When wedding-planning becomes too much to handle, Outvite.com has got you covered.
We probably don’t have to remind anyone that the LGBT community has worked hard and come a long way, especially with wedding nuptials. With same-sex marriage in nine states and Washington, DC, it’s no surprise that we are winning the country over one at a time.
Outvite, a branch of Checkerboard Limited that produces custom stationary for the LGBT community, provides unique designs on a website where the community can “go online and get the same level of service with quality designs, some tongue in cheek, that personalize the experience.”
The company has been in the Chase family for three generations and prides itself on customer satisfaction, team collaboration and community support, not to mention, environmentally friendly products. “We’re living by our values and doing what we think is right. Live and let live.”
Launched around the marriage equality vote in Massachusetts, November 2003, Outvite.com has been extending the generally conservative stationary industry to welcome the lesbian and gay community. Joanne Laipson, Vice President of Alliances at Checkerboard, tells us about Outvite, helping us track it from the beginning.
“Our objective was a fashion forward design with a high quality product and personalized service.” Thanks to the initiative of LGBT Checkerboard employees, outvite was developed and given the ok by the company’s owners, despite the risk. “They believe in their employees, they believe in their message, and they believe in marriage equality.”
In terms of product sales, “the gap between outvite cards and general checkerboard cards is closing. So much so that we’ve been grappling over whether or not a separate site is still necessary or if we should fold outvite back into the parent site.” Since same sex marriage is such a growing market, it’s time to break out the wedding planners and start designing invitations, which is exactly what Outvite.com is here to do. With the Ronald Reagan Inauguration invites and celebrity holiday cards for Tyra Banks and Kid Rock on their resume, what more could we ask for? Although wedding invites are their “bread and butter” they also feature holiday cards, party invitations, birth announcements and much more, making planning quick and easy. “We deal with this stuff everyday and we’ve been around a long time. We give advice, we make changes, we usually can always accommodate our customers.”
“We have a hitched invitation for every state. It’s become our thing as states become open to equality. While we are continually still adding designs, there’s less specificity. It used to be that people were looking for two gowns, two tuxs, two men, or two women, to really symbolize that it was two people of the same sex getting married. There’s much less of that now. People are gravitating toward general terrific Checkerboard designs.”
Whether working on wedding invitations or festive greeting cards, customers get the fun of designing personalized stationary without the added stress of making and printing them. Using checkmate technology, Outvite displays the personalized design on your computer before sending it to the presses. You will be able to choose ink color, lettering style and size, and be apart of the process down to the spacing between lines. So get creative and personalize your holidays and events, then let Outvite do the rest. (outvite.com)