Would You Send Party Invitations Purely by Text Message (Vs. Email or Print)?

1. Paper invite
2. Email invite
Not everyone has a smartphone. Would never do a text invite. Would you send a thank you note by text? I hope not.

I'm old fashioned...there's something special about getting an invitation in the good old mailbox. I always send my dd's invitations in the mail. The one time we didn't people forgot, they got the time wrong...etc.

Paper invitations are also fun to make for my dd. It's like a craft activity for her.
Many times I will send the paper invitation with a reminder on email a few days before the party.
Even though were in the new smartphone age...many people aren't big on text messages.

I'm ok with email invites. But they get lost in the shuffle of random emails. Paper invites get hung up on the fridge. I prefer those.

To be honest, I LIKE evites sent by email. I really do. All I do is type "evite" into my search box and they pop up so that I can get all the pertinent info for the party. No more searching for that lost paper invitation. I can also click on "yes" or "no" easily to RSVP. Most of my friends and groups that I do things with use these now and I am very used to them. I don't feel that they are impersonal or spammy.

Of course, they are not appropriate for weddings or graduations, but I don't see a problem for anything else.

As far as texts are concerned, I think it might be hard for some people because they don't receive MMS texts, and some people don't have smart phones. And some people just don't text, period. But most have computers and email accounts.

Now, if building tech products makes you itch to create an app and make some money, have at it! There are always people who will jump at the chance to use them and it could be a lucrative thing for you.

Personally, I would not. I would at least use an emailed invite (like punchbowl). For one, many people still pay per text or pay for data. Or just because they have a cell phone doesn't mean they text. My stepson has asked that we not send him images in text because it eats up his data. Also, some phones make it hard to see if it's a mass message and you may end up annoying your guest list with replies to the original text. I also prefer email or paper invites because I can go back to them easily for reference. A text would be lost, especially if I get a lot of other texts that push it down my screen. I do not consider evite or punchbowl to be spammy or impersonal. If I have addresses, I will mail cards or I will email them. Sometimes it matters how I know the family. We no longer have a school directory and I've had no luck inviting friends whose parents I don't know well. I wouldn't have their phone numbers in those cases anyway.

Overall, text is impersonal. I don't prefer it.

ETA: If it's via a service, the email isn't spammy and doesn't give out your email address to everyone. If you do it by mass email, put yourself in the TO line and BCC everyone else.

I consider my phone and texts to be fairly intrusive and personal, so I would much prefer an evite or email. Group texts are the WORST, who wants to be sucked into a conversation with a bunch of people you barely know?! And since I'm so OLD (46) I still consider paper the classiest invite of all.
And yes I am a smartphone user as well, I'm no dinosaur :-)

No way. Texts get lost. They're short. Lots of people ignore them, and they're annoying and inconvenient. I would lose a text, and not be able to go back and see when it is, where it is, figure out who else is going in case I need to car pool, etc.

Evite and FaceBook already have this covered very, very well. I would have 0% interest in another product. I don't think there is a market here at all.

I also find the idea of evites and group emails to be spammy and impersonal. I normally wouldn't bother looking at one. As someone who doesn't own a cell phone, smart or otherwise, I do not like the idea of a text either. (I guess I'm a dinosaur MAmazita) I like either a paper invitations either in the mail or hand delivered, or a personal phone call.

I dislike texts and I think they are inefficient. I think they are unfair to all those who don't have extensive text plans, first of all. Worse, if you send a text invitation to 20 people, all of those 20 will get text alerts every single time someone replies to you or asks for a clarification. They are just so annoying! And everyone is reading everyone else's questions, reading their responses, etc. Some of my work colleague use them, and they can be good for a quick alert especially when not everyone checks email or has email capability on their phones, but they get really annoying and lengthy if too much gets discussed. An invitation that turns into "What can I bring?" and "We might be a half hour late because Jimmy has soccer so is that a problem?" is nothing but frustrating.

An evite is something I am getting used to. They can at least be personalized and include graphics or something fun. I often sign up to be alerted when others reply, and that can serve as a reminder to me that everyone else is replying so I'd better get to it! It's nice to see the guest list if it's all a bunch of people I know.

My preference is mailed invitations because they can be pinned up on the bulletin board or fridge. Since most can be fed through printers, I don't mind the "impersonal" part of directions being printed inside or any of that. I think a hard-copy invitation is really important for children, because they get to see the real invite themselves. They also understand the value and joy of a personal letter-- and hopefully will appreciate the importance of a personal thank you note afterwards. I am 100% opposed to invitations being sent out in any way other than the mail. Asking school teachers to put invitations into kids' backpacks is so annoying for teachers (they say yes, but they hate it), and there are always at least 3 kids who lose them or spill juice on them or whose parents don't clean out the backpack in time. Then the hostess is left with a whole bunch of missing RSVPs - which we see complaints about all the time on Mamapedia! So if you're mailing them, mail them. I think a colored envelope stands out, but so does a fun stamp and a handwritten address. I think the more personal the invitation, the more invested the recipient is in seeing that you are a person! So maybe they will treat you individually and be polite. I think evites imply that you are inviting the whole class or 30 kids in the neighborhood, so their replies don't matter.

Paper invitations are by far the nicest and the only appropriate option for a wedding, graduation or other important event. Unfortunately they require more time and planning. Evite is a reasonable second for a casual or kids' event. A phone call is a reasonable option for a small dinner gathering or night out at a restaurant. A text - not ok at all. Cheesy in fact.

Funnily, this exact issue was in our newspaper's etiquette column yesterday. The writer (Miss Manners) said texts are not proper invitations, period, to anything.

