Wedding Invitations

Renaissance Wedding Invitation Wording

Simple as it can be put, with the help of wedding invitations you can announce your wedding day.

The custom of sending wedding invitations may be as old as the human race, and the simple wedding invitations from the past are replaced by a wide variety of designs, patterns or color combination types, with engraved, printed or intricate hand written calligraphy, just to make the those invitations look special or unique.

You can be sure that if you make them yourself, they will be unique and one-of a kind, especially if you are confident of your creativity and artistic skills and if you don’t lack patience or time.

Design is important because usually the appearance makes something stand out among others, but let us not forget about what is really important about a wedding invitation and that being the information about the wedding.

The addressing formulas and the use of formal language are so important that we even talk about a wording etiquette for the wedding invitations.

The invitation should contain pertinent information about the wedding such as the name of the bride and groom, the bride’s name being mentioned first, the location of the ceremony, date and time. The parents of the bride act as the wedding hosts, but sometimes the groom’s parents can also make a financial contribution; in these modern days, couples often decide to pay for their own weddings.

Other informational details about the wedding which can be included on the invitations are the directional signs for the location of the ceremony or even a printed map, the RSVP, being a phone number or written on a separate card, information about the after-party or the reception such as the address and time; you can also make some suggestions about how should your guests dress if you are having a theme wedding party.

Before sealing them in their double or single envelopes and mail them out, make sure to read a couple of times the text of the wedding invitation, always with fresh eyes, to spot any spelling mistakes.

If you are having a theme wedding, or more exactly a renaissance wedding, you would probably want to know some things about what style of wording is adequate.

First, you should probably know that these renaissance invitations usually have three sections so you can tri-fold a piece of paper, the text can be printed on a heavy parchment paper and write it using fonts that imitate calligraphy. In some cases, the couple decides to have a scroll wedding invitations, but they are expensive especially because they are delivered by hand and in mailing tubes. Sealing the envelopes with wax can be an interesting thing but I don’t think the postal services will like this.

Renaissance marriages, especially among nobility, were held at the house of the bride’s parents or a medieval castle, so the location of the wedding was referred to as “lair of…” or the couple could simply use “the land of” or “shire”. If the location of the ceremony is a park you can use “meadow” in front of the name of that park.

If you want for your guests to wear medieval or renaissance clothing make sure to state and underline the “recommended” word as information on the wedding invitation.

The RSVP is always written on a separate card.

Below you may find some renaissance wording examples for the wedding invitations.

“In the name of the baron Thatcher, father of Lady Nicole, In the name of the countess Rison, mother of Sir Simon, with this present letter, we request the honor of celebrating in thy kind and noble presence and that of your household, the marriage of Lady Nicole, daughter of Liza and heiress of James and Sir Simon, son of Emily and heir of Francois, in the shire of New Orleans. The ceremony will begin at four o’clock in the afternoon at the Thatcher’s Lair, on Sunday, the twenty eighth of August, in the year of our Lord, two thousand and ten, New Orleans, Louisiana.”

“On the eve of August the twenty eighth, in the year of our Lord two thousand and ten, at the fourth hour in the afternoon, the heads of the Houses Thatcher and Rison, invite you to bear witness to the joining of Lady Nicole to Sir Simon, in the bonds of matrimony and to share in the celebration of the joining of these two houses. Celebration to be held…”