When I first started researching how our invitations should be worded, I was met by a barrage of templates, etiquette, and guidelines on the subject of wedding invitations. In short, I was a bit overwhelmed.
For example, I never knew that traditionally, the party/parties paying for the wedding should have their names on the invites. If a bride and groom are paying for the wedding without any financial assistance from their families, it’s acceptable to leave the parents’ names out. Or, if the bride’s family is paying for the event the groom’s parents’ names do not need to be on there at all.
Well, eff that. We’re paying for the wedding ourselves but I want both sets of parents on there to honor them. Are any other brides bucking this tradition?
I also read that there is a difference between honour and honor. While the former is the British version and deemed more appropriate for formal occasions, honour should be used in instances of “______ request the honour of your presence…” while honor is better for “in honor of…”
Some more things I found interesting are:
Did you learn anything while researching for your invites? Do you have any invitation wording/etiquette tips to share with the rest of us?
Wow, it looks like I bucked a lot of traditions. We chose our own wording and never did any of the above.
Although I must admit I was curious as to why there are a zillion ways to word things.
Also, because I have so many close cousins, I lowered the invite age limit to 14. This way, they got to feel special, and I knew that I was the first person to ever send them one.
All three parties are paying for our wedding (though his parents are paying CONSIDERABLY more). So can I get away with saying “Together with their parents….”
I don’t want to offend anybody, but I always don’t want tons of names on the invites!
I’ve heard the same thing before about “request the honour of your presence” only being used for ceremonies held in a house of worship. My question is what if it is a religious ceremony NOT held in a house of worship? We’re getting married in a traditional Jewish ceremony by a rabbi, but having the ceremony at our reception venue, instead of at the synagogue. I am curious what the proper wording would be for this?
i’ve ignored many of those etiquette rules. we’re paying for our wedding, but we included our parents in this manner: “With the blessing of our parents…”
but i did not want uninvited people to be assumed as invited, so i did indicate specifically on the RSVP card who were invited. i preprinted the names of every person through a mail-merge and that helped decrease the unwanted folk. as for the envelope, i abbreviated the family of 8 to “The ‘last name’ family”. but for families of 3 or even 4, i wrote out each of their names.
i tried to follow the “over 18 gets the same invite”, but honestly, my cousins didn’t care very much about receiving their own. so i gave up on that and just put them along with their families. even the invited fiance of a cousin got strung along with her family’s invitation.
my FI’s dad’s side of the family and my parents have been so wonderful- helping w our reception and planning (our wedding is overseas) - so we’re going to honor everyone by saying “Together with their families”.
We are completely paying for our own but I still put my parents first as traditions says and added his parents.
Mr. & Mrs. Daddy Dearest requests the honour …..daughter
Dearest Daughter
&
Perfect Groom
son of Mr & Mrs. Perfect Parents.
Does that make sense? Yes technically they aren’t paying for any of the wedding but we feel that we wouldn’t be anywhere without them and they have paid for a fair amount the last 25 plus years of our lives and we didn’t think the one day of bills be what we focus on. That was an agreement from my FI and I.
HTH!
Oh and on the issue of invites, I’m listing every person on inner envelope. Hoping for no uninvited guests.
Although we set out to pay our own way, my parents have contributed generously. My fiance’s haven’t offered anything; we still wanted to include both sets of parents on the invitations. This is a small, casual wedding, so we used a ‘John & Jane Doe’ convention.
We stole our wording right from the internet. Looked at a few examples and picked one we liked. Instead of the ‘honor of your presence’ thing, we used ‘invite you to share in the joy as they exchange marriage vows.’ I like ‘em.
Great tips!
We, too, paid for everything ourselves, but wanted our parents’ name, in part b/c we didn’t want anyone who got it to be like, “who?!” Our invite list was such that we didn’t think that would happen (no 5th cousins or anything like that), but sometimes there are brain farts. (Esp. for family on the side whose last name is not the same as yours; they know you as cousin X, not cousin X last name.)
