Traditional invites go digital, turn new gen's favourite

Digital invites are becoming a priority for any occasion. It is a current trend. From a small inauguration ceremony to gala weddings, the digitalised invites are becoming more popular and getting accepted with their cartoon illustrations with customised graphics.

Moreover, people more digital savvy than before on a large-scale seem to prefer classic and digital caricatures to physical invites, and traditional cards seem to be giving way to this new normal.

"Earlier, people used to come for customised invites as an add-on to their traditional wedding cards, but now people just prefer to order the exclusively customised comic cards for everyone, including relatives, whereas earlier people used to order only for their circle of friends and colleagues.

This has become a trend because it's easy to forward to friends. It's something attractive and unique which can be saved in outdrives forever, unlike the physical cards," said D Srinivas, a designer from Elite Cards, Hyderabad. A decade ago, the trend was to have one traditional physical card and another small invite card for friends, but that hit hard with E invites.

P Kiran Kumar, founder and creative director, Kiran Press, says, "All generations are welcoming the customised doodle art cards, as it's adding minute details of the ceremony in a fun way. No more boring cards, say couples and families too.

Almost 80 per cent of our orders since the pandemic are customised doodle e-invites. Hardly people prefer the traditional card, as the norms rolled out to prevent a person-to-person contact according to the Covid norms."

A wedding planner, K Swathi Priya of Sweet Surprise Company, says, "Everyone, especially couples, want to tell their story in their invites. Customers' ideas are always with a request to illustrate a scene such as first meet, memorable memory or their pet names in their classic invites."

"If we consider an Indian bride and overseas groom, they both want us to illustrate their journey from another nation to the home town and how the match is hitched in a simple cartoon on their cards.

To design such cards, it is really time-consuming. We need to study the couple and families to sketch the doodle in the way they think us to do it. Many others prefer caricature over photos," she added.

Overall, with the new era of E invites, people who depend on art, caricature, such as cartoons, are able to make some money with efforts.