Wedding invites go to SMS
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Wedding invitations, once a snail mail exclusive industry, now go beyond even email inboxes after the peak of digital invite services created in the '90s and aughts.
Why it matters: Text message wedding invites join the era of digital romance, where dating apps and Zoom weddings became fixtures, and it's in part due to a post-pandemic cultural shift toward more casual gatherings.
- The "non-wedding wedding" with less traditional clothing, casual food and spontaneous photography are growing in popularity, per Vogue.
What they're saying: "As millennials and more Gen Z couples are getting married, their main form of communication is almost exclusively digital," wedding planner Richel Cole told the New York Times. "And that's reflected in the way that information for their wedding is provided to their guests."
Case in point: Partiful, now a Gen Z go-to for invitations, has a few dozen wedding-related posters, GIFs and images built into its platform.
- Partiful invites can be sent as web links via text. The platform also allows users to send text blasts to notify guests of event updates.
Some couples are opting for nicely designed posters sent as images with time and place details.
Between the lines: Another factor is wedding costs, which overall have increased.
- Wedding stationery costs couples an average of $530 in 2023, per a report from The Knot.
- 64% of couples in the survey said cost and budget are the most important factor to them in wedding planning.
Zoom in: A platform called Text My Wedding offers digital save-the-dates, invitations, RSVPs and guest info collection.
- For free, couples can send up to 10 messages; $47 buys 500 messages; and $77 gets 1,200.
- Most clients are between 25 and 34 years old, said Sean Moriarity, co-owner of Text My Wedding.
By the numbers: Some 202 events were registered on the platform from August 2022 to July 2023. This jumped to 899 from August 2023 to July 2024.
- For his upcoming wedding, Moriarity is using the service in conjunction with a mailed invite, he said.
- Paperless Post had a 35% increase in the number of wedding guests receiving invites using SMS from 2023 to 2024.
- Etsy and Canva both recently had more users searching for wedding and save-the-date templates, the NYT reported.
The bottom line: Marriage is on the decline in the U.S.
- Anyone getting married is doing so under adapted overall norms.
Go deeper: The latest D.C. empty-office pivot: weddings
