def send_templated_email(subject, email_template_name, email_context, recipients, 
                        sender=None,bcc=None, fail_silently=True, files=None):
    
    """
    send_templated_mail() is a wrapper around Django's e-mail routines that
    allows us to easily send multipart (text/plain & text/html) e-mails using
    templates that are stored in the database. This lets the admin provide
    both a text and a HTML template for each message.

    email_template_name is the slug of the template to use for this message (see
        models.EmailTemplate)

    email_context is a dictionary to be used when rendering the template

    recipients can be either a string, eg 'a@b.com', or a list of strings.
    
    sender should contain a string, eg 'My Site <me@z.com>'. If you leave it
        blank, it'll use settings.DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL as a fallback.

    bcc is an optional list of addresses that will receive this message as a
        blind carbon copy.

    fail_silently is passed to Django's mail routine. Set to 'True' to ignore
        any errors at send time.

    files can be a list of file paths to be attached, or it can be left blank.
        eg ('/tmp/file1.txt', '/tmp/image.png')

    """
    from django.conf import settings
    from django.core.mail import EmailMultiAlternatives
    from django.template import loader, Context
    from django.utils.html import strip_tags

    c = Context(email_context)
    if not sender:
        sender = settings.DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL

    template = loader.get_template(email_template_name)
    
    text_part = strip_tags(template.render(c))
    html_part = template.render(c)
    
    if type(recipients) == str:
        if recipients.find(','):
            recipients = recipients.split(',')
    elif type(recipients) != list:
        recipients = [recipients,]
        
    msg = EmailMultiAlternatives(subject,
                                text_part,
                                sender,
                                recipients,
                                bcc=bcc)
    msg.attach_alternative(html_part, "text/html")

    if files:
        if type(files) != list:
            files = [files,]

        for file in files:
            msg.attach_file(file)

    return msg.send(fail_silently)