Here’s a funny story: A friend of mine sent her invites, and even with her FMIL’s name on it, someone sent it back to her and wrote a nice note…”I think you have mixed me up with another Joe Schmoe, I don’t know who you are, but I hope you have a lovely wedding!” Turned out he was related on the FMIL’s side, but there had been a divorce and name change along the way, so he had no idea who anyone listed was! The FMIL had to call and say, “Uh, it’s your cousin —-, dummy, this is my kid’s wedding!” I thought it was funny…and nice of the guy to write such a cute note to the bride!
Anyway, I searched and searched and searched, and could not find any wording online for how to list the couple and their parents who are not paying, so in the end we went with:
The pleasure of your company is requested at the marriage of
princesskittyHI (First Middle Last)
daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Dad & Mom Last
to
Mr. pkHI (F M L)
son of Mr. Dad Last, Sr. & Mrs. Mom Last (his parents are divorced, but still have the same last name, so that DEFINITELY wasn’t a wording option I found online either!)
Sorry this is so long, but another “ettiquette” tip I found when I did ours was that you do not put middle initials for anyone (I have no idea why, but that’s what it said) and everything should be spelled out (no &s, o’clock, not :00…and technically it’s five-thirty o’clock, which sounds totally dumb, and I think a lot of people ditch that), including the state on the address.
you can say half past five in the evening instead of five-thirty o’clock. 
I was surprised to learn that if the bride’s mom is a widow not remarried, the traditional inviation would be worded: “Mrs. Dadfirstname Dadlastname requests the honour….”
It seems odd/very old fashioned to me b/c my widowed-not-remarried mom isn’t someone who ever, at any point, refered to herself as Mrs. my dad’s full name, though she does use his last name. It seems like it should be Mrs. Mom’sfirstname Dad’slastname. Though I guess it is a nice way to mention my dad.
We certainly bucked tradition. If we had put the names of everyone contributing to large parts of our wedding, we’d have had to include my mom and step dad, FH’s Mom, FH’s grandparents, my grandparents, FH’s dad and his wife… uh yeah… there just wasn’t room for that kind of thing. So we didn’t put any, and we got no complaints.
We definitely ditched tradition - we had so many people listed on our wedding invitation that we had to custom design something to fit it all - LOL! Literally, we had both sets of parents, all who have divorced and remarried, so the remarried spouses were listed as well, in addition to my dad, who had passed away. Everyone pitched in for the wedding in one way or another - whether it was moral support, financial support, etc., so we felt it was really important to include everyone.
Tradition is wonderful, but making your wedding memorable and special for you is really what it all comes down to. Who says you can’t start a new tradition?!
I find that most brides ordering invitation these days combine a bit of olde world tradition with a modern approach, incorporating the best of both worlds.
Gosh, please feel free to email any time with wording questions, even if you didn’t purchase from our company - I’m always happy to help…and I think I’ve seen the wording every way possibly known to mankind - LOL!
Julie-if it isn’t at a house of worship,you use pleasure not honor. That wording is a signal that it is in a place of worship and so more conservative dress is more appropriate. Also something to do with the idea that most church ceremonies are more formal-like full nuptial masses etc.
Sorry-forgot to add that came from a Crane’s stationery person.
We paid for our wedding and I had both parents names on the top of the invitation to honor them.
Mrs. Peony, New York
Age and Occupation: 27, Marketing Coordinator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, QA Engineer
Engagement Date: June 28, 2007
Wedding Date: April 18, 2008
Venue: The Fountainhead
Blogging Since: August 7, 2007
About Me: Both Mr. Peony and I are huge computer nerds, and our conversations usually consist of the latest gadgets, programming languages, and video games. At the same time, I can also be very girly with an obsession with handbags, makeup, and high heels. And art! I've studied studio art extensively, almost majored in art history, and freelance as a web and graphics designer. Mr. Peony and I are having a ball of a time planning a wedding for 250(!) guests, doing our best to infuse our personalities (geeky chic) with the wishes of our very traditional Asian parents.
Even though we payed for the entire wedding ourselves, we still wanted to honor our parents with their names on the invitation. For the wording, we put our names first and then “together with out parents Mr. & Mrs ___ and Mr. & Mrs. ___ request the honour of your presence…”
Also for the invitees, if there were children, we simply put the names of the parents “Mr. & Mrs. __ & Family”