Midnight Market Invitation

A 5x7 invitation laid out like a bill posted at a market gate. A hawthorn garland runs across the top, the goblins’ cry is the headline, and four merchants walk along the bottom: a cat with a basket, a rat with a plate, a snail carrying grapes and a parrot on its perch. It belongs to The Midnight Market party blueprint.

What’s Included

• 5x7 invitation as a dark PDF, a light PDF for home printers, and a PNG for texting or email
• Write-in lines for the market night, the time the gate opens, the address and RSVP
• Two lines already filled in: Bring “One thing to trade, and your wares,” and Come as “An animal merchant or a stallholder”

The Words

The headline and the four lines under it are the start of the goblins’ cry in Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market, lines 3 to 6 of the text in Project Gutenberg’s edition:

’Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,

The poem was first published in 1862, by Macmillan, with two wood-engraved designs by the poet’s brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (V&A). “Midnight Market” is our name for the party, not Rossetti’s. Her goblins cry at “Morning and evening”, and their fruit is ripe “In summer weather”.

The art is our own. The four merchants are animals Rossetti names in the poem: the one with “a cat’s face”, the one that “tramped at a rat’s pace”, the one that “crawled like a snail”, and the one “parrot-voiced and jolly”. They’re drawn as animals and nothing else. The hawthorn comes from an Irish folk tale in the blueprint, where a card player’s fairy gold turns into “a pocketful of hawthorn leaves.”

Printing Tips

Print at actual size on 110 lb cardstock and trim to 5 x 7. The dark version fills the page with ink, so use the light version for a long guest list and write the details in gold or silver pen on the dark one. For wording and RSVP timing, see our invitation etiquette guide.

Pairs With

• The Midnight Market blueprint for the stalls, the menu and running the night
• Midnight Market Scrip, the play money every guest gets at the gate
• Midnight Market Stall Signs for the tables