Translations:Invitations & RSVPs/4/en

The RSVP — the reply to an invitation — is the other half of the exchange. Community experience suggests that the health of a gathering usually depends less on decoration or catering than on whether invitations were clear and whether replies were honest. This article looks at both sides of that exchange as a social practice rather than a set of procedures.

| Understanding=An invitation performs several functions at once. It communicates practical details, it defines the boundary of the group, and it establishes an implicit frame for what the occasion is. A message that reads as a casual drink carries different expectations than one describing a structured evening with a set start and end. Ambiguity in the invitation tends to reproduce itself as ambiguity in the room.