LaTeX Wedding Invitation HOWTO/Template by Justin

(Update below.)

First, you should probably realize that this is going to be way easier than you thought because the LaTeX ecosystem has gradually improved over the past few years. The TeTeX days were pretty good and I'm sure old Tom had good reasons for giving it up. Everybody needs a change I guess. Well, so did I. That's why I'm getting married. And because I'm getting married, my fiancée and I had to make invitations, which benefits you, of course.

So anyway, here's a template for the enterprising LaTeX user who's getting married and doesn't want ugly word processor fonts to destroy the typographical elegance of the document that irrevocably declares their commitment to happiness. After all, you're a typography nerd, so why would you demure and use something less than the best for your fiancé[e]? All of the packages listed here should be included with TeXLive and MacTeX. I don't know what people use on windows these days. Thankfully, my windows uptime is better than five zeros.

\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper]{report}

\usepackage[cam,width=4truein,height=6truein,letter,center]{crop}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{calligra}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{anysize}
\marginsize{2cm}{2cm}{6.6cm}{1cm}

\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\crop
\begin{center}
{\sc \scriptsize Mr and Mrs Bride's Parents}\\
{\calligra \small are pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter}\\
{\sc \scriptsize Deb}\\
{\calligra \small to}\\
{\sc \scriptsize Napoleon}\\
{\calligra \small son of}\\
{\sc \scriptsize Mr and Mrs Dynamite}\\
{\calligra \small on Wednesday, January 1, 3000 AD}\\
{\calligra \small in the Las Vegas, Nevada Temple}\\
\ \\
{\calligra \small The pleasure of your company is requested}\\
{\calligra \small at a celebration in their honor}\\
\ \\
\ \\
\begin{tabular}{l|l}
{\calligra\small Reception                 } & {\calligra\small Open House}\\
\sc{\scriptsize Overpriced Reception Center} & \sc{\scriptsize Somebody's House}\\
\sc{\scriptsize 775 East 1200 North        } & \sc{\scriptsize 4321 West 3540 North}\\
\sc{\scriptsize Las Vegas, Nevada          } & \sc{\scriptsize Las Vegas, Nevada}\\
\sc{\scriptsize Wednesday, January 1, 3000 } & \sc{\scriptsize Saturday, January 4, 3000}\\
\sc{\scriptsize 7:05 p.m. to 9:09 p.m.     } & \sc{\scriptsize 6:59 p.m. to 9:01 p.m.}\\
\end{tabular}\\
\ \\
\ \\
{\calligra \small The bride and groom are registered at}\\
{\calligra \small Deseret Industries}\\
\end{center}
\end{document}

Update (2013-09-09).

I have updated the template according to my increase in TeX/LaTeX knowledge gained between 2009 and 2013. Most of the changes are made according to my advancements in understanding TeX and LaTeX spacing. On our invitation (which deviates very little from the original template) we included at the bottom a cursivy circly-squiggle I found on google images.

With a document such as this, you need total control over spacing and layout, so I don't think it would be better to refactor the template more than I have (such as by creating a document class, or creating specialized environments). Most spacing choices should be obvious, however there's one that's somewhat arcane for LaTeX newbz that I wish to obviate. The command \hspace{\baselineskip} tells LaTeX to insert a vertical space of size \baselineskip. You can put any length command in the argument for \hspace that you want, including literal measurements, such as 27mm.

Also for newbz, regarding fonts: You could change, e.g., {\block Mr and Mrs Dynamite} to {\block Mr {\fancy \&} Mrs Dynamite}. If you have any questions, leave a comment and I'll try to help/direct you in the right direction as I have time. I'll try to answer those that have already been posted as I can.

These are some resources I have found to be very useful and helpful:

• Hypertext Help with LaTeX
• Text Processing using LaTeX
• TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange
• LaTeX Community

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

% TODO: figure out mount2 option
%\usepackage[cam,width=4truein,height=6truein,letter,center]{crop}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{calligra}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage[papersize={4in,6in},hmargin=0cm,vmargin={1.5cm,1cm}]{geometry}

% define new fonts
\newcommand{\fancy}{\calligra\small}
\newcommand{\block}{\sc\scriptsize}

