It honestly really bothers me when people assume that the sending of an e-vite or an e-thank you indicates a lack of caring or courtesy, as though the act of putting pen to paper is somehow any substantive indication of greater care than using a computer to do so. Let’s be honest–it’s not about caring, it’s about what’s been drilled into us since we were little. It’s a cultural thing. We maintain it because it is part of our collective culture, and that’s a nice thing. but the gratitude or desire to spend time with someone needs not hang on that.

And e-vites make things so much simpler for both host and guest–guests can often tell who is already coming, can plan for carpools or (if applicable) group gifts, hosts have a clearer idea of who is attending without having to keep track of phone calls that may or may not come (IMO, any party that involves a telephone RSVP would be better served by e-vite than paper invitations.)–with people’s schedules as crazy as they often are, finding time to phone when people are home and able to get messages is a challenge, and I can’t tell you how many mumbled and unintelligible RSVP phone messages I’ve gotten from parents of my kids’ friends for party invites.

It drives me crazy that my kids’ schools still do not make parents’ emails available to one another–phone and address, yes, but not email. Sigh…

So–put me in the e-vite column, all the way.
–Jenn

I go with evites for a lot of things because it’s easier. For my wedding I went with beautiful paper invitations. I don’t see a problem either way. There’s still a carbon cost of using the computer on both ends, looking up forgotten details, the servers that run the evite company and so on.