Weddingbee Blog

Our lovely invitations, chosen by Mr. Oyster, are probably the only thing I’ve been 100% consistent about throughout this entire wedding planning process.

When it came time to order them, I’d decided that the wording should be simple and formal. Easy, right? I arrived at the shop with all the information in tow (typed up, no less!) and a day later, I got the call.

They wanted to change our invitation wording because it was improper!

Emily Post, who frightens me a little.

Specifically, they want to change my “half past five” to “half after five” and we disagree about the usage of “two thousand ten” vs. “two thousand and ten.” (They prefer the latter, by the way.) All my research says that both are acceptable, but it seems that “half after” and “two thousand and ten” are most likely related to British usage and are therefore more formal.

There are two things at work here.

First of all, I am having a formal wedding, which requires a formal invitation with formal wording. So I get that this is the time to be “correct”.

But I wonder if these etiquette rules might just be too obscure for me. Who IN THE WORLD says “half after five”? I’ve never seen it; every wedding invitation I’ve seen has read, “half past.” Every invitation also has read “two thousand and ten” and since it looks better in print, I might concede that one. I might even write “half after” for the time… but I can just imagine my family calling up saying, “When is the wedding?”

On the other hand, just because large swaths of people don’t understand an etiquette rule doesn’t mean it’s invalid.

We’ll see. At this point, the invitation reads:

The pleasure of your company is requested at the marriage of
[Bride] and [Groom]
[Day] the [nth] of July
two thousand and ten
at half after (?) five in the evening
[Name of place]
[City, State]

[in the lower right hand corner]:
A reply is requested by the [Day] of [Month]
[website address]

I had originally written, “Please RSVP by [date], but realized that, while in English, “to RSVP” is a verb or a noun, it’s actually a phrase that already contains the word please (Respondez, s’il-vous plait). But most people will read it as a verb, so…

Honestly, I’m surprised that I care so much. But as someone who loves language, loves to write and is interested in what words mean to different people, this is actually kind of fascinating.

Also, I think it’s funny how wedding invitations, like so many aspects of the wedding itself, bring out these issues of class and style. I think many wedding disputes we have now are the result of being in different classes, and, at least in the United States, of our society being in sort of a transitional period with different cultures & class systems. I mean, wouldn’t this be easier (but so much more boring!) if every member of one family was in the same social class (and thus, had the same expectations for your wedding)? But, thankfully, hardly anyone can say that anymore. Interesting.

Were you surprised by any small nuances when it came to etiquette and invitation wording?