Retirement invitation

Now Retired

The left armrest is worn pale from one hand, and nobody is reupholstering it.

Retirement invitation: Deep green button-tufted leather invitation bordered with brass nailheads, gold foil lettering reading THE GOOD CHAIR and NOW RETIRED above the honoree's name, with the date and venue below.

Part of the TinselLux™ collection: invitations in stitched leather, tufted velvet, linen and satin.

The material is the card: linen with a visible weave, velvet with a nap, leather with its grain. It costs the same as every other invitation.

See the collection

A retirement invitation for thirty-four years of showing up, and a party arranged around one chair. The room is dark leather and low lamps, the good glasses are out, and the seat nearest the fire is left empty on purpose. People arrive already knowing where he is meant to sit. He will try to get up anyway, twice, to find someone a drink.

The toasts are short because the people giving them worked with him and know he dislikes a long one. Someone brings up the year of the flood. Someone else corrects the date. The turn comes when the glass gets refilled without him asking and he stops reaching for it, settles back into the tufting, and lets the evening happen around him for the first time in three decades.

What goes on it

Every line replaceable

The wording on this card

Please join us in honor of
FRANK MARTIN
Thirty-four years of service. Please put your feet up.
Friday, March 12, 2027 · 5:30 PM
THE ELM STREET LODGE · 300 Elm Street, Spartanburg, SC

Every line of the wording is an example, and yours to replace. The title is painted into the artwork. Type your own and it is drawn again with your words.

What to actually tell people

Choose the chair before anything else Pick one seat with arms, put it where he can see the door, and keep it empty until he arrives. If the room only has folding chairs, bring one from home in the back of a car.
Light it with lamps Overhead fluorescents undo the whole room. Two table lamps and whatever the bar already has will do it, and ask the venue in advance whether the dimmer actually works.
Three toasts, no slideshow The two people who worked with him longest and one who started under him. Two minutes each, agreed beforehand, and the thirty-four years said once rather than counted out year by year.
Serve food that works one-handed He should not have to stand up and balance a plate to eat. Anything that can be managed from a chair with a glass in the other hand is the right call.

Start from this one

The artwork
Keep this one, or describe your own party and get artwork drawn for it.
The wording
Every line on this card is an example, the painted title included. Change all of it; the design holds.
Sending
By text, from your own number. Guests open a link. Nothing to download.
The price
One credit for the invitation. Six guests or sixty, the number does not move.