印刷婚礼请柬已经过时了吗？传统与数字：印刷婚礼请柬的未来

People always need to think independently, and those who simply follow the crowd cannot succeed. I believe that wedding invitations will not be phased out, in other words, printed wedding invitations will stand the test of time. The emergence of digital alternatives for wedding invitations does not signify the decline of wedding invitations, but rather a transition in the consumer group and consumer behavior.

When we observe the development of something, we often look at its history. Just like the history of media development, television, radio, newspapers, telephones—they were not eliminated but rather replaced by different mediums.

Regarding the electronic substitution of paper, are there any similar examples we can cite? Certainly, currency and letters. Let’s start with currency. From copper coins to paper money and now electronic payments, people no longer need to carry cash when going out. And then there are letters. From carrier pigeons to horse-drawn carriages and messengers, to post offices and now emails and WeChat, the transmission of information has become as simple as breathing. So, no rational person would use physical, high-cost methods to transmit and exchange information and resources that require real-time and timeliness. Here, we use the terms information and resources, as money is a resource and a medium of exchange, and information is also a medium or, in other words, a medium is information. They are used for the exchange of value. Such value and medium serve their purpose and significance in themselves and do not possess additional value, such as collecting and commemorating.

Books and wedding invitations belong to another category. Besides their primary functions—books as knowledge storage and wedding invitations as wedding announcements—they also hold significance for collecting and commemorating. Generally, people don’t buy books frequently, even for scholars, professors, and knowledgeable individuals. The total number of books, when compared to the amount of information we receive and output daily, is negligible. Products like books and wedding invitations, with low consumption frequency or, in other words, low-frequency goods, serve as symbols during festive celebrations. They give meaning to special commemorative days and serve as evidence of existence for individuals. Due to the need for preservation, such goods are produced exquisitely and with a pursuit of quality, making them easy to store. Therefore, the value of these goods is certainly not low.

These goods have now been replaced by electronic alternatives, such as e-books and electronic wedding invitations, resulting in a decline in market sales. Consequently, people make simple judgments that physical books and wedding invitations are declining. However, the attributes of these goods are silently changing during this process.

During my university years, I also consumed e-books, and it could be said that I had fewer than ten physical books. One of my classmates even mocked me when they visited my dorm, saying that I didn’t read books to that extent. There were too many reference books for our courses, and that’s when I started downloading e-books. However, I found the experience unsatisfying. Now, I prefer physical books as a monthly reward to myself, a way to enrich myself after leaving the academic environment. I believe that reading books is the most cost-effective self-investment. When I hold a book in my hands, I can feel its touch and scent, which provides a sensory experience and a warm presence.

Therefore, you will see that publishing houses still exist, and wedding invitation companies naturally exist as well. Their existence is reasonable.

In the perception of many people, wedding invitations are gradually being abandoned by the times. This is a misjudgment caused by ignorance, as they often only see the surface and fail to dig deeper. In fact, wedding invitations still have their consumer groups, including those from the post-1990s and post.

In the minds of many people, wedding invitations are gradually becoming obsolete, a misconception caused by ignorance. They often only see the surface without delving into the root causes. In reality, wedding invitations still have their consumer base, including millennials and post-millennials. While I cannot guarantee their popularity among the younger generations, based on the historical development of paper products, they will not disappear completely. The only change lies in the consumer demographics and occasions. This is because the meaning of wedding invitations has transformed from being a necessary expense for ordinary people to a symbol of high-quality life, pursuing refined tastes, cultural sophistication, and high-end consumption. It can also serve as a way for prominent families to showcase their culture, economy, and social status.

A wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime event for most people (excluding factors such as divorce, remarriage, hasty marriages, or quick divorces). From a sociological perspective, it symbolizes the merging ceremony of two families into a single social unit. From an economic perspective, it signifies the merger of two companies, the consolidation, reorganization, and transmission of resources (money, social relationships, personnel, and genes). The fundamental purpose of the institution of marriage is expansion and strengthening of family influence. It is not just about the love between two individuals, but also involves complex social factors. Both in the West and the East, wedding ceremonies include an essential element – the handover. In Western traditions, the father walks the daughter down the aisle and hands her over to the groom. In Eastern traditions, the bride must change her shoes when entering the bridal sedan chair, symbolizing the inability to turn back. The word “wedding” itself originated from “hūn(昏)” which originally meant twilight. This indicates that wedding ceremonies were originally held at dusk because the bride could not find her way back home in the dark (although this is a digression). What I want to express is that whether in the East or the West, the bride has always been treated as an object in the institution of marriage, a commodity within the patriarchal system. Our common wedding customs, which may seem romantic on the surface, actually conceal the transfer ceremony of female ownership. From childhood, a girl belongs to her father, and after marriage, she belongs to her husband. After her husband’s death, she belongs to her son, always living under the protection of men. In the patriarchal system, the concept of female chastity emerged, which was seen as a right within the patriarchal system. This right belongs to the husband, not the wife herself. It belongs to the “father(父)”, so if a woman’s chastity is violated, it is considered a violation of her husband’s rights and property. The victim is the husband, not the woman. Over the course of history, losing chastity has been viewed as a deficiency, a damaged commodity that is cursed and abandoned.

Bringing it back, both in the eyes of Eastern and Western cultures, wedding invitations encompass not only the two newlyweds but also their families.

Weddings and funerals are events (or ceremonies) with strong social attributes. They are important arenas for interpersonal interactions. Therefore, apart from showcasing economic and cultural strength and social status, wedding invitations naturally possess strong social attributes and functions.

You only get married once in a lifetime, and holding the wedding invitation in your hand after several decades gives a sense of authenticity. Human memory has a characteristic – it seeks verification. Physical entities are the most powerful evidence that something has happened. Even if something is well-remembered by everyone, collective memory can still be lost over the years. Memory has a forgetting attribute, which is why people are fearful and worried that beautiful memories will be forgotten. Therefore, people always hope to leave some traces, some tangible warmth and comfort that can be held in their hands.

Humans are multisensory beings. When you buy a teddy bear, you don’t want to purchase an electronic version because hugging a bear provides a sense of security.

Other low-frequency commodities include educational certificates and awards. After years of studying diligently (investing a significant amount of resources), you would hope that the institution or organization would provide you not only with an electronic version that is easy to store, carry, and disseminate but also with a physical paper version that can be framed. Electronic files are composed of data, strings of numbers that can get lost in your document database, but framed documents are not. 

If you want to commemorate your loved one, you mostly hope they leave you a pocket watch or some small objects, rather than cold WhatsApp chat records.

When we want to commemorate great figures who have made outstanding contributions to our country or well-known personalities, we erect statues or wax figures.

“Objects” are the “proof” of “events” and are the best witnesses of civilization.

I believe these are just the tip of the iceberg of my subconscious knowledge, and they are the reasons that prompted me to make this business judgment and steadfastly execute it. The human brain is the most advanced computer to date, and often, the instantaneous decisions you make are not impulsive results but the outcome of careful calculations.

Daphne, June 4, 2023.