Send Your Invitations

The wonderful thing about invitations is that you can be creative. The more creative you are, the more enticing the invitation will be. Of course, you don't have to be creative; ordinary invitations work, too. Here are some ways to invite family members. Choose the one(s) that work for you.

• Tell them in person. If you regularly run into most of the invited family members, you can mention the reunion to them as part of your normal interaction.
• Call them on the phone. Using the phone is great for small groups, especially if you want to ask for help with the reunion.
• Email them. Email is fast and inexpensive. You can include attachments, such as a PDF version of your invitation or a small audio or video file if you create one. You can link to a web site for more information, too. However, the informality of email may make the reunion seem less "special" so you may want to send a follow up invitation by regular mail as well.
• Text them. Texting is the best way to get hold of younger generation family members. You can send the messages from your cell phone or a computer. But the amount of information you can send is limited so do a good job of condensing it.
• Fax them. Fax machines are getting less common now that it's so easy to email. But if you have a fax number for a family member, it can be an easy way to send a copy of your written invitation.
• Send regular mail. With people using regular mail less and less, receiving an invitation in your mailbox can seem more special. You can send nicely printed copies of your invitation and include media on CD's if you have the skill to create them. But it is more expensive than, say, email.
• Use an online invitation service. You can use an online invitation service that sends invitations for you and keeps track of who RSVP's. A good one to try is evite.com.
• Announce the reunion online. There are places online where you can post an announcement for your family reunion.
• Advertise. There are lots of ways to advertise a family reunion. You can place an ad in a local newspaper, pay for billboards, run an ad on radio or TV and so on. You can post a small message on Twitter.com for free and send out a press release to various publications. Most advertising costs money, sometimes lots of money, so it's only appropriate if you're trying to gather large numbers of family members--say, all the people in the United States whose last name is Jones--and don't have a more targeted way to reach them.

The ways you choose depend on the size of your reunion, the ages of the invitees, the type of invitation you made and so on.