She did not address "evites" but for me personally, I'd rather get an e-mailed invitation than a text. I do not have a smart phone (and I'm not the only one who doesn't). I don't use texting to send anything myself and one relative is the only person who texts me, infrequently, so if you sent me an invitation by text, I might not even see it until it was too late. Don't assume everyone uses texting as much as you or other friends use it, and even those who text a lot frankly might see text invitations as the lowest-effort way to invite someone -- and though it's low-effort for the sender, that kind of tells the recipient "I couldn't be bothered even to set up a good-looking e-mail invitation."

I think texts are still beyond the pale. We've all gotten more used to group e-mails (which I don't think are spammy if they're for a specific event and from someone I know -- what's spammy about that?) and those are more accepted, but paper is the classiest way to do things; however, I would not do a paper invitation to a child's event unless I mailed it, and I likely would follow up with an e-mail. (Sending paper invitations home in kids' school bags - no way; they get lost or crushed in the bottom of the bag or the kid leaves them at school etc.)

I still use paper invites delivered by hand or in the mail. The only time I have done a mass text invite was when it was a redo for a party that had been cancelled and I was just letting those that had RSVPed to the first one know when the new day was to see if they could still make it.

The problem with a text invite is that the details are hard to find again. guests are likely to forget the date, time and/or location because they aren't likely to put it on a calendar when they first see the text. I think people need an actual invitation - printed or emailed - so they don't have to keep track of the event details. Texts are hard to search and find again.

Also, a texted invitation feels too casual to me, like the person is inviting me as a second thought, or that I'm on the B list. I wouldn't feel like they actually cared that much whether I (or my child) attended or not.

Finally, I didn't used to have texting included in my data plan. Every single text I received or sent cost me 20 cents. If I was on a large group text (such as an invitation where many people were replying), it would end up costing me a lot of money! I would actually have been very annoyed that a friend would cost me so much money for sending a text of that nature.

I still prefer to send paper invites, but I don't mind receiving evites at all.

i HATE group texts.
khairete
S.

Text seems too casual. I like evite BC I can refer back for details and see who is going and it reminds me to RSVP.

Well, no. Mostly because I'd be irked that my phone number was put out to the whole group. I'm weird about that. But then again, I'm not good at looking at emails so I'd probably not see that either. lol Good luck.

The only time I used texting to invite people to a party was for my son's ninth birthday. We were having a small sleepover, just three kids. We are close with all three families. I mentioned the party to each mom before sending the invited. I made and invitation and saved it as a jpeg with all the information. Texted it individually to each person, not a group text.

There is NO WAY I would have done that for my daughter's birthday. I didn't know many of the families we invited. All new kindergarten friends. I think a group text would have been really awkward. Besides, it is often easier to get email addresses for classes than phone numbers.

Most of us can check email on our smart phone. Lately, I have been getting invitations through facebook too. And I think most of us hate group texting. I can't stand to listen to my phone bing 80 times because two people in the group decided to have a side conversation.

Our school this year is not allowing for paper invitations to be delivered at school so we had a mom email the class list and ask for home addresses so they could drive around and hand deliver to people's homes. She did not have enough time to get the addresses in time to actually mail them.

Another mom used email (not Evite) to invite everyone. It was fine - all the info was there.

When people use Evite, you can see who is accepting to go which is kind of nice.

I personally would not want a text. We are not big on texting (my kids are more so) but I could miss it.

What about a link to the invite? You could text, email or FB it. "Follow this link to see the invitiation to Bella's party and RSVP!"

Evite or hand deliver (ie kids parties via school). I would not want to receive a group invite via text because of the group messaging others mentioned and it would be harder to locate.

If you send me an invite via US mail, I probably won't see it in time to RSVP

We usually get kid birthday party invites via hand delivery to the kids at school thus they have them in their hand or in their backpack. This is also good because I can paperclip it in my planner.

EEK!! No!

I use my smarthphone all the time, but like someone else mentioned, texts are reserved for personal communications. And a group text with a bunch of people I don't know? Hell no!

We sent our wedding invitations by email.

I set up my text messaging that when I group message it still looks like a individual text. This way the multiple texts are avoided with side conversations.

I don't mind receiving invitations via text either. I have sent text invites to informal events on occassions.

I know my circle of family and friends includes people in their 80's. 70's and 60's. Some are tech savvy while most are not. When inviting them I go the snail mail, old fashioned invitations. When we got married we used multiple methods of inviting people without duplicating efforts. We ended up with around 250 guests at the reception and about 350 at the wedding. It was glorious and surprisingly intimate because most of the invited were family and friends.

Just like you received many various responses to this question, people preferences are just as varied. For a more formal event I would go with a printed invite or perhaps an evite depending on whom I'm inviting.

I would like to have the option to get a text reminder for evites, but I think an invitation that is only in a text may get lost in my phone. I also like the option to put the evite info right into my Outlook calendar.

I think an app connected to evite would be very successful. I think that text only invitations are probably coming in the future, so being one of the first to develop it could be very smart. I work with teens and they are totally focused on texts vs. emails. As those teens grow up, that will be the medium that they are comfortable with, so I would guess you would have a growing audience.

I have received text invites to parties that were sent to me individually, not as a group, and they were from people I consider closer friends. It might be odd if it was from someone I didn't really know. I do get group invites to get togethers through email, that doesn't bother me. I still send out the paper invitations to birthday parties, that way I avoid making anyone uncomfortable because people often do not want their personal email/phone # displayed for everyone in the group to see.