If you are in charge of creating and sending out official invitations from the office and on behalf of the management, there are certain factors to keep in mind. Even if you have enough experience sending invitations to multiple employees, executives, and clients, looking through the pointers next can still act as a good set of reminders. In case you are new to this, then you may find the following guidelines particularly helpful.
Determine the General Tone of the Event
Just because it’s an office invitation, it does not mean every event needs to be worded with a strict code of formality, which is why it is necessary to match the tone of your lettering with the event in question. For example, if we are discussing parties, in particular, the tone should never be extremely formal. Semi-formal wording is just about as strict as any corporate party invitation should be, but there is room for a bit of good-natured levity here. When in confusion regarding the appropriate attitude for a particular event, consult with management to get a better idea. Consulting with them should also provide you with a better understanding of what they are expecting.
Synchronize the Theme with the Tone and Event
An invitation card, letter, or email is more than just the summation of words you will be using. It must also be themed or designed in perfect harmony with the event’s nature and the tone of your words. Now, most corporate invitations can benefit from the well-established general rule, “less is more.” The more formal an event is, the fewer words an invitation to it should carry (unless necessary).
The same goes for the embellishments as well. Nevertheless, do not mistake brevity for the absence of a theme. For example, some of the most exclusive invites are often created on a black background with just a few lines in gold lettering, complete with only an insignia that represents the event. Despite its brevity, the combination of black and gold sets it apart from an average company invite, while the special insignia serves both as an embellishment, and a mark of exclusivity.
On the other hand, if the event happens to be something more joyous and less formal like a St. Patrick’s Day office party, then there is a lot of room for creativity here. Although St. Patrick’s Day celebrations are associated with recreation and relaxation more than anything else these days, it is important to remember the holiday’s religious origins while writing the official invite.
Adopt a casual/semiformal tone for the event and be sure to include at least a few of the many famous St. Patrick’s Day sayings on each invite. You will find the best St. Patrick’s Day sayings and quotes at Greenvelope, so choose whichever feels the most appropriate for the occasion. In fact, you can plan, create, send, and track e-invites for any corporate, family, a social, or personal event with Greenvelope. They have templates for everything from envelopes to fonts, along with the technology to track each invite for RSVP responses.
Highlight and Include the Most Important Parts
Any event, irrespective of how formal or informal it may be, has at least a few important sections that cannot be excluded from the invitations. The following are some of the most common inclusions in any official invitation that require highlighting:
- Address and location
- Timing and event schedule
- Purpose/occasion of the event
- Dress code (if applicable)
- Guest allowance (if applicable)
- Name and designation of the invited
Personalization: Importance and Feasibility
It isn’t uncommon for the HR department to send generic invitations to everyone, without marking the name and designation on each respective invitation. However, that is both an unprofessional and informal practice that is best avoided. At the same time, it might be a lot of work to manually personalize each invitation in case the guest list is a long one.
A dedicated RSVP invitation tool/service should be able to sync with your company’s email client and automatically customize each e-invite with the mail recipient’s name and designation. This saves time and energy, while also helping you maintain the minimum corporate courtesy expected from official invitations. When that is not an option, at least be sure to customize the most important invites with their respective names and designations (VIPs).
Exclude with Formal Courtesy
Sometimes, invitations carry certain instructions which are delivered simply through their absence. For example, most office parties are not meant for the children to attend, but some may. However, no formal, semiformal, or informal invitation can ever carry that message for obvious reasons. The fact that children are not invited to a corporate party may be made obvious through the simple act of not mentioning them in the invites.
Similarly, if the office event in question is exclusive to only one department, the invite should never mention the excluded parties, but instead, it should be made obvious by highlighting the fact that it is exclusively a departmental event. Also, special attention must be given to ensure that none of the uninvited departments receive such an invitation by mistake since that would be extremely unprofessional and can be taken as an insult. Avoid creating unnecessary tension between departments by being cautious with such sensitive details. In case such a mistake has been made, consult with your departmental manager to mitigate the situation in the best way possible.
Going Paperless
E-invites are not just ecofriendly; they also save money for the company. On top of that, there is so much room for innovation and creativity with digital invitations. For example, custom GIFs add more character to invites that traditional card invitations cannot. Other than that, printing mistakes can look unprofessional and clumsy on corporate invites, but the cost of correcting them at the last minute can be far too much, if at all possible.
With digital invites, there is no printing cost, to begin with, and typos are autocorrected. Even if a few mistakes make their way through the autocorrection, correcting them manually takes minutes as all you need to do is correct them on one invite to have the rest autocorrected accordingly. Since digital invitations can be customized automatically and without manual intervention, this saves energy and time, both of which can then be better directed towards being more productive in the office.
By abandoning paper invites, the company will be able to portray a more updated image of itself in front of its clientele and within the sector. It shows that the company is well aware of how illegal logging can be responsible for deforestation, so they are willing to take the steps necessary to alleviate the situation while going forward as a progressive corporate establishment.
There can be other more specific aspects and formal codes specific to your own company of course, and it is up to you to make sure that all of them are maintained accordingly. Nevertheless, the instructions here should be able to help in writing, designing, editing, sending, and tracking corporate invites for all kinds of events. Just remember that if you are uncertain about including something, it is better to consult with someone more experienced. Sometimes, it might even be better to omit something that you are not sure about entirely than to take a risk within a professional setting.
