Need advice on how to word your wedding invitation? We’ve answered a few questions and listed some common scenarios to help you decide your invitation wording.
Important Tips
- Determine who is hosting the wedding — bride’s parents, groom’s parents, bride and groom, etc.
- Will the wedding be formal or informal?
- Spell out all wording. Abbreviations are not used in wedding invitation wording except for Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Miss.
- Traditional and/or formal wedding invitations are issued by the bride’s parents.
- If the bride’s parents issue the invitations, Mr. goes in front of the groom’s name
- If the groom’s parents issue the invitations, Miss. goes in front of the bride’s name.
- The bride’s name always goes before the groom’s.
Traditional Wording from Bride’s Parents (Most Common):
Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Ernest Ellingson
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Jillian Lee
to
Mr. Steven Charles Millings
Saturday, the twelfth of June
two thousand fourteen
at half after four o’clock
Village Lutheran Church
Traditional Wording from Groom’s Parents:
Mr. and Mrs. Kent George Millings
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of
Miss Jillian Lee Kraft
to their son
Steven Charles Millings
Invitation Wording from the Couple. (An invitation from the couple is considered informal.)
Miss. Jillian Kraft
and Mr. Robert White
request the honour of your presence
at their marriage…
If the bride or groom has parents that are widowed or divorced, here are appropriate wording options. (The following options are based on the traditional practice of the bride’s parents issuing the invitations. Any option can be modified to accommodate the groom’s parents issuing the invitations.)
If the bride’s mother is widowed or divorced:
Mrs. Traxler Ellingson
requests the honour of your presence
at the marriage of her daughter..
If the bride’s father is a widower or divorced:
Mr. Jonathan Ernest Ellingson
requests the honour of your presence
at the marriage of his daughter…
If the bride’s mother is remarried and both are hosting:
Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Casie Smith
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of her daughter
Jillian Lee Ellingson…
If the bride’s father is remarried and both are hosting:
Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Ernest Ellingson
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of his daughter…
If the bride’s parents are divorced, but both are still sponsoring the wedding. (Listing parents on separate lines indicates divorced. This format may also work if the mother has remarried and taken a new name or uses her maiden name.)
Mrs. Lillian Ernest Ellingson
and
Mr. Jonathan Ernest Ellingson
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Jillian Lee Ellingson…
If the bride’s parents are divorced, both are remarried, and all are sponsoring the wedding. (This is necessary if both sets of parents are contributing to the wedding.)
Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Casie Smith
Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Ernest Ellingson
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of
Mrs. Smith and Mr. Ellingson’s daughter
Jillian Lee Ellingson
to…
For additional wording ideas, visit our etiquette section on Invitations by Dawn. Happy wedding planning!
Unless things have changed in the past few years, the following should be observed:
If the bride’s parents are hosting the wedding, and there is a place for an initial on the invitation, it should be the first initial of the last name of the parents.
I was looking at an invitation that had a circular motif at the top for one initial. When I phoned Anne’s about possibly placing a cross in this space, I was told it was specifically for a letter, and that it should be the last name of the GROOM!
I informed her that Emily Post to Martha Stewart would disagree, but she spoke to another girl, and they both said that Anne’s rules of etiquette told them to tell the customer that the groom!s last name and his initials were always the ones listed on the invitation if there were only space for one.
This is incorrect and I hope that this is changed soon.
Thanks.
Hey Katharine,
We really appreciate your feedback on the blog, and you are correct. Proper etiquette does state to only use the groom’s last name or initials after the wedding ceremony. However, we have found that many brides prefer to use the groom’s last name initial on their wedding invitations despite proper etiquette. That’s why we show some wedding invitations with the groom’s last name initial.
We will be sure to inform our customer service team of the proper etiquette rules and why Ann’s chooses to show some invitations the way we do. We do really appreciate your input. Thank you for letting us know about your conversation.