The Stationers Guild

For some reason, I have become fixated on the phrase:  “cheap wedding invitations”.  Perhaps, my curiosity was piqued when I discovered that there were 17 million web pages that contained the search term “cheap wedding invitations.”  Or maybe it was the shock at finding that there were almost 50 thousand Google searches in June using the phrase “cheap wedding invitations.”  I would have thought that “free wedding invitations” was a better term, but I was mistaken since there were only 27 thousand Google searches in June for that phrase.

In any event, the matter came to a head this weekend when I picked up the New York Times Book Review and saw the review of Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell.    I have now read a couple of reviews and intend to buy Cheap (at the full retail price?) when I quit writing Blog articles.    The long and short of the reviews is that the costs of our “discount culture” are inevitably paid for by somebody.  Writes the reviewer, Laura Shapiro, “We’re being subsidized by a distant labor force we never see, the Chinese and Mexicans and Vietnamese who work under well-documented Dickensian conditions.”   Harvard economist, Robert Lawrence is quoted by Ms. Shell as saying that “When prices are kept too low, innovation is nearly impossible.”  Argues Ms. Shapiro “Apparently we’re not even building better mousetraps anymore – just cheaper ones.”

Cheap by Ellen Ruppell Shell

While it is hard to argue that getting the “best value” is certainly a worthwhile pursuit, an online search for a “cheap wedding invitation” is unlikely return anything more than a cheap wedding invitation.  Whether the wedding invitation – regardless of its cost - has any intrinsic value to either the bridal couple or their guests is the far more important question.  Clearly, if your “cheap date” morphed into a more meaningful relationship and eventually a proposal, then one might  look for something a little less “cheap” to celebrate the occasion.  If you seek an affordable wedding invitation, then I strongly recommend that you visit a qualified stationer in your neighborhood who has wedding invitation suggestions for all budgets.

“Cheap” is always available on the Internet.  If, however, you are looking for a custom wedding invitation that is within your budget, don’t cheapen yourself by succumbing to the unsubstantiated and largely outrageous ploys that abound in cyberspace.