The traditional methods of wedding invitations has become soft.  No more wedding cards are printed now. Even if they are printed, they are just a few.  Only WhatsApp messages are being sent now says Manoj Kothari.  And this happens for the wedding between Kothari Family and Manakana family that too in traditional Jain community.

WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app has become safer and easy option. It saves paper, money and effort too.

We have our cousin Anishas Kothari, a Interior Designer’s wedding with Vinay Makana, a master in practising accounting in Australia to be performed on 19th May at Hotel Ramada Manohar in city.  We haven’t printed a single card for the solemn occasion.  We got the cards designed. The cards are designed in Hindi only because our community uses only this language.  We have 1500 guests on our invitations list to be invited for the marriage.  All we have done is we sent Soft Wedding Cards on WhatsApp to all our guests.  That is all

We have also made a cost effective slide show(Video film) which says Vinay and Anisha invites you to celebrate the most memorable day of their life @ Hotel Manohar, Begumpet on 19th May. Awaiting your presence. Please be there. 7pm onwards.  Both these WhatsApp Wedding Card and Video Film are then followed by a phone call for personalisation.  In case of some important relatives and for formality sake, we have taken few colour photocopies.  Rest all is managed with WhatsApp, Email and Text Messages, Manoj informed.

We have saved almost rupees one lakh fifty thousand on printing them.  And quite a decent sum is also saved on postage. This money we would like to donate for a good cause, which we have not decided yet.  The biggest saving is the paper.  And the fuel we would have spent on distributing the invitations. We have also saved on traffic congestion said Manoj.

We are not saying wedding cards will be totally replaced by this kind of a medium. But, definitely few cards are required and large chunk of them can easily be done away with, said Vinay Makana, the bridegroom.

The idea just came to us when whole world is making hue and cry about environmental concerns.  That is when we decided to go ahead with soft invitations. Many of our elders were not in favour of it. Why youngsters liked the idea.  But, few also said, nobody tried before. So we shouldn’t do.  When the idea is good and saves paper, why not we start the practice. Now we have been getting lot of good feedback said Anisha Kothari.    .

The celebration of a wedding is a solemn occasion. It is not only to consolidate or strengthen the relationship, but also is an extremely important event.  Both bride and groom desire to share their joy and happiness  with all  their loved ones and friends, which have been involved in the history of relationships for many years. Thus, the couple invite their friends and family to attend their wedding . Under these changed circumstances  and tech savvy world,  the hottest cross-platform mobile instant messaging app for smart phones WhatsApp is not only emerging as threat to the social networking sites but is also replacing traditional methods of  invitations for happy and sad occasions informed Lokesh, a Social Media specialist.  .

People are not only using WhatsApp for inviting people on occasions like weddings, marriage anniversaries, events, birthdays, naming ceremony, house warming ceremonies  and other auspicious occasions besides sending condolence  messages and invites for sad occasions are also it is used.

WhatsApp over the years since founded in 2009, emerged as a big threat to social networking sites.  As unlike in the virtual world of social networking sites the people connected with each other turn out to be strangers, fake on some occasions, but on WhatsApp no such threat exits, as the people connected on this either are known to each other or get real identification once when they get connected as this app runs on the mobile phone  and mobile number  provides real identification thus the fear of getting in touch with fake identity is averted said Giridhari Devanathan, Founder of a buysmaart.com, a product discovery platform.

WhatsApp is an instant messaging app for smartphones. It operates using internet to send text messages, images, vidoe, user location and audio media messages.  It is the most popular messaging app with more than 800 million users., Giri Devanathan added.

WhatsApp is gaining popularity as multimedia messages could be sent by uploading the image, audio or video instantly observed Rajkumar another avid user of WhatsApp

It is fine to note that it is replacing the traditional wedding card invitation. But, what about the personal touch which people used to enjoy to renew their connections while inviting people personally.  That is not possible in this case, said Avinash Kumar, who is into traditional wedding cards business.  The socialising which used to happen while distributing invitations personally is also lost he said. No matter what apps come, the traditional wedding invitations cannot be replaced.

It is the same feeling that when Video Conferencing Facility was launched everybody thought the hotelier will lose their business as business traveller who otherwise used to travel for meetings will stop travelling. But, that has not happened.  Personal interaction is personal interaction, he said.

That is fine. The personal touch is good. But, people have become very busy. Marriage means far too many arrangements to be made.  Travelling to places to invite people also takes lot of time. It is more so in case of nucleas or smaller families. Where the family head has to do all things by him/herself.  Also WhatsApp comes a boon when marriages are fixed suddenly. People are in hurry to perform marriage. Especially in case of NRI  families they dont get so much of time to go around and distribute cards. They come on brief vacation.  In such cases it works well, said Manoj Kothari.

Besides the above communication modes, Manoj described, they are also sending a voice message, requesting .their guests to attend the ceremony explaining compulsion for sending invite through WhatsApp medium while providing the details of the programme of the marriage in text.”

Now people are also understanding how difficult it is to go around and distribute few thousand cards. So this medium of wedding invitations distribution is slowly but steadily gaining acceptance.  There is no problem with youngsters.  Few elders may not like this.  But, time will come they will also accept it says Manoj.