Wedding Invitation Etiquette &
Wedding Invitation Wording

A wedding invitation should never be an email or an eVite. For a small, casual wedding, send out handwritten invitations on stationary or blank greeting cards in place of formal printed invites if you like.

Feel free to machine print the address on the response card, unless it's a more formal wedding, in that case you must hand address everything.

Never send a "courtesy invitation" to a guest if you don't really want them to attend (this sometimes happens to guests who are out of town).

Send a wedding announcement instead.

Wording your invitations can be a complicated wedding etiquette issue, especially if there are divorced parents and several major financial contributors.

In general, whoever pays for the wedding does the inviting on the printed invitation.

A few quick wedding invitation etiquette guidelines for wording:

• Everything on a wedding invitation is spelled out, including the time the event is to take place
• Unless you are sending out your invitations more than 12 months from the wedding date, do not include the year on the wedding invitation
• If the wedding ceremony is to be held in a church, your wedding invitation wording should include the phrase, "The honour of your presence" on the invitation
• If the ceremony is to be held in a banquet hall, a private home, the beach, or other location like a garden, the use the phrase, "The pleasure of your company" on the wedding invitation

Here's an example of wedding invitation wording for a less formal event where the bride and groom are hosting:

Lisa Anne Smith
and
Mr. Richard Evan Jones
invite you to share
in the joy of their marriage
on Friday, the tenth of October
at three o'clock in the afternoon
Potomac Boat House
3530 Water Street, NW
Washington, DC

Mr. and Mrs. Michael Lee Smith
request the honour of you presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Lisa Anne Smith
to
Mr. Richard Evan Jones
on Saturday, the tenth of October
at five o'clock
St. John's Episcopal Church
1525 H Street, NW
Washington, DC

It's a common question, 'When to send wedding invitations?' and it's really about giving people the time to make plans and return the response card (of course you sent out save the date cards).

It's good wedding invitation etiquette to send out wedding invitations eight weeks before the event with a request for the RSVP cards to be returned three weeks before the wedding date.

Your wedding vendors will have a deadline for an accurate head count of your guests, so be prepared to contact those guests who do not return the RSVP cards by the requested date.

If one of you is changing your last name, and you plan to use a monogram as a design element on your invitations and other printables, the monogram on any wedding printables before the ceremony should contain the initial of the bride’s maiden name, or just the first letter of the bride’s and groom’s first names.

As soon as the ceremony is over, printables like menu cards or post-wedding thank you notes can have the traditional monogram with the single initial for the last name.

If you are planning a formal wedding, I strongly recommend you buy a book dedicated to wedding etiquette for reference.

If one or both your families are complicated by divorce and remarriage, I recommend the book Wedding Etiquette for Divorced Families by Martha A. Woodham.

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