@wundayatta I think only the younger and tech-savvy people were accustomed to Evite. The invitees were 30–60 year-olds. I have no idea if it’s normal, but perhaps people took it more seriously because it was for our wedding reception. Granted, our wedding took place outdoors in a park and we bought chicken, hot dogs and veggie burgers to be cooked for our guests (meaning that it wasn’t catered and there was no per-person or per-plate charge)... but it was a wedding reception (with ~100 guests).
I can’t imagine that our “crowd” was special in some way… since our guests were relatives, friends, co-workers and religious acquaintances. I haven’t seen Evite used often in any of those groups.
One of the really nice elements of using Evite was that people could write their best wishes on the wall, which were especially meaningful from the out-of-towners who were not able to attend. We’ve saved the page and printed out all of the replies and kept them as a memento.
P.S. I just realized that the paper invitations that we sent to family members was for the wedding only. We had a small, intimate wedding with family (limited to parents, siblings, grand-parents, aunts and uncles) and especially close friends (~40 people). Then our more extended family, friends, co-workers, etc. were all invited (by Evite) to join us afterwards for the reception. Maybe that makes some kind of difference.