Over on the etiquette boards it's been mentioned several times that
Ecru invitations with engraved black calligraphy (along with a certain venue type and an evening wedding) signal to guests that it's a formal event.
So, I was curious: what do people perceive the formality to be when an invitation is very nice, but not traditional? For instance, for our wedding, the invitation is on thick black sort of rubberized matte paper (hard to describe) and the words are in gold calligraphy. This invitation fits into a very thick black frame, forming a sort of box and the invite is the lid. There's a gold ribbon to pull it out and underneath are the various inserts and the "bottom" of this box is gold foil paper with "dinner and dancing to follow" printed on it. So it's all very elaborate and nice, but not remotely traditional--does that make it seem significantly less formal?
Another example is that for my boss's 40th birthday, the invitations were pieces of wood that were branded with all the text for the invite--this was put in a 8.5x11" glass box on top of a layer of moss. It was very beautiful, but again...not traditional.
I'm not stressed out guests getting any specific message, but am just curious about the vibe invites like this give off.