Category Archives: Wedding Invitations & Stationery

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…

If you’d like to see examples of different wording ideas, you can find a variety of verses on http://verseit.com/. Invitation catalogs are another great place to get wording ideas. We suggest visiting http://www.invitationsbydawn.com/ and http://www.rexcraft.com/ for free catalogs.