SHE SAID YES, in chrome

Engagement merchandise is almost entirely written in one voice: elegant script, blush tones, a tasteful ring outline, the word bride.

The actual event is not elegant. It's someone shouting into a phone at eleven at night.

What's the case for the loud version?

It matches the volume of the thing being celebrated.

An engagement announcement is the least restrained message most people ever send. The design that matches it is Y2K chrome — fat glossy bubble letters, a pink swoosh, sparkles — because it's the visual equivalent of typing in capitals.

It's also self-aware in a way the elegant version isn't. Nobody wearing a chrome SHE SAID YES is claiming to be sophisticated; they're enjoying being ridiculous about it, which is a much easier thing to wear.

Isn't that a bit much?

It's supposed to be. But the register is a choice, and both ends work.

• Loud — chrome, varsity, bootleg. For people who are enjoying the announcement.
• Quiet — a small line drawing of the place it happened, with the date. For people who'd rather not announce anything.

The mistake is the middle: tasteful script that's still announcing. That's the version that's neither fun nor discreet, and it's what most of the category sells.

What's the quiet version, specifically?

An object from the actual proposal.

The table you were sitting at. The bench. The bit of coastline. The dog who was present. Drawn simply, with a date underneath. It reads as a nice graphic to everybody and as one particular evening to two people — the same double reading a Valentine's design wants.

That version gets worn for years. The chrome one gets worn for a season and photographed a hundred times, which is a different and equally valid life.

Who gives it?

Friends, usually, and that changes the tone.

An engagement gift from a friend is allowed to be much funnier than one from a relative. FINALLY, with a date, is a joke only a close friend can make, and it's the one people actually laugh at.

The couple buying it for themselves is also common now, and that version tends to be the loud one, because they're the ones enjoying the announcement.

Does the wording matter?

More than usual, because it dates fast in one specific way.

SHE SAID YES assumes a proposer and a proposee, and plenty of engagements didn't work like that. WE'RE ENGAGED, FINALLY, or just the date avoids assigning roles nobody chose, and it's worth a moment's thought rather than defaulting to the phrase on the greetings card.

Ask what they'd write themselves. It's usually funnier than the standard line.

What about the wedding itself?

Different object, different register, and worth keeping separate.

The wedding bootleg tee is a group thing for the day — tour format, faces, a party of people wearing the same shirt. An engagement shirt is one or two people, right after it happened, before there's any plan.

Making the engagement one look like wedding merchandise skips the best part, which is that at this point nothing has been organised yet.

When should it be made?

Immediately, and that's the actual change.

The window for an engagement joke is about three weeks. Under the old economics a custom garment took longer than the moment lasted, so the category defaulted to whatever could be bought that afternoon.

One shirt, ordered the next morning, is now a normal thing to do — which is why this design can be about their proposal rather than about engagements in general.

How do I get one made?

Give the line at JustOG — theirs, not the standard one — and say loud or quiet. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the shop.

Nothing about that phone call was tasteful. The shirt doesn't have to be either.