text = "Dear NAME, it was nice to meet you on DATE. Hope to talk with you and SPOUSE again soon!"

NAME, DATE, SPOUSE
John, October 1, Jane
Jane, September 30, John
...

with open('recipients.csv') as csvfile:
 reader = csv.DictReader(csvfile)
 for row in reader:
     for match in matchedfields:
        print inputtext.replace(match, row[match])

"Dear John, it was nice to meet you on October 1. Hope to talk with you and Jane again soon!"

"Dear Jane, it was nice to meet you on September 30. Hope to talk with you and John again soon!"

import copy

with open('recipients.csv') as csvfile:
    reader = csv.DictReader(csvfile)
    for row in reader:
        inputtext_copy = copy.copy(inputtext) ## make a new copy of the input_text to be changed.
        for match in matchedfields:
            inputtext_copy = inputtext_copy.replace(match, row[match]) ## this saves the text with the right
        print inputtext ## should be the original w/ generic field names
        print inputtext_copy ## should be the new version with all field changed to specific instantiations

import string
templateText = string.Template("Dear ${NAME}, it was nice to meet you on ${DATE}. Hope to talk with you and ${SPOUSE} again soon!")

import csv
with open('recipients.csv') as csvfile:
    reader = csv.DictReader(csvfile)
    for row in reader:
        print(templateText.safe_substitute(row))

with open('recipients.csv') as csvfile:
    reader = csv.DictReader(csvfile)
    for row in reader:
        inputtext = text
        for match in matchedfields:
            inputtext = inputtext.replace(match, row[match])
        print inputtext

text = "Dear {0[NAME]}, it was nice to meet you on {0[DATE]}. Hope to talk with you and {0[SPOUSE]} again soon!"

with open('recipients.csv') as csvfile:
    reader = csv.DictReader(csvfile)
    for row in reader:
        inputtext = text.format(row)
        print inputtext