Do you know anything about the history of the invitation? Most likely you have received a formal invitation for a wedding and have taken out two envelopes and the invitation itself and the tissue paper inside. The reason for all those extra materials lies in the story of the invitation. A long time ago when people from the aristocracy would throw a party, it was common to send a note to all the guests. Reading and writing was a sign of wealth and importance and that is why sending a note also marked your stature.
Before the printing press, all notes were written by hand and folded on a sheet of paper to prevent them from getting dirty. This is what we use today as an envelope. These envelopes kept the notes clean and unread as they were all sealed with a wax seal to ensure privacy for both writer and recipient. Being hand-delivered before the postal service we have today was also a dirty job, giving one more reason to attach the note before posting. The reason the two-envelope evolution occurred was due to the fact that there used to be no people’s home addresses. This caused the dealer to be given a very long set of instructions.
After the printing press was invented many of the wealthy could afford to print their invitations and again it served as a mark of stature for making them this way. The tissue paper motif on the invitation came from this event. When the invitations came off the press, they were still damp and could not be stacked or the ink would run. Therefore, printers came up with the idea of ​​handkerchiefs to prevent ink from staining the card placed on top. Know that you know the motif of two envelopes and tissue paper, maybe we can be a little kinder to the trees and save some money by leaving those two pieces out of the invitation equation.