In Outlook you can plan a meeting and send meeting requests, but I haven't
been able to work out how to send individual customised invitations for a
social function. I can do that with a mail merge to email, but then I can't
track responses, or notify all attendees about changes the way I can for a
meeting - and it doesn't add an appointment to their calendar if they accept.

Outlook needs an add-in that will allow you to mail merge to a meeting
request type form so that you can send out customised individual invitations
from a mail merge with all the functionality of a meeting request.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm....calendari ng