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At my job, I work with designers a lot and I know that when it comes to designing a piece of printed collateral, it’s a chicken-and-egg scenario… I don’t know what to write until I can see what they’re designing, and I they don’t know what to design until they see what I write.
Because I’m usually on the writing end though, when it came to our invitations, my instinct was to start with the words.
All we knew was that we didn’t want anything too formal because our destination wedding is going to be anything but. Plus, standard wedding etiquette sets out all sorts of rules for the way invitations should be worded if the wedding is paid for by the groom’s parents, the bride’s parents, both parents or no parents, but not for a destination wedding that was all about families meeting each other, having fun and making memories.
So I thought long and hard about what this wedding meant to us, and tried my best to convey it in just a few simple words. And this is what I came up with:
Please join us for
A celebration of
FAMILY
FRIENDSHIP
LAUGHTER
& LOVE
At the wedding of
[Miss Sea Breeze]
and
[Mr Sea Breeze]
This day, the xxth of November
Two Thousand and Eight
Just before sunset
Majestic Colonial Resort
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
weddingwebsite.com
Short, simple and to the point. But I hope it will convey the spirit of our wedding.
Anyone else create their own wedding invitation wording?
I like it! I think it does exactly what you wanted in conveying the feeling, but it also doesn’t stray TOO far from “accepted” wedding invite wording. Bravo Ms SB!
I’ll be in the same boat here soon. My parents are the ones footing the bill for our shindig, but we don’t want it to sound stuffy so we will be doing something similar to what you have created.
We did a pretty traditional wording:
Dr. & Mr. His Parents
along with
Mr. & Mrs. My Parents
are pleased to announce the marriage of their children
Me
&
Him
Saturday the twenty-second of September
two-thousand seven
twelve o’clock
The Church of the Good Shepherd
Reception to follow
Celebration Hall
And just for the record, (and because this is major pet peeve of mine), the traditional wedding etiquette refers to the HOSTS of the wedding, which really doesn’t have anything to do with money. My in-laws unofficially hosted our wedding because it was in their hometown. We listed both sets of parents on the invitation because we liked the wording & felt like they all should be included. Neither my parents nor my inlaws contributed financially. MH and I paid for everything but we felt it was important that the (unofficial) hosts of the event be recognized.
I like your wording…casual but not overly, just perfect for a DW in the DR.
oops, Mr. & Mrs. My Parents should have been listed before his parents.
*sigh* It feels like Monday.
I did….but before I show our invite wording, a little back story. He was my first love in high school…we dated for a while but our lives took us in different directions…but, we always has this connection. As fate would have it, our paths crossed and we fell in love all over again…hence, the wording of our invite:
Years ago when we were young our hearts came together as one. Now and forever, partners in life, under trees swaying we will be husband and wife. Bride and Groom invite you to share the vineyards, the sunset and memories of our wedding ceremony. Date, time and place.
We used song lyrics from our first dance song from phantom of the opera. We also used another phantom song for the moms to walk down the aisle to; it became a bit of a theme for the wedding.
Say you’ll share with me one love, one lifetime…
Anywhere you go, let me go too…
Love me, that’s all I ask of you.
my name
and
his name
along with their parents…etc., etc.
I think your wording was really perfect. I’m impressed. well done.
I think it looks great! i also went with casablancabride’s phrasing, we included both our parents’ names even though they were not contributing financially so it went something like this: mr. & mrs. my parents
along with
mr. & mrs. his parents
cordially invite you to witness the marriage of their children
my name
and
his name
date/time
location
(there are spaces in between…just didn’t want this post to be too long)
we also included our wedding site but on our RSVP card–we set it up so they could either send a response card or through our site.
my only suggestion is to give a firm time on when sunset is, mainly for your guests. we used a site similar to this to help us figure the time for our wedding: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=226
can’t wait to see the final invite!
@casablancabride: True, it does usually refer to the hosts. Mr SB and I consider ourselves the hosts for ours, though definitely, the bride’s or groom’s parents could potentially be the hosts for a DW too.
@litsecretary: That is so sweet!
@bridalmonkey: That’s a lovely way to create a theme.
@Claudia: I didn’t include a firm time because although we have a set time, I’m hoping we’ll be able to bump it up to have it a bit earlier.
I’m a marketing writer, so I appreciate how important words are as well! We’re not traditional (i.e. no parents’ names on the invites).
Instead we said:
“Since your friendship and love have helped us become who we are today, we invite you to celebrate the joy of our wedding.”
Names, location, etc.
Our invitations have our name and says and our families invite you to celebrate in their love, friendship and marriage. I like having marriage in there. It keeps the focus on what it should be and not just about the wedding.
Good job! I think it definitely conveys what you were going for.
being not traditional, we wrote our own also:
This day we begin the adventure of a lifetime
Miss GT
and
Mr.GT
date,time,location…
Adult reception to follow
like you, we wanted something short, simple, and ‘us’!
We are also having a destination wedding, that we are hosting, but the parents want their names on the invite. So, our wording was:
Bride, daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Smith
and
Groom, son of Mr & Mrs. Jones
invite you to celebrate their marriage.
date,time,location
Since we’re paying for it ourselves and didn’t want to try to figure out whose parents get first listing we just said, “Please join us in celebration at the marriage of me and him”
Our wedding coordinator loved it-even swiped the invite to show a few other brides!
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Mrs. Sea Breeze, Vancouver/Dominican Republic Age in 2008 and Occupation: 30, Communications Manager Fiance's Age in 2008 and Occupation: 29, Experiential Marketing Director Engagement Date: October 6, 2007 Wedding Date: November, 2008 Blogging Since: July 17, 2008 Venue: Majestic Colonial Resort, Punta Cana About Me: Planning a destination wedding by the sea should be (oh no she di-in't…) a breeze (…*sigh* yep, she did) but when you've never been to the Caribbean, your powers of imagination are really put to the test. Luckily, I'm 90% resourceful, creative optimist (and kooky, neurotic practicalist-if-that's-a-word for the other ten). Other than writing about our week-long celebration of family, friends, laughter and love, I adore books, shoes and… you guessed it… long walks on the beach.
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