To SVT or not to SVT, the Clash of three Cultures.

When I started seriously thinking  about my wedding, I knew right from the start that I wanted to send out the Save the Dates. After all, isn't that what the wedding etiquette requires for a Destination Wedding? Giving your guests enough time to save some money and plan their vacation accordingly?

It made perfect sense to me, especially with the wedding  taking place so far away from home, across the Atlantic, in a foreign country (well for half of us at least).

So I sat down one day to discuss ideas with Mr. C. I remember we were at Starbucks sipping on our Mochas when I first mentioned the SVTs to him. I went on and on about the design I had in mind and how great it would come out until I looked up at him and realized the poor thing had no idea whatsoever as to what I was talking about. He looked so confused that I couldn't help laughing. I then took a few minutes to explain to him what the SVTs were and why they were important. Now Mr.C is a very practical, get to the point kind of guy (I guess it is to be expected from an engineer:D) so his first reaction was: "This is pointless. We have already announced  to everyone that we are getting married in September. Plus we will be sending out the invitations a couple months before the wedding. Why send them twice?" You see in his head SVTs = Invitations. So I took a deep breath and started again, slowly, trying to explain to him that the SVT would make it official and that the guests flying overseas will have enough time to prepare and buy their tickets. He didn't seem so convinced. He insisted that guests would get confused with the double invitations because such things are not custom in Italy. While that was probably true I still insisted that the SVTs were important so that our dear guests in Italy could also arrange to take the day off. Did I mention, our wedding is on a Friday the 7th. We had initially planned to wed on Saturday the 8th but so had the cardinal's niece and she does get some special treatment I guess.

So Mr. C. finally gave me the OK (he loves me so much he can never say no to me :D) so off I went working on them for a month or so. And here is my masterpiece.

Front side of the postcard featuring our church

The back of the postcard

I was very satisfied and ready to send them out. I printed a proof and showed it to my mother and my grandma. I found myself explaining again the meaning of the SVTs, but while my mom and grandma seemed to have grasped the necessity of these postcards fairly easy, they could not understand why I hadn't translated them in Albanian. So they went on and on as to how important it was not to loose touch with your language and culture, etc. etc..To me translating these seemed pointless. All our guests speak/understand some English. Why mess with a masterpiece? Did any of you translate the SVTs or Invitations in another language or did you just use English as the common ground?