Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with announcement

How should we tell our families we're engaged?

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:22:06 -0800

Help us announce our obviously-premeditated engagement in the best way possible. Boy and I are getting married! I graduate from college in a few weeks. Since I live a block from the graduation ceremony we're celebrating right after the ceremony with food and drinks at my place. My entire family will be there and part of his! (Mom, Dad, Gma and Gpa, all of my mom's 5 other siblings, and all 16 cousins along with Boy's mom, dad, and brother)

How do we announce it? The catch is that we're not really into the whole hetero-normative thing and since I wanted a ring we got him one too! Plus for all practical purposes, if there WAS going to be someone getting down on one knee it would probably be me proposing to him. But we don't want to do that. So, hive mind, how should we announce it? My best plan right now is to awkwardly get on a chair while everyone is cramped into my tiny apartment, thank them for coming, and say something along the lines of "Boy and I are happy to say we're engaged!" and then pull the rings out of pockets and call it a day. This idea sucks!

We don't need anything romantic, and we don't want anything that involves proposing in front of everyone else. Give us your AWESOME "zomg we're engaged!" ideas!

Etiquette? What's an etiquette?

logic vs love — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:34:07 -0800

My baby shower was two months ago and I still haven't sent the thank you cards. My baby is now a month old. Can I send out the thank you cards and the birth announcements together, or is that horribly tacky? I feel terrible about sending the thank you cards so late, but I've never written a thank you card before (Yes, I'm awful.) so I procrastinated out of intimidation. Now that I'm finally feeling normal enough to actually get around to it, it's time to also send out the birth announcements. Can I send out cards that both thank and announce? Or put two cards in the same envelope? Or should I mail them separately, even if they're sent out on the same day?

Bonus Question: Do I apologize for mailing them so late when writing the thank you note?

Turkish delight on a moonlit night ... or mid-afternoon, perhaps.

mykescipark — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:25:03 -0800

I recorded this from the Voice of Turkey via shortwave on 11955 kHz last Friday. Unfortunately, I didn't make note of the world time, and my meager online language resources don't seem to help me figure it out. What time is she announcing after the pips?

Because the "sonogram on a billboard" card has been way overplayed . . .

siclik — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:21:34 -0800

Help me creatively share with our (long-distance) parents the wonderful news that my wife and I are expecting our first child. Our estimated due date is early May 2010. We're planning on sharing the news with our families in late October (around our moms' birthdays).

There is a small chance my parents will be visiting us around this time, but it's not guaranteed, so we'd like to plan something that will work without us having to be present. The only thing that's come to mind so far:

- Mail "World's Best Grandparents" shirts back home to a family friend who will wrap them like a birthday present and hide it in the house to be discovered during a future phone conversation with Mom. Make sure dad is present when Mom opens her gift. Surprise!

Pretty simple, but now I'm rethinking it because all of the shirts I've found online suck.

Do you have any better ideas or do you know where I can buy a cooler shirt (or other item that would suffice)?

Bonus points if you can think of a creative way to tell the rest of my family afterwords (brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, etc.).

Calling Ms Manners

cestmoi15 — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:11:49 -0800

We've eloped, everything is great! Except, of course, I forgot to figure out how to word the announcements and am now panicking! I'll spare you the details, but due to my difficult familial relations, we only had a few of Mr. Cestmoi's family there. I'd like your advice on how to word the wedding/elopement announcements that we need to send out to everyone (my family, his family, friends). It was a really fun Vegas Elvis wedding and we want to keep it lighthearted and factual (nothing mushy and nothing formal). Thanks hive mind!

A good mass e-mail broadcast service

crapmatic — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:24:13 -0800

What is a reputable mass email service? I want to send product announcements to hundreds of people who have voluntarily opted in. What would be a good, cheap company to do this with that has good reputation and won't use/resell the addresses I give them? Also if they're reputable I assume they won't be in RBLs and other blacklists.

I've found that Google Groups stinks for this as they tend to decline invitations/additions on arbitrary grounds -- I've experienced this and I've seen ask.mefi threads about it, so that's out.

Help a multimedia newbie do a cool birth announcement

SMELLSLIKEFUN — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:36:29 -0800

What would be the best/easiest way of creating 50-100 copies of a CD Birth Announcement that contains both music and photos? I am not talking about a slide show presentation set to music. The wife and I have chosen, and purchased on CD, fun songs that have the baby's name in the title, that we want people to be able to listen to on their CD/DVD players. We would also like to include some photos of the baby, they could be files on the CD or printed on paper as part of an insert/cover. I have EXPECTANT FATHER BRAIN please help. I am thinking of getting blank cardboard media sleeves from stumptownprinters.com and either apply a label we print, or some funky rubberstamps to the cover, and some silkscreened blank CDS from 5inch.com. The theory is to burn the CD's, stuff them in a nice custom sleeve, along with a baby photo that has a printed birth announcement on the back as part of the liner notes.

So, how would you do this? What kind of CD's do I want, what software is ready for me to use on windows XP, my Canon inkjet printer, and will music and photo files be too big for a CD? What is the best mailing method and packaging? Give me the expurgated step by step instructions on how you would do this. Bonus points for telling me how to save some time and still make an elegant funky/fun announcement.

We won't have any photos until March when the baby is due, but I would like to have the rest of the package ready to rock and roll in the next 3-4 weeks.

We have an announcement!

arcticwoman — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:29:46 -0800

My partner and I are in the process of changing our surnames. When this is done, we'd like to send out some announcement cards to friends/family etc to let everyone know. Where can I find cards to that effect? I've googled "name change announcement," "name change card" and several variations on this, but all I get are letters announcing the change of a company/business name. I'm looking for something classy and cheery saying something like "arcticwoman and otherarcticwoman would like to inform you that they have changed their surname to..."

If pre-made cards like this don't exist, we'll have to make our own. What would be the easiest way to do this, and, other than the dry and perfunctory way I said it in the above paragraph, how would I word such an announcement?

Caveats of doing a mass e-mail

chef_boyardee — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 14:08:17 -0800

I want to send a large number of E-mails (like 500) to my customers. This isn't spam; they have definitely opted in and know me personally. I'd like to know if there is anything that might cause a problem here . . . My main concern is (1) getting on a blacklist and (2) taking heat from the company that owns the SMTP server (Dreamhost hosted service). I intend to send them from my laptop through my ISP (Sprint DSL) to my Dreamhost shared hosting SMTP server (relayed but with my authorized login). So do I have anything to worry about?

My understandings are:
1. This is not too different from running a package like phpBB, which spouts out a lot of administrative E-mails daily, except that I'm connecting to the SMTP server remotely.
2. AOL/CompuServe will likely blacklist me, but I have no idea how this happens.

Again, this is not spam, and the customers have asked to be on my announcement list. Would it be safer to have some other company (or Dreamhost's "announcement" goodie) do it, or can I do it safely as long as I have opt-out info and maybe an X-header of some sort?