Double Envelopes?

You know, I don't know if this is considered tacky or not but this is what I did and I didn't hear anyone complain or make any negative remarks about it. I wanted to save some money too

I not only wanted to save money on the envelopes but also on the cost of postage.

Honestly, using double envelopes is a dying tradition, anyway. The original idea was that the outer envelope could get scuffs and marks on it in transit, so you'd have a nice clean envelope inside. However, since few people will actually keep the invitation for any length of time, this really isn't necessary.

Another function of the inner envelope was to keep all the pieces together after the outer envelope is opened. However, a lot of couples these days use other methods for that, e.g., pocketfolds or tying all the pieces together with ribbons.

Most invitations come with double envelopes. The savings will be if you don't use them you wont need to pay for the liner! There are so many choices and trends are always changing. Go with what makes you happy

I'm not using double envelopes. 1) I think it's a waste of money 2) why kill more trees? All the invites I have gotten for the past 3 years have been single envelopes.

The use of two envelopes for wedding invitations dates back to the horse-and-buggy days before the dawn of the 20th Century. The postal service was not very reliable at that time and non-existent in certain areas. The only way to guarantee that a wedding invitation was delivered was to hire a courier or use a family servant to hand deliver the invitation via horseback. In order to keep the invitation in the most pristine condition possible during the oftentimes rugged journey, two envelopes were utilized.

Once the invitation arrived to its intended destination, it was actually delivered to the household butler or servant who then removed the outer envelope before delivering it to the head of the household

I am only using one envelope! Doing two was going to cost me more money and looked like a big pain in the a**!

We're only doing 1 envelope (ordering inner envelopes costs more $&dollar. After hearing that the reason for them (most invitations I had ever seen only had 1 envelope) is that the outer envelope gets messy during transit and that way the inner envelope would be pristine, I decided to skip it. Even those who keep the invitation are not likely to keep the envelope.

I'm only using one envelope (but still doing the linner). The majority of my invites are being hand delivered so don't have to worry too much about them getting wrecked by the post.

One envelope is fine.

One envelope is fine.

I am doing two envelopes to be very clear about who I am inviting. I am not always inviting children or the "plus ones." I am also indicating names on the RSVP cards for the same reason.

It's good to understand the tradition of double envelopes, but as people are saying here, it is really up to you to decide whether to stick with the tradition or not.

And in the case of special invitation formats like pocket folders and petal fold styles, they already have enough personality so generally people stick with single envelopes.

We are also going for the double envelopes to make sure the guest clearly understands exactly who is invited. I am wording my RSVP's in a way to drive that message home as well. Our event is adults only, except for my daughter, who is 16, no other children or young adults are invited. Heck, the FGK(Future Grand Kids) are not even invited. It is a small and intimate adults only DW. I have a few guests who are not pleased.

You're in luck. Double envelopes aren't as traditional as most people think they are, and they DON'T go back to the days of footmen hand-delivering mail (it isn't that hard to find contemporary sources from the Regency and prior that describe sending letters -- or even the letters themselves for that matter.)

The outer envelope is for getting the invitations to the right address. You need one of those, and it needs to conform to the Post Office rules, which means you can't worry too much about social graces on the outer envelope. You can "fake it" if you have to, and use the outer envelope to add children's and boyfriends' names, or even "and Guest", but it isn't really socially proper to expose all those personal details; and the Post Office doesn't officially approve of cluttering up the envelope with the names of a bunch of non-residents.

So you need some way to say who is invited. The inner envelope gives you a place to write the names of the invitees, and came into use when ...

... engraving replaced hand-writing the invitations. Hand-written formal invitations (which are actually MORE formal and proper than engraved ones) always read:

Miss Kristen Zed

requests the pleasure of the company of

Miss Phipps

to (whatever)

Of course, with hand-engraved copper plate printing there's no mail-merge and no way to individually engrave the names of all the guests, so most people just moved to the phrase "the pleasure of your company". But high sticklers (including Buckingham Palace, still, BTW) insisted on the engraver's leaving a blank line where "Miss Phipps" can be hand-written in. When you do that, you don't need an inner envelope, because the names of who is invited appear on the envelope itself.

Or for that matter, nowadays you COULD use mail-merge, (since copper-plate hand engraving has vanished from nearly every city I know of anyway) and have the guests' names printed right on the invitation in the self-same font as the rest of the invitation, which frankly looks very elegant.

Our suite didn't come with dbl envelopes. the only thing that mattered to us is that the actual invite made it okay, which they did.

Hi, it is not necessary to use double envelopes. It is your day ~ so do what makes you happy. All the best, Jeana