Of late I've come across some really 'different' wedding invitations, which have got me interested in collecting them. I am happy that some individuals take time to get creative with their wedding invitations. Not for these souls the staid "Smt & Sri so and so request the pleasure of..." These people break out of the mould and design retro cards using their imagination. And I must hand it to their imagination.

The first wedding invite that introduced me to this world of non-conformist
wedding invitation creativity was of a dear friend's. It was purple in
colour and it began,
You did not come for Adam and Eve's (picture of the forbidden fruit),
You did not come for Mumtaz and Shah Jahan's (picture of the Taj Mahal),
You didn't attend all eight of Elizabeth Taylor's (picture of a ring),
and so on and ended with,
If you don't come for my wedding (picture of a bomb).
It really blew me.

What made this one-off preservation of an invitation a collection was the second invite that I happened to come by. This next one was also some shade of violet with the lines, "We are going to be locked (with a picture of a lock and key in case we missed the point) in wedded bliss."

The title of this article has been borrowed from a recent invite that I received. The groom is a software engineer and perhaps prefers to express himself in netspeak.

A friend of mine passed on an invitation of her colleague. It surpassed all others in terms of content. The lines went, "You must have heard the whispers in the corridor. It's official. We are in love. Please drag yourself to... and plonk in the chairs, clap at the right times... Don't worry, you can then proceed for a gobbling session... and if you miss this, catch the highlights on..." And I must not forget to mention the picture of a bride and groom riding into the sunset on horseback.

These sort of invites truly bring cheer to the soul. They are bizarre and funny (now, I don't know if they are meant to be either) and I am glad that some people (more often unknowingly than knowingly) venture into the less beaten track when it comes to wedding invitations.