Publications
Partners
- A recent study found that people experience stress when declining wedding invitations.
- A digital wedding planning platform developed an AI tool that can help.
- Turning down invitations is said to be a form of self-care.
Due to the importance placed on weddings, invitations are often sent with the assumption that most, if not all, guests will be able to attend.
This is often the case when the guests live in the same city or country where the wedding will occur.
According to Joy, an American-based digital wedding planning platform, nearly 2.2 million weddings are scheduled for 2023, and that is just in America.
"In the midst of peak wedding season, it can become overwhelming to find time for yourself... making it crucial to embrace 'Selfish Season' - the newest wellness trend focused on recharging your internal batteries," said Joy.
Stress about declining invitations
The digital wedding planning platform found that 74% of people surveyed are stressed when declining a wedding invite.
READ MORE | Woman says boyfriend prearranging their nuptials felt more like a 'breach of trust' than a wedding
The platform then decided to capitalise on the trend of using AI technology by creating a solution that is said to remove the anxiety around saying the right thing when declining a wedding invitation.
The solution is called the Writer’s Block Assistant, and it is a ChatGPT integration that can help guests draft a "polite decline" response that they can feel good about.
The tool can also help with a wedding toast, speech, a love story for your wedding website, wedding hashtag ideas, thank you notes and even your vows.
At the time of writing, the tool was free to use. You do not need to have an account, nor do you need to log in.
News24 tried out the tool using a long-standing work engagement as a reason to decline the invitation, and here are the results.
READ MORE | Unnecessarily dramatic? Couple refused to wed until all guests were knee-deep at riverside nuptials
