The opening of your invitation letter is very important because it will set the tone of the letter. To ensure that your prospective guests accept you have to be sure that each letter you send out will be perfectly aimed so that they will be most likely to come to your event. You have to understand that tone is everything with letters of these sort; if you address a particular guest in a way that they are not used to or don’t like then you will be unlikely to get that guest to accept your invitation and come to the event you want them to come to. Therefore, when writing the opening to your invitation letter it is vital that you consider not only who the guest sare but also how they want to be treated. For instance, if you are sending a letter to a diplomat to invite them to a dinner in which they will be asked to speak, there are several different ways you can possibly address them in the opening of your letter. Before we deal with those, here is how you shouldn’t address them:
“Hey Hump man! I was totally hoping you could come down to this digging party I’ve got going on and would love you to speak at it! You’d be totally rocking at it bruv and it’ll make my day if you say yes.”
For a start, this type of address is incorrect as you are using informal English – you shouldn’t do this when inviting someone, particularly if they are a diplomat, to one of your events. Secondly, the message of the opening is lumped together, therefore making it difficult for the reader to ascertain what exactly is being asked of them and thus causing further difficulty in ensuring that you achieve your object. Let’s look at another way that you could possibly open your invitation.
“To whom it may concern,
This invitation is on behalf of ACE Chemicals for the night of the 23rd of June 2016. We hereby extend our warmest invitations to Sir Humphrey and Lady Appleby to attend the “Transpacific Intelligence Dinner.”
This is a better way of opening a letter of this sort – it is clear what the person writing the letter wants of the recipient, it is clear that the recipient will understand what date the event takes place and it automatically obvious what the invitation is for. However, there are still some problems with this as an introduction – for a start, if you know the name of the recipient then it is better to put their name rather than “to whom it may concern” as obviously it will concern the people that the letter is sent to and directly refers to. By not using the name of the person you are writing to, it may seem impersonal and, therefore, the recipient may feel as if they are not being treated as they feel they ought to. Though the example we are using is that of a diplomat, it doesn’t matter what the person does for a living – be it a civil servant, a plumber, a fire fighter or a limbo dancer it is important when writing an invitation letter that you make sure that the person you are addressing understands the relationship between you, will like the way they are addressed and will accept your invitation. Therefore, it is highly important that you understand how best to write the opening to your invitation letter – it will help determine whether the person who is receiving your invitation will accept it or not. Let’s now look at a better way of opening your invitation:
“To Sir Humphrey Appleby,
You are cordially invited to attend the Transpacific Intelligence Diner on the 23rd of June 2016,”
This opening is much better than the first two – it automatically identifies for the recipient that the author knows how they are and is inviting them to an event that they would like them to attend. It also gives them an idea as to what the even it about and when it will occur. These are the sort of qualities that you should ensure that are in your invitation letter as without them, your letter will not be as likely to have the same impact as you think it should. Therefore, it is vitally important that you carefully consider how you want to address your prospective guests in your letter and whether you want to vary the introduction from guest to guest. This may prove time consuming but it could also ensure that your guest feels a more personal touch to each of their invitations and are, therefore, more likely to attend the event they are invited to.
