We are living in times of great change. Almost every sphere of human endeavor is experiencing great changes. From the way we learn, to the way we shop, and onto the way we travel...pretty much everything is changing. And it is from such a background then, that we can venture to explore the future of wedding invitations, that is, the way people invite one another to wedding ceremonies.
But before we can venture to explore the future of wedding-invitations, it may be a good idea to examine where the change that has already taken place has brought wedding invitations to: that is, the current state of wedding invitations. In this regard, it would be worth recalling that once upon a time, there weren't any events that could be called weddings. Human beings, then, were primitive and often shared mates, with the strongest men often ending up getting all the women. Women, then, were simply seen as resources to be fought over. And a woman was typically yours for as long as you had her. The moment she walked away, any other man could take possession of her.
But someone thought we could do better, and introduced the idea of marriage - where a given man could have a given woman for life. Initially, there was no ceremony to mark this. A man would take responsibility for the physical protection and maintenance of a woman and the woman, in return would vow not to take on any other men. The problem with this arrangement was that there tended to be misunderstandings, where a man could undertake to protect and maintain a given woman; but other men, unaware of this arrangement, would continue making passes at her. It therefore became necessary to have a ceremony where a man and a woman could be declared a couple, so that other people who had plans on them (especially on the woman, as women were seen as valuable reproductive resources) could keep off. Thus were weddings born: as ceremonies to mark the initiation of marriage relationships.
In their earliest days, wedding were rudimentary affairs. Invitation was by word of mouth. Sometimes, the invitations weren't even necessary - everyone who happened to be passing that way could just drop in and have a party.
But as the weddings became more and more sophisticated, with the cost of organizing them rising more and more, it became necessary to filter those who could attend and those who couldn't. At this point, migrations had driven people apart too, so that it often became necessary to send them letters inviting them to the weddings.
The wedding-invitation letters were eventually replaced by wedding-invitation cards.
That status quo, with wedding invitation cards being used to invite people to weddings, held for a long time.
Then the Internet came, and suddenly, the wedding invitation card, as a tool for inviting people to a wedding, came under threat from the more convenient E-cards. And it is at this point that we find ourselves, where many wedding invitations are being carried out through E-cards, typically made through the graphics software that is nowadays very easily available. It is also a point where more and more people are using mobile phone wedding invitations, typically through the use of text messages.
Now looking through the crystal balls, it is quite easy to foresee a date, a very near one indeed, when E-card shall completely replace the paper-based wedding invitation cards. This has already happened in some parts of the world, and as the Internet reaches all places and becomes a part of everyday life, this will almost be a certainty. It is not hard to foresee a date when paper-based wedding cards will be completely replaced by E-cards and text invitations to weddings. Some sorts of traditional wedding invitation media, such as that which produces engraved wedding invitations, may (and indeed are likely to) survive this onslaught, but for the most part, traditional wedding invitation media seems to be under a huge threat.
In the somewhat far off future, it is not altogether impossible to foresee a point at which the whole concept of weddings might become irrelevant, as more and more people opt to get married without the hullabaloo of wedding ceremonies. The marriage institution is itself under serious threat, so that one day (thankfully quite far off), there might be no new marriages taking place, for which to make wedding-invitations.
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