What’s it like?” This was the first question I was asked after receiving a common friend’s wedding invitation card for their son’s marriage. Not a frivolous question at all but an important one in this day and age, where as much thought goes into the card as to the actual wedding celebrations. Indeed, the wedding invitation card, the harbinger of good news, is possibly the most important part of the whole package.
Rewind to earlier times, when weddings were simpler affairs and even people with plenty of money to flash were, well, just less flashy! I’m sure many of us remember those cards, usually chock-a-block with information: Who was getting married to whom, the names of their parents and grandparents, the time, date and venue of the wedding, with “Best Compliments” from near-and-dear ones squashed into one corner.
The different functions of the wedding celebrations were listed on the adjacent page. All this was printed on fairly ordinary paper and sometimes there was a separate invite for the reception, usually a simple rectangle of stiff paper.
Fast forward to our times and the wedding invite, like most other things, has undergone a transformation. There are cards — and then there are cards! And I’m talking about high-end cards, glamorous, glitzy cards that reflect the status of the sender. It is no longer one card or two cards like in earlier times, but a series of cards often nestling cozily in an ornate box. The box is like a treasure-chest, intricately patterned and colour-coordinated.
And no more flimsy card-paper. These cards are the ultimate in high design, “bespoke” wedding cards, where, to use today’s newspeak, luxury meets inventiveness and modernity meets tradition. There may be four cards or even five, each one a separate invitation for a different function. And the design on every card is different yet similar — a slight variation in the lettering, a flower here, a heart there or an abstract depiction of a religious symbol. Obviously, this is high art! The designing and printing of wedding cards seems an industry in itself. And it’s not just eastern wedding cards that have become so glamorous; a Google search tells you that the western ones can cost an arm and a leg and perhaps another limb too! The only difference I found between the two was that the western ones were often more funky and funny. Like this one, which says: You are Invited to an Evening of Debauchery and Regret!
Talking of regret, it seems some zillionaires have cards embellished with real diamonds, emeralds, rubies and pearls. Each card is literally worth a small fortune, and, going by today’s dismal statistics, sometimes outlasts the marriage itself! I can imagine one of the exes going to a friend’s/relative’s home, and seeing the card along with the silver ornaments in the display cabinet. For where else will you keep such a precious piece? You can’t throw it into the dustbin or junk it, unless of course you remove the precious stones and then discard the card.
And now to the question asked in the beginning — how was the friend’s card? I must say it was tasteful and elegant and although it too came in a box (which seems to be de rigueur — prescribed or required by fashion — nowadays), the same box held a tray of Swiss chocolates craftily nestling in a corner.
It would be hypocritical to say that we long for the simplicity of the past, at least as far as wedding invites go. And I’m more than glad to note that in this age of ecommerce, edating, ebusiness,etc., the ecard hasn’t yet taken over and traditional invites seem to be here to stay for a long, long time.
Padmini B. Sankar is a Dubai-based freelance writer.
