Wedding Invitation Wording

Your Names
Will you be using your full names (with or without middle names) in a formal manner, or first names only (less formal, but also commonly used). The benefit of using surnames is that if the bride is taking the groom’s surname then her guests know what her new surname is (and how to spell it!)

Jack & Jill
invite you to join them in celebrating the marriage

Jack Jones & Jill Smith
invite you to join them in celebrating the marriage

Jack Hansel Jones & Jill Gretel Smith
invite you to join them in celebrating the marriage

Do you want to include your parents or families? Do you want to list parents’ or children’s names, or an all-encompassing “together with their parents/families” before or after your names. If parents are contributing financially their names are usually on the invites, though it can also be nice to include them regardless. You can have their names or Mr & Mrs/Initials/Names –

Mr & Mrs M. Smith
together with
Mr & Mrs A. Jones
invite you to join them in celebrating the marriage of their children
Jill Smith & Jack Jones

Jill & Jack
together with their parents
Bob and Mary Smith
and
John and Jane Brown
invite you to join them in celebrating their marriage

Jill & Jack
together with their parents/families
invite you to join them in celebrating their marriage

If the bride’s parents are hosting the wedding you could write:

Mr & Mrs M. Smith
invite you to join them in celebrating the marriage of their daughter
Jill Gretel
to
Jack Hansel Jones
(perhaps also) son of Mr & Mrs J. Jones

If the parents are divorced you can separate the names (eg. Mr Martin Smith & Mrs Jan Brown together with…)

Or if one parent has passed away and you want to include their name you could have “Mr Martin Smith & the late Mrs Jan Smith together with…

The Next Line

Here are a few traditional options:
– invite
– warmly invite
– request the presence of …
– request the honour of the presence of …
– request the pleasure of the company of …
– invite you to share in their joy as …
– to join them in celebrating their wedding
– to join us in celebrating our marriage
– to join them in celebrating their union of marriage
– to join them in a celebration of love

A common mistake is to have “…request the pleasure of Guest Name…” – you don’t request the “pleasure” of a person, but the pleasure of their company. So you can have “request the pleasure of the company of Guest Name” or simply “request the company of Guest Name”.

You can also rephrase the following to suit

– Love fills a lifetime, and a lifetime begins this hour when the two of us
– Because you have shared in our lives by your friendship and love, we invite
– With joyous hearts we invite you to attend our wedding
– Invite you to share in their love and happiness as they exchange vows of marriage and begin their new life together
– Come celebrate with us as we exchange marriage vows
– This day our hearts are joined as one
– We invite you to be with us as we begin our new life together
– Share with us this day of new beginnings
…have chosen the first day of their new life together as [date]
– Love fills a moment, A moment fills a lifetime, A lifetime begins eternity, And our eternity begins here, at the wedding of…

Guest Names

You can either leave space for a printed line where you can hand-write guest names, or we can print those for you. If you would like names printed on the invitations please provide a list of names as you want them to appear on the invitations. A list in an email or Word document is fine, without numbers is preferred. If using Excel please put the names in one column as you want them to appear, eg. guests “Jack & Jill” in one column together. There is a small charge to cover the time spent setting up a mail merge to print all your guest names on the invitations (regardless of the quantity of invitations you’re after).

The Date

Most invitation we do are formatted like this (or for simplicity you could remove the “on” and “at”):

on Saturday 27 March 2023
at 3.00 pm

Or written in full:

on Saturday the twenty-seventh of March, two thousand twenty three
at three o’clock in the afternoon

Venue(s)

It will be helpful for guests if you give them the full address of the venue as well as the name – it will save them looking it up themselves. If you have the ceremony at one venue and the reception at another you can say “reception to follow at…” and make sure you include the time this is starting. Else if they are at the same venue it may be useful to have “reception to follow at the same venue” or similar so that guests know they are invited to the entire wedding celebration (not the ceremony only for example).

at Ceremony Venue
123 Street Address
Suburb, Town (postcodes are not needed)

with the reception to follow
at Reception Venue
123 Street Address
Suburb, Town

Reception to follow at the same venue

RSVP Details

Note that “RSVP” is the abbreviation for the French phrase “Répondez S’il Vous Plaît” meaning “respond if you please”. Having “please RSVP” is therefore doubling up on the word “please” so we would recommend either “Please reply by…” or “RSVP by…” or “Kindly reply by…”

RSVP date: Keep in mind that you will be busy leading up to the wedding, and the RSVP date needs to give you enough time to do your seating chart etc among the other wedding tasks you still have to do.

