=INVITATION TO A BALL=

The word “ball” is never used excepting in an invitation to a public one, or at least a semi-public one, such as may be given by a committee for a charity or a club, or association of some sort.

For example: 

The Committee of the Greenwood Club

request the pleasure of your company

at a Ball

to be held in the Greenwood Clubhouse

on the evening of November the seventh

at ten o’clock.

for the benefit of

The Neighborhood Hospital

Tickets five dollars

Invitations to a private ball, no matter whether the ball is to be given in a private house, or whether the hostess has engaged an entire floor of the biggest hotel in the world, announce merely that Mr. and Mrs. Somebody will be “At Home,” and the word “dancing” is added almost as though it were an afterthought in the lower left corner, the words “At Home” being slightly larger than those of the rest of the invitation.  When both “At” and “Home” are written with a capital letter, this is the most punctilious and formal invitation that it is possible to send.  It is engraved in script usually, on a card of white Bristol board about five and a half inches wide and three and three-quarters of an inch high.  Like the wedding invitation it has an embossed crest without color, or nothing.

The precise form is: 

Mr. and Mrs. Titherington de Payster

At Home

On Monday the third of January

at ten o’clock

One East Fiftieth Street

The favour of an answer
is requested Dancing

or

Mr. and Mrs. Davis Jefferson

At Home

On Monday the third of January

at ten o’clock

Town and Country Club

Kindly send reply to
Three Mt.  Vernon Square Dancing

(If preferred, the above invitations may be engraved in block or shaded block type.)

=BALL FOR DEBUTANTE DAUGHTER=

Very occasionally an invitation is worded

Mr. and Mrs. Davis Jefferson

Miss Alice Jefferson

At Home

if the daughter is a debutante and the ball is for her, but it is not strictly correct to have any names but those of the host and his wife above the words “At Home.”

The proper form of invitation when the ball is to be given for a debutante, is as follows: 

Mr. and Mrs. de Puyster

request the pleasure of

[HW:  Miss Rosalie Gray’s]

company at a dance in honour of their daughter

Miss Alice de Puyster

on Monday evening, the third of January

at ten o’clock

One East Fiftieth Street

R.s.v.p.

or

Mr. and Mrs. Titherington de Puyster

Miss Alice de Puyster