Does Old-School Etiquette Apply to Modern Parties?

Then: "Send an invitation too late and the guest may already be booked; send it too early and it might be misplaced or forgotten," warns the Emily Post Institute (which "maintains and evolves" the standards Emily Post set in her classic 1922 book Etiquette). The EPI suggests sending a Christmas party invite one month in advance.

Now: "Six weeks in advance is realistic for a busy holiday season," says national etiquette expert Diane Gottsman, founder of The Protocol School of Texas. "On the other hand, you can give too much lead time and people may be hesitant to respond because they aren't certain if they will be out of town or what their holiday plans will be." Save-the-date notes can go out even earlier: "I saw a friend post on Facebook last week about her 'friends Thanksgiving' that she hosts...she even said, 'I know it feels too far in advance, but you know how the holidays are,'" says Ariel Meadow Stallings, author of Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides and publisher of Offbeat Bride and Offbeat Home.

Then: As columnist and essayist Meghan Daum argued in the Los Angeles Times in 2006 (the dawn of the digital-invitation era), "With its overt competitiveness, flashy graphics and emphasis on strategy (no need to commit until you know if anyone interesting will be in attendance) Evite is essentially a written transcript of our collective social anxieties."

Now: "A Paperless Post [online invite] is a great way to send an invitation," Gottsman says. A (comparatively) old-fashioned e-mail works as well, as long as you're discreet: "The entire guest list should not be shared."