Wedding invitation wording

This guide is intended to give you lots of ideas to assist you with your wedding invitation wording.  The guide is in three parts:

  1. An illustrated example of a wedding invitation layout.
  2. Who should wedding invitations be sent from and how are they worded?
  3. How do you include the guests’ names on your wedding invitations?

An illustrated example of a wedding invitation layout

This example uses open punctuation, which minimises use of punctuation marks.  Open punctuation is regarded as ‘cleaner’ and easier to read.  Full punctuation – commas/full stops at the end of sentences and in names, addresses etc – is less commonly used.  Whichever style of punctuation you use, the most important thing is that you are consistent and use the same style with all the text.

Who should wedding invitations be sent from and how are they worded?

You will usually start your wedding invitation wording by saying who it is from.  Traditionally, wedding invitations used to be sent from the Bride’s parents and this is still the case for many weddings.  Some couples however, especially when already living together, send invitations from themselves.  Additionally, even when the invitation is being sent from parents, family composition may dictate that different invitation wording is required.

Here are some examples of different ways you can phrase your wording.  With any of the names, how the name is written is down to personal choice – for instance Mr John Reynolds, John Reynolds or Mr J Reynolds.  Whatever format you use, use this format for all names.

From the bride’s parents, who are married:

Mr and Mrs John Reynolds
request the pleasure of your company
at the wedding of their daughter

From the bride’s parents, who are divorced:

Mr John Reynolds and Mrs Sandra Phillips
request the pleasure of your company
at the wedding of their daughter

From one of the bride’s parents:

Mrs Sandra Reynolds
requests the pleasure of your company
at the wedding of her daughter

From the bride’s mother/father and a step-parent:

Mr and Mrs Stephen Reynolds
request the pleasure of your company
at the wedding of her daughter

From both sets of parents:

Mr and Mrs John Reynolds and Mr and Mrs Stephen Hobland
request the pleasure of your company
at the wedding of

From someone other than the bride’s parents:

Mr Joseph Taylor
requests the pleasure of your company
at the wedding of his niece

From the couple themselves:

Elizabeth Reynolds and Mark Hobland
request the pleasure of your company
at their wedding

or

Together with their families
Elizabeth Reynolds and Mark Hobland
request the pleasure of your company
at their wedding

How do you include the guests’ names on your wedding invitations?

Traditionally, the wedding invitation wording requests ‘the pleasure of your company’ and the guests’ names are handwritten in the top left-hand corner of the invitation.

If you don’t wish to do this, or the design of your invitation will not allow it, you can consider addressing the envelope quite specifically.

Alternatively, you can choose to have a dotted line for writing the name(s) of the guest(s) on. In this instance the wording changes to ‘request the pleasure of the company of’ followed by the dotted line.

Finally, most wedding stationery providers offer a service whereby the guests’ names are printed, usually at an additional cost. The Leaf Press offers this – please see the wedding invitation upgrades page. It’s a way of making your guests feel special!

printed guest names on wedding invitations

A note about children:
Some couples choose not to have children at their wedding. If this is the case you need to make sure that the names on the invitation reflect this e.g. don’t put ‘The Carters’ if you don’t want the Carter children to attend. It is worth noting that some may assume children are invited unless you state otherwise.