THE form of the invitation depends a great deal upon the character of
the function to which one wishes to invite the guests to whom one issues
the invitation. Or, to put it more simply, invitations differ according
to the nature of the party to which one invites the guests. In other
words, when issuing invitations to invited guests one must have due
regard for the fact that these invitations vary with the various types
of entertainments for which one issues the invitations. That is to say,
one would obviously not send out the same form of invitation to a
wedding as to a dinner party, and vice versa. This is an iron-clad rule
in polite society.
For example, a gentleman and lady named Mr. and Mrs. Weems,
respectively, living at 1063 Railroad Ave., wishing to invite a
gentleman named Mr. Cleek to dinner, would send him the following
engraved invitation:
MR. AND MRS. LIONEL THONG WEEMS
request the pleasure of
MR. WALLACE TlLFORD CLEEK'S
company at dinner
on Tuesday January the tenth
at half after seven o'clock
1063 Railroad Avenue.
This invitation would of course be worded differently for
different circumstances, such as, for example, if the name of the people
giving the party wasn't Weems or if they didn't live at 1063 Railroad
Ave., or if they didn't have any intention of giving a dinner party on
that particular evening.
Many prospective hostesses prefer to send written notes instead
of the engraved invitation, especially if the dinner is to be fairly
informal. This sort of invitation should, however, be extremely simple.
I think that most well-informed hostesses would agree that the following
is too verbose:
