Summer has finally arrived in Nantucket! The weather on the island typically lags about thirty days behind the mainland but the trees have now leafed out, the gardens are blooming and the beach is calling. One of our favorite ways is kick off the summer season is to host an annual July 4th “Lobsterfest” for visiting family and close friends. The evening is all about cocktails, lots of “catching up” conversation, lobsters, wine, and laughter.

We typically start planning for the July 4th holiday sometime in April/May. Discussions begin in our family as to who can make it, where they will sleep (we only have four bedrooms) and how long they will stay. From there we move on to regular group of island friends to see who might be available. Once the list is finalized, I start to work on a Paperless Post electronic invitation. I think the formal invitation helps to reaffirm the festive nature of the event and the email format makes it easy to send/receive. Paperless Post also has a great selection of invitations and they are easy to customize. You can check it out at https://www.paperlesspost.com. Here is our invitation from last year: