Guide to Wedding Invitation Etiquette and Protocol

When planning a wedding, one topic or question that inevitably comes up is, How do you correctly word the invitation? Is there a protocol for writing a wedding invitation correctly? What is the proper etiquette?

Recently, my co-worker got engaged and asked if I had any advice about planning for the wedding. Well admittedly, my wife did most of the planning for our wedding. But for whatever reason (perhaps I just happened to be around that day because I couldn't get a tee time for golf), I went with my wife to pick out the wedding invitations. Besides the surprisingly large amount of colors, patterns, styles, etc. to choose from, I was surprised when the wedding coordinator asked how the invitation should be worded. This had not even occurred to me. I just figured all wedding invitations are worded pretty much the same way. Well, it turns out that they aren't. And the way that a wedding invitation is worded depends on a number of different things. Here are some examples of how a wedding invitation should be worded based on some of these factors.

This is an example of how the invitation should be worded when the parents of the bride are issuing the invitation (i.e. the bride's parents are the hosts):

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas James Evanston

request the honour of your presence

at the marriage of their daughter

Margaret Jane

and

Mr. Anthony Stephen Randall

on Saturday, the tenth of August

two thousand and eight

at four o'clock in the evening

First Baptist Church

1256 West Abbey Street

Fremont, California

OR

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas James Evanston

request the honour of your presence

at the marriage of their daughter

Margaret Jane

and

Mr. Anthony Stephen Randall

son of

Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Stephen Randall

on Saturday, the tenth of August

two thousand and eight

at four o'clock in the evening

First Baptist Church

1256 West Abbey Street

Fremont, California

This is an example of how the invitation should be worded when the parents of the groom are issuing the invitation (i.e. the groom's parents are the hosts):

Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Stephen Randall

request the honour of your presence

at the marriage of

Margaret Jane Evanston

to their son

Anthony Stephen Randall

on Saturday, the tenth of August

two thousand and eight

at four o'clock in the evening

First Baptist Church

1256 West Abbey Street

Fremont, California

This is an example of how the invitation should be worded when both theparents of the bride and the parents of the groom are issuing the invitation:

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas James Evanston

and

Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Stephen Randall

request the honor of your presence

at the marriage of

their children

Margaret Jane Evanston

and

Anthony Stephen Randall

on Saturday, the tenth of August

two thousand and eight

at four o'clock in the evening

First Baptist Church

1256 West Abbey Street

Fremont, California

OR

The Evanston family

and the Randall family

invite you to share in the joy of

the marriage uniting

their children

Margaret Jane

and

Anthony Stephen

on Saturday, the tenth of August

two thousand and eight

at four o'clock in the evening

First Baptist Church

1256 West Abbey Street

Fremont, California

This is an example of how the invitation should be worded when the bride and groom are issuing the invitation (i.e. the bride and groom are the hosts):

Together with their parents

Margaret Jane Evanston

and

Anthony Stephen Randall

request the honour of your presence

at their marriage

on Saturday, the tenth of August

two thousand and eight

at four o'clock in the evening

First Baptist Church

1256 West Abbey Street

Fremont, California

OR

Margaret Jane Evanston

and

Anthony Stephen Randall

together with our parents

invite you to share

the beginning of our new life

together

as we exchange marriage vows

on Saturday, the tenth of August

two thousand and eight

at four o'clock in the evening

First Baptist Church

1256 West Abbey Street

Fremont, California

This is an example of how the invitation should be worded when the bride's divorced parents are issuing the invitation:

Mrs. Julia Samantha Evanston

and

Mr. Thomas James Evanston

request the honor of your presence

at the marriage of their daughter

Margaret Jane Evanston

to

Anthony Stephen Randall

on Saturday, the tenth of August

two thousand and eight

at four o'clock in the evening

First Baptist Church

1256 West Abbey Street

Fremont, California

This is an example of how the invitation should be worded when both sets of divorced parents are issuing the invitation:

Mr. Thomas Evanston and Ms. Julia Evanston

and

Mr. Phillip Randall and Ms. Cynthia Randall

request the honour of your presence

at the marriage of their children

Margaret Evanston

and

Anthony Randall

on Saturday, the tenth of August

two thousand and eight

at four o'clock in the evening

First Baptist Church

1256 West Abbey Street

Fremont, California

There may, of course, be other situations not covered in this article. But the majority of situations should be covered by these examples.