Wedding Invitations – When to Send, What to Write and Who to Include?
Organising your wedding stationery and invitations is one of the fun aspects of planning your wedding day. However, it can also be the most frustrating! Here are some tips and advice to help you organise your wedding invites and stationery requirements.
Guets Lists
The guest list is traditionally prepared by the bride’s parents although it’s now becoming more common for the marrying couple to prepare the list together. Ideally, you should start preparing your guest list up to a year before the wedding date and you should send out the invites around 2 months before the big day.
A good idea is send out ‘save the date’ cards as soon as you have a set a date with a view to sending out the formal invitations nearer the day. This is particularly important if your wedding day coincides with the summer holiday season or Christmas time.
- Design shown - Cala Lily Design Cheque Book Style Wedding Invitations by Dragonfly Couture Stationery
Who to Invite?
Weddings are traditionally a family affair so it’s usually best to start making your list from close family members as a priority, followed by more distant relatives and then friends and colleagues of both the bride and groom and their parents. It’s customary to send out invites to members of the wedding party also – such as bridesmaids and the best man as well as the Church Minister if you are marrying traditionally?
Sometimes there are relatives or close friends who you know will be unable to attend. However, it’s good form to send an invite anyway, just to show that you have thought about them. Inviting Children This can be tricky and is often the source of complications. If you don’t want children to attend then it’s best to invite their parents specifically by name and to have an answer prepared in advance for when they ask. Excuses relating to cost usually meet least resistance and save a lot of ill feeling!
Inviting Guests’ Partners
This is another potentially difficult aspect but whatever you decide, make it clear on the invitation and invite the partner by name.
Who should Send the Invitations?
As a matter of etiquette, the host sends. So if the bride’s parents are hosting and bearing the cost of the wedding, it’s they who should send the invitations and receive the replies.
If the bride and groom are hosting and paying for their own wedding, it’s fine for them to send the invitations and receive the replies.
- Design shown – Allure Crystal Wedding Invitation from Made With Love Card & Stationery Boutique
Addressing the Envelopes
A formal approach demands a few points of etiquette:
- For a married couple, the invitation should be addressed to the wife – with the mode of address using her husband’s first name. For example: Mrs John Smith
- Avoid abbreviations of names
- Men should be addressed as Esquire or Esq
- Widows are addressed using their deceased husband’s first name
- A Divorced women still using her married name should be addressed as Mrs, with her own first name followed by her married name
- An Unmarried Couple in an established relationship should be addressed as Miss (her own first name and surname) and (his first name and surname) Esq, while envelopes to same sex couples partners, with the names in alphabetical order.
RSVP Cards
The traditional way of replying to an invitation is by hand-written letter but RSVP cards are now more popular: sending one with your invitation is the easy and efficient way of making sure your guests reply promptly.
Order of Service or Order of the Day
An Order of Service card itemises details of your ceremony and are handed to your guests by your ushers .
Order of the Day cards provide a guide to the day’s events for a civil ceremony and are usually placed on each seat or handed to guests as they arrive at the venue.
Menu Cards
Menu cards are really a courtesy to your guests and ideally suited to a sit-down meal, with one card for each place setting, they can also be used for a buffet where they can be set out at random on the tables.
Thank You Cards
Thank you cards are ideal for sending to your guests after the wedding to show your gratitude for their gifts as well as for attending your special day. A nice touch is to include a short hand-written note, personalised to each recipient, perhaps, mentioning the gift and how much you like it?