Movie night invitations

Outdoors, the start time is not yours to choose. A projector needs real darkness, so the film starts when the sun has gone down, and in June that can be past nine. The honest way to write it is to give an arrival time and then say the film starts at dusk, roughly whenever that is. Guests with young children can then work out whether it is possible at all, rather than turning up to a bright garden and a screen nobody can see.

The rest of the outdoor brief is comfort and weather. People need to know whether to bring a blanket, a low chair or nothing, because a garden with no seating and twenty guests is a bad evening. It gets cold faster than anybody expects once the sun is down, and a line saying bring something warm is the difference between people staying for the credits and leaving at the halfway point. A rain plan belongs on the card too, with the answer, not just the possibility.

Indoors is a simpler card with one different question: who is it for. A children's movie night is a drop-off with a pick-up time and a pile of cushions. An adults' one is closer to a dinner that happens to have a film in it, and those guests want to know whether there is a meal, whether talking through it is acceptable, and roughly when they are getting home. Say which film, in either case. It is the thing everyone wants to know and the reason half of them say yes.