\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{document}
  %\crop
  \begin{center}
    \begin{onehalfspacing}
      {\block Mr and Mrs Bride's Parents} \\
      {\fancy are chagrined to declaim the nuptiality of their daughter} \\
      {\block Deb} \\
      {\fancy to} \\
      {\block Napoleon} \\
      {\fancy son of} \\
      {\block Mr and Mrs Dynamite} \\
    \end{onehalfspacing}
    \begin{singlespacing}
      \begin{fancy}
        on AD 3000 January 1, Wednesday\\in the Las Vegas, Nevada Temple
        \vspace{\baselineskip} \\
        The repugnance of your company is demanded\\at a farce on their account
      \end{fancy}
      \vspace{\baselineskip} \\
      \begin{block}
        \begin{tabular}{l|l}
          {\fancy Reception}        & {\fancy Open House}      \\
          Overpriced Reception Hall & Somebody's House         \\
          775 East 1200 North       & 321 West 654 North       \\
          Las Vegas, Nevada         & Salt Lake City, Utah     \\
          3000 January 1, Wednesday & 3000 January 4, Saturday \\
          7:05 p.m. to 9:09 p.m.    & 6:59 p.m. to 9:01 p.m.   \\
        \end{tabular}
      \end{block}
      \vspace{\baselineskip} \\
      \begin{fancy}
        The bride and groom wish they could have registered at\\Deseret Industries\footnote{\tiny{``Do you guys have like a wedding registry?''  ``We sure don't.''}}
      \end{fancy}
    \end{singlespacing}
  \end{center}
\end{document}

Is composition in the traditional sense an abandoned art form?

Is composition in the traditional sense an abandoned art form? The concept of a masterwork seems to have already been embalmed before I was even born. The only people who even bother with it anymore these days are film score composers, musical composers, and dreaming, private hacks in the ignominity of their own garage.

But there are those exceedingly rare, highly canonized exponents who already have their own name and can demand a fortune for each five minute commission. The ideal of a Mozart or a Beethoven composing day and night, scribbling out countless pages of manuscript seems to be gone from our culture. Ellington, an American, but also someone beyond the classical realm wrote master works in ostensibly art-for-art's-sake experiments, but composition doesn't seem to have gotten any salutary attention aside from his tributary works.

Of course in so many implicit, subconscious ways American culture is just the annex of lichen-overgrown European idioms. Europe got too overcrowded for its own art and history, so we were bumped out here. The Fates and the Muses wanted us to seize the opportunity to find a new expression of ourselves, to cut and tear away from the new earth a new art, a new thought. We were to declare a new philosophy of creativity, but what have we got?

Sonny Rollins knows what we got. The one class of people who came into America, carrying in their bosom the new, bright expression the gods demanded Americans to place on the altar of music as a condition for coinheriting the New World were invidiously punished, because they weren't made in the tired old European design.

When we Americans think art, it is in the European context. When we think travel, we think Europe, or those places worldwide that our father Europeans have already established a cultural base for us.

And when we think music, we think fine music halls with precision acoustics. We think of all those thousands of highly skilled and talented musicians we trained on traditional instruments to play masterworks from the canon for us as we listen to them in ceremonial attire. It is an complex religious affair, with seating rules for each type of ensemble, and a comprehensive etiquette. We do not sigh, rapture, or otherwise participate. We expect them to play the masterworks flawlessly and with the precise amount of conviction. They are interchangeable, our players, in their black, formal robes. Occasionally one great musician will stand or sit out in front of the rest, piercing our hearts with fiery passion. Every decade or so the man standing backwards in tails whisking the stick around in dizzying, calligraphic artistry gets replaced, but we don't care too much about that, the perfect music will stay the same, just like it came from Beethoven's pen; authenticated, authorized, scholarly reproduction. Beautiful music performed in a gilded hall. This we call art. That is what Beethoven wanted, isn't it?

(Justin)

Homework Paragraph After the Manner Forbidden by George Orwell

Going along the lines of this assignment I decided to turn my own hand
at running the gamut of ready made phrases since I couldn't find an
example to fit the bill, therefore the buck stops here. Not even when
sentences negate themselves, but when none of them do not convey a
single original idea not unlike authorial relinquishment of intended
meaning, readers come away with no gain in understanding. In an
effort to put perfume on a pig, I'm now going to introduce some irony
by hanging the Sword of Damocles over this paragraph. Often
oligopolic ontologies occlude rhetoric and coerce the mind of the
reader towards either a subconscious submission unto confusion or an
overt reaction of frustration. All of this ties in with a general
pollution of meaning, no matter what the audience or the subject
matter. Writing is the currency of communication and we must
steadfastly guard against forces which inflate its
essence.

(Justin)