A helpful guide for your wedding invitation wording
We know how important it is to get the details right for such a monumental event, because it’s not every day that you get married! The Ess Letter has put together our top tips to help you with the correct wording and proper etiquette for your wedding invitations. Read on to get started!
What wording should you include on your wedding invitations?
Besides the confirmed details of your wedding (your names as the couple getting married, the date of your wedding and the ceremony location) here are four things you need to know to help craft your invitation wording:
Ceremony start time
Formality of your wedding (which will impact the overall tone of your wording)
If your ceremony is being held in a place of worship
Who (if anyone) is hosting your wedding
Once you have these items sorted, we can then craft your wording for your custom wedding invitation that speaks to your day, and reflects your celebration.
CEREMONY START TIME
In our experience, this is the one detail that couples forget - and can hold up your invitation design! Typically this is the time the actual ceremony will begin. Speak with your celebrant or church/pastor to help finalise the ceremony details. We recommend using a strict start time or adding a 15-minute buffer so guests arrive on time.
FORMALITY OF YOUR WEDDING
The next step is determining how you want your invitations to sound. To do this, we recommend letting the formality of your wedding dictate the tone of your invitations.
The wording choices used for a formal wedding with a black tie dress code will incorporate language to reflect this formality. But if you are planning a casual, laid back wedding, your invitation would sound very different, with more casual wording. Letting your wedding formality dictate the tone is a helpful way to find the right words!
PLACE OF WORSHIP
If so, there are specific words and wording we’d recommend. In particular, use traditional wording, with full names (first, middle, last), and formal language. If you are having a Catholic wedding, it’s important to let your guests know there will be a Catholic mass service in a church.
THE HOST
In this context, the host is extending the invitation to the guest. When you have a host other than yourselves, it’s expected to let everyone know who they are!
If this is the case, there will be a hosting line at the very start of your invitation that indicates who is hosting. This may be you as the couple, it may be one set of parents, or it may be both sets of parents (step-parents/divorced parents are included, we can help find wording for your unique family circumstances).
If you’re reading this and wondering if you have a host, it’s likely that you don’t! But you may wish to discuss this further with your family before making that decision.
Need help with your invitation wording?
If you’re finding this process a lot to work through, you might benefit from working with a wedding invitation designer one-on-one. For The Ess Letter clients, our invitation wording assistance is included in our custom and semi-custom invitation suites. When working together, you’ll provide us details about your wedding and we will give you several invitation wording options to choose from. Together, we will refine the wording until it’s perfectly you.