Friday, July 06, 2007

Wedding Woes - the Card

Its the first of my weddings tomorrow (as a guest that is). Today, I had to buy a card, so I went to Paperchase. It should have been easy. Paperchase has never let me down before, with its range of modern, tasteful and inoffensive designs. But not this time.

There was a woeful lack of choice - just 3 wedding cards. Traditional wedding cards have been squeezed out. They are now competing for shelf-space with same-sex marriage cards (Mr and Mr, To the Two Brides etc). Now I don't begrudge the civil ceremony partnerships (to give it the official title, not much used on the greeting cards though) and I can see why Hallmark et al must have been rubbing their hands in glee at the possibility of the whole new range of cards needed.

But that wasn't all.

There also wedding invite acceptance cards, wedding 'regret' cards (none of which had the honesty to say 'I'm not coming because I'm going broke with all these weddings') and a 'Thank You for being a great Flower Girl' card. Then worst of all was the 'Woo Hoo, the Divorce Came Through' card. Is there really a market for this? Would a 'card left blank for your own message' not suffice for this occasion?

Anniversaries however had twice as much space so perhaps I should have just waited and send them a card for their anniversary?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For a wedding, a brief letter is really more appropriate than a card - so it's just as well you didn't find anything :-)

SandDancer said...

I did something - there just wasn't much choice. A letter may be appropriate in high society or if you aren't attending, but amongst our friends, it would have been hugely inappropriate as it would be far too formal.