope.
For those of you lovebirds wishing to hands-on peruse in advance your options at literal bricks-and-mortar businesses specializing specifically in custom-printed gay and lesbian invitations, there are, sad to say, no such stationary stores located in Dallas. Not one.
However, for the personal touch, Write Selection at Royal and Preston is delighted to customize a same-sex wedding ceremony’s invitations.
“There are literally thousands of invitation choices to select from,” says Terry Cummings of Write Selection. “Most usually take only a week to produce; for specialized custom orders, around two weeks.”
Packages come in increments of 25: This consists of the invitation itself, with an outer envelope — formal if you like — and an inner envelope to the addressee, plus a RSVP set which includes a RSVP card with an envelope addressed back to you.” Cummings adds, “Always remember to put stamps on the RSVP envelopes before mailing out your invitations, excepting when guests live out of the country — in which case they are expected to provide the appropriate postage themselves.”
Write Selection, 314 Preston Royal Village. 214-750-0531
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition May 6, 2011.
