Inviting Company

Since we purchased our new home, I am constantly finding myself inviting company.  We have so much more space for people to mill about and we enjoy doing it so much, that inviting company has become somewhat of a pastime.  Over the past few years, we have come up with new ways of doing the inviting as well as new menus and party ideas.

Inviting company used to be mundane and simply involve making phone calls to your closest friends and telling them to spread the word to whomever they wished to invite along to the gathering.  As we have grown older and out of the kegger party mindset, we have begun using things like Evites, which are computerized invitation systems designed specifically for the host to keep track of things when they are inviting company to an event or gathering.  These invitations are hosted and created through websites, and you pick your background design from a large selection with themes of everything from Superbowl parties to outdoor BBQs.  You simply enter your party information, enter the email addresses you wish to send the invitation to, and hit send!  The website then takes care of the rest.  Invitees can respond to the email with a yes, no or maybe and the website keeps track of these responses on a personal invitation web page for the host.  This is extremely helpful for anyone inviting company, as you get a final headcount almost immediately and people seem to be more likely to respond through email rather than a phone call to RSVP.

For more formal events, we still utilize actual invitations through the mail.  We have gotten creative in the past and made our own handmade invitations simply because they have fit our personalities and party themes much more closely than store bought invitations.  On the other hand, when inviting company is more of a last minute decision, store bought invitations work quite well.  The only drawback to using invitations through the mail is actually getting a response as to whether or not the invitees plan on attending.  It seems as though people tend to forget to respond or procrastinate more so with mailed invitations than with any other method.

Of course we still use the old stand by method of simply calling our friends on Thursday night to get together on Saturday evening.  You just can’t beat the tried and true method of inviting company, and once you’ve reached a certain age it almost brings back the memories of the good old days of random get togethers.