Wedding Invitations

Wedding Invitations How To Write Them

Spelling mistakes can cause some grave embarrassments when it comes to wedding invitations. We are talking about a formal ceremony so you should be careful with all of that.

Since I know how hard it is to express your feelings in words, I made a small but useful list of the most frequent expressions used in a wedding invitation. Before deciding which one you like the most take in consideration which one is the best for you and for the guest you are addressing to. Don’t want to address to him as a doctor if he’s merely a professor.

So, first is first and the wedding invitation should mention the names of the bride and groom, in this particular order. Here is an example:

“Please join us, for a celebration of friendship, family and love, as Helen Jones and Tony Winters, join their hands in holy matrimony, Saturday, July 18, 2007, 5 o’clock in the afternoon, St. John’s Church, Terra Haute, Indiana. Reception to follow afterwards.”

Usually the first names written on the wedding invitation is that of the wedding hosts, in some cases being the bride’s parents or the future married couple. In these cases the wording would be like this: “Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Jones, request the honor of your presence, at the matrimonial ceremony of their daughter, Helen Jones, to Tony Winters, Saturday, the eighteenth of July, at five o’clock in the afternoon, St. John’s Church, Terra Haute, Indiana” or “The honor of your presence is requested, at the marriage of Helen Jones and Tony Winters, Saturday, the eighteenth of July, at five o’clock in the afternoon, St. John’s Church, Terra Haute, Indiana”.

If we are talking about a second marriage a bride should just use her legal name.

In the case where children act like hosts for their parent’s marriage, the wording could be: “Mr. John Fall, requests the honor of your presence, at the marriage of his mother, Anna Fall to Simon Cross, Saturday, December 5, 2008, and so on” or “Mrs. Sarah Stanley and her son, Nicholas Daily, and Mr. Gordon Saint, and his daughter, Julie Saint, invite you to join them for the uniting of the two families, Sunday, December 7, 2007…”

If the marriage ceremony took place in a faraway country, and now the married couple would like to arrange a wedding party in their hometown, on the invitation card you should write something like this: “Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Blade, would be delighted for you to join us in celebrating the recent marriage of our daughter, Alice Blade, to Shinji Nakamura, which took place July 27, 2002, Osaka, Japan”.

The other important information a wedding card should contain is the location of the wedding ceremony, the exact date and time. If these are written as words they should be capitalized: “Sunday, the tenth of November, two thousand and seven, at half past seven o’clock in the evening”, or you could just write it simply like this: “Sunday, November 10, 2007, at 7:30 p.m.” It would probably be better to include afterwards the address and a map with the directions for the wedding location. Make sure to let your guests know if there is an after party or a reception: “Reception to follow at Centrum Hotel”, and if you don’t want children to attend to this reception you could just write “adult reception”.

If you are having a theme wedding party it would be good to make a suggestion about how your guests should dress. Also if you are waiting for a wedding attendance response, at the bottom of the wedding invitation you could write R.S.V.P.

Don’t forget to send the wedding invitations in time, like eight to six weeks in advance, and everything should be just all right!