I received a fancy envelope in the mail the other day. The names on the return address seemed to indicate that I had received a wedding invitation. (However, sometimes they use a phantom parents’ address just to throw you off the scent a little.) I ripped it open, risking a paper cut; I am a man of the people, and use my own hands rather than some chichi letter opener.
Inside I found not an invitation, but the increasingly common “save the date” card. A promise, if you will, that I will be invited at some future point, but not just yet, Chester. We can compare this to the wedding announcement, a notification that you were not invited and we had a fantastic time without you. This is, of course, a pathetic ploy to obtain even more gifts. For these situations, I keep on hand return cards with the calligraphy-adorned sentiment “Go fuck yourself.”
But I digress. I don’t understand the Save the Date card. It’s notifying us of the date of a wedding, and usually a location, and often a URL where we can obtain lodging information, historical markers within a 15-mile radius, etc. But isn’t all this the purpose of the invitation itself? To tell us to…save the date?
Oh, I can hear them now: We have out-of-area guests! Out-of-the-country, even. They need extra time to make travel arrangements. We are basing our entire lives around this one day, and we want you to, as well.
The save-the-date card also shows a couple’s whimsical side; the invitation itself is often much more austere.
And of course they are fending off myriad other events that might pop up on your overcrowded social calendar, especially on prestige dates. Last year I was asked to save 7/7/07. This year it’s 6/7/08. I’m sure lovey-dovey computer programmers are holding off till 10/10/10.
Perhaps it’s all last-gasp collusion between the stationery industry and the U.S. postal service, as the threat of an all-eVite wedding-invitation world looms on the horizon.
As a single man, I do appreciate one aspect of the save-the-date system. It allows me an even greater window for my standard working-backward: If I have to reply by such-and-such date, I’d need to ask a girlfriend to accompany me by a date prior to that. And to be close enough with her to feel comfortable inviting her to a wedding, I’d actually have to meet this woman 6 to 8 weeks before that….This is, of course, assuming I’ve been invited with a guest, you cheap bastards.
But the fact remains, I am not saving your wedding date until I send back the RSVP card. I reserve the right for something better to come along. Someone I like better than you, or just a more convenient location. So send the official invitation. Make me commit. Isn’t that what marriage is all about?
Jack Silbert, curator