Reunion Communications Editing and Proofreading Services

The reunion invitation goes out to two hundred former classmates, most of whom the organiser has not spoken to in twenty years and several of whom will not recognise the venue, the surname changes, or half the names on the "who's confirmed" list. It says join us for an evening of fun, food and nostalgia and asks for forty pounds by a date three weeks away. The people most likely to actually come are the ones who need the most reassurance, and the invitation gives them none.

We edit what organisers write to bring a group back together — reunion invitations for school, university, military or workplace groups, save-the-date and follow-up messages, name badge and welcome material for the day itself, "where are they now" round-ups compiled from replies, speeches given at the reunion itself, and the message sent afterwards to people who could not attend or did not reply. Our editors work on messages sent to people who have not spoken in years and are quietly deciding whether it is worth showing up.

Answering the unspoken question is what makes a reunion invitation actually work, and its failure is enthusiasm with no information underneath it. Who else is coming is the question everyone has and almost nobody asks aloud. We work through these so the invitation says plainly who has already confirmed or is likely to, since a person deciding whether to come is really asking whether anyone they actually want to see will be there; so the format of the evening is described specifically — a sit-down meal, a bar with people standing, name badges or not — because the anxious version of showing up depends entirely on whether it is possible to leave a conversation easily; so cost and logistics are stated with no ambiguity and a realistic deadline, given that people decide late and a tight deadline loses exactly the people it should be trying hardest to reach; so the invitation acknowledges, briefly, that some people in the group have died or are estranged from it, rather than pretending the class is still exactly as it was, as a reunion communication that ignores this is felt as an omission by anyone who has lost someone from that year group; so contact details are given for someone who will actually answer a private question, since some people need to ask something before deciding that they will not put in a group reply; so the tone matches how much time has actually passed rather than assuming an intimacy that twenty years has worn away; and so a follow-up reaches the people who did not answer, since silence is at least as often uncertainty as refusal. Invitations written this way get people through the door who would otherwise have stayed home.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including your group's history and anything about individuals you are handling carefully. We are editors rather than event planners or counsellors, and we offer no view on who should be included or what should be shared. What we can do is help the invitation answer what people are actually wondering.