Commonly couples put at the bottom of an invitation:
Please reply by [date] to
email@wedding.com
or 027 123 4567

Funny additions to the RSVP:

These four options with tick boxes –
□ Accept with pleasure
□ Decline with regret
□ Accept with regret
□ Decline with pleasure

Add a line of: I promise to dance if you play….

You may need to ask guests to advise any special dietary requirements.

Inviting Children

If an invitation is addressed to the whole family (parents and kids) it would be safe to assume the kids are invited too. However if the invitation was made out to only the parents they should assume the children aren’t invited. This could be enough, though if you want to reiterate the point you could say “children’s attendance by invitation only please”, or if you prefer no children attend, you could write “so that parents can have a more “relaxing” night we ask that our wedding is adult only.” Or simply “this is an adult only event” or “we ask children remain home on this occasion”. There are lots of simple one-liners.

Gifts

There are lots of Wishing Well poems, or you could simply have –

Presence over presents

We understand [overseas wedding location] is a distance to travel and for those who cannot attend the greatest gift we can receive is your continued love and friendship. For those attending, your presence at our wedding is the only gift we require.

We appreciate the effort required for guests to be able to join us in beautiful [overseas wedding location] for our special day, and your presence is present enough. For those who do still wish to celebrate with a gift, a contribution to our wishing well would be gratefully accepted.

Or for weddings that don’t require travel you may still want to ask for cash but without the wishing well poem, in this case you could use something like –

While we would be honoured to receive any gift from you…
…a contribution towards our [honeymoon/home] would be very much appreciated
…we would be very grateful for vouchers for [shop] to set up our new home
…we have a registry set up at [shop]

Another option: As we are travelling to [location] after the wedding, we don’t have room for boxed gifts…

Love Quotes

Together, we wrote our names in the sand and the waves washed them away, so we will write them in our hearts and there they will stay.
This day I will marry my best friend, the one I laugh with, live for, love.
Two lives, two hearts, joined together in friendship, united forever in love.
Just like a page out of a fairytale, the storybook romance comes true.
I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out. (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Come celebrate, dance and sing, laugh and love, as we join our lives.
Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. (Franklin P. Jones)
Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be… (Robert Browning)
One does not fall into love; one grows into love, and love grows in him. (Karl Menninger)
I have found the one my soul loves. (Song of Solomon)
Words were spoken amidst a soothing tide, as paradise proclaimed two souls will forever be side by side.
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. (Henry Louis Mencken)
Years ago when they were young, two lovers were brought together as one. Now and forever, partners in life under [palm trees swaying], they’ll be husband and wife.
Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. (Robert Frost)
At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. (Plato)
The rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart. (Unknown)
A perfect shell is a gift from the sea, as beautiful and unique as our love is to be.
Love is a friendship set to music. (E. Joseph Cossman)
A heart that loves is always young. (Greek Proverb)
On this day I will marry my friend. The one who shares my dreams, life and love. (Unknown)
To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with. (Mark Twain)
Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts. (William Shakespeare)
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. (Aristotle)
An answered prayer he is to me; My greatest blessing she’ll always be. And so this day we’ll pledge our love in front of family, friends and God above.
There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved. (George Sand)
In true love the smallest distance is too great, and the greatest distance can be bridged. (Hans Nouwens)
Love is life and if you miss love, you miss life. (Leo Buscaglia)
What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seem too short. (Andre Maurois)