Wedding Invitation Wording: Seven Examples by Host

Every wedding invitation answers the same questions in the same order. Who is inviting you, to what, for whom, when and where. Once you know who your hosts are and how formal your wedding is, choosing the wording gets easy. The examples below use made-up names, so swap in your own.

The table shows the line order a formal invitation follows. Casual invitations keep the order and loosen the words.

One word choice changes with the place. The Emily Post Institute's guide to formal wedding invitation wording keeps "the honour of your presence" for a ceremony in a house of worship. For any other venue, the traditional line is "the pleasure of your company". Honour keeps its British spelling with a "u".

1. The couple hosting: wording when you invite guests yourselves

Many couples pay for and host their own wedding. Then your names go first and there is no "daughter of" line. You can see this shape in the Emily Post Institute's samples of formal wording.

Ms. Emma Rose Carter
and Mr. James Daniel Brooks
request the pleasure of your company
at their marriage
Saturday, the twelfth of June
two thousand twenty-seven
at half after four o'clock
Magnolia Hall
Savannah, Georgia

Use "the honour of your presence" instead when the ceremony is in a church, temple or other house of worship. You can also start with "The pleasure of your company is requested at the marriage of" and then your names. Both are correct.

2. Both families hosting: the "together with their families" wording

When both families help and nobody wants to be left off, one line covers everyone. "Together with their families" goes first, then your names. It reads warm without listing six parents.

Together with their families
Emma Rose Carter
and James Daniel Brooks
invite you to celebrate their marriage
Saturday, June 12, 2027
at four o'clock in the afternoon
Magnolia Hall, Savannah, Georgia
Dinner and dancing to follow

The together-with-their-families example is the casual form, with numerals in the date. For a formal card, use the request line from example 1 and write the date out in words.

3. The bride's parents hosting: traditional formal wording

The traditional invitation comes from the bride's parents. Their names come first, and they ask guests to the marriage of their daughter. The groom's name follows with a title.

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Carter
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Emma Rose
to
Mr. James Daniel Brooks
Saturday, the twelfth of June
two thousand twenty-seven
at half after four o'clock
Saint Mark's Church
Savannah, Georgia

When her parents host, the bride's surname can be left off, because it matches their names on the first line. If one parent is a doctor, Emily Post spells out Doctor unless the line would get too long. Mr. and Mrs. are not spelled out.

To include the groom's parents without making them hosts, add a line under his name. In the Emily Post sample, a "son of" line names his parents.

When a parent has passed away, the invitation comes from the living host. In Emily Post's sample for the bride's only living parent, the line uses one name and a singular verb: "Mrs. Robert Carter requests the honour of your presence at the marriage of her daughter". No Emily Post sample names a late parent. If you want that parent named anyway, a common way is to keep them out of the host line, since hosts are the people inviting. Use a relationship line instead, such as "daughter of Mrs. Robert Carter and the late Mr. Robert Carter" under the bride's full name. Another way is to honor the parent on the ceremony program or a memorial sign and keep the invitation simple. Which you choose depends on what the surviving parent wants, so ask them first.

4. Divorced parents hosting together

Divorced parents who host together each get their own line. In the Emily Post sample, each parent appears with their new spouse, one couple per line, and the request line follows both.

Mr. and Mrs. Allen Jones
Mr. and Mrs. Michael Levy
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Emma Rose Levy
to
Mr. James Daniel Brooks

In divorced-parents wording, use the bride's full name, since her parents now have different surnames. If only one parent and a stepparent host, the line becomes "at the marriage of her daughter" or "his daughter". Talk it through with both parents before you print. The order of the names matters more to families than any other line.

5. The groom's parents or both sets of parents hosting

When the groom's parents host, they invite guests to the marriage of the bride "to their son". When both sets of parents host, both couples are named at the top, one per line, and the request line is plural.

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Carter
and Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Brooks
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of
Emma Rose Carter
and
James Daniel Brooks

Naming both sets of parents works the same way for any two families, including two brides or two grooms. Keep each family on its own line and use full names for both of you.

6. Casual wording for a relaxed wedding

A backyard, beach or barn wedding often reads better with plain words. Casual wording, as in the Emily Post Institute's informal samples, drops titles and uses lines such as "invite you to celebrate their marriage". Numerals in the date are fine on a casual card.

Emma and James
invite you to celebrate their marriage
Saturday, June 12, 2027, at five o'clock
Willow Creek Farm, Athens, Georgia
Food, drinks and dancing to follow

Keep the whole date, the time and the town even on a casual card. Guests still need them to plan travel. Save the playful part for the closing line.

Your invitation is the first time guests see your wedding, so the facts on it have to be right before the words are pretty.

7. Reception-only invitations and a reception after a private ceremony

Some couples marry in a small ceremony and invite more guests to a party later. Then the invitation asks guests to a reception or celebration and says why.

Please join us
for a reception in celebration of the marriage of
Emma Carter and James Brooks
Saturday, the twelfth of June
at seven o'clock in the evening
The Garden Pavilion
Savannah, Georgia
RSVP by May 15

A reception-only invitation carries a reply line. The formal rule is that RSVP appears only on reception invitations or combined ceremony and reception invitations, not on a ceremony-only card. "The favour of a reply is requested" is the formal alternative to RSVP.

How to write the date and time on a wedding invitation

On a formal invitation every number is written in words. The day and the month get capital letters and the year does not. The year has no "and", so it reads "two thousand twenty-seven". Half hours are written as "half after", not "half past" or "four-thirty", and you can leave out "in the afternoon".

Noon needs its own care. NIST, the U.S. time standards agency, calls 12 a.m. and 12 p.m. ambiguous in its times of day FAQ and advises against them. Write "noon" and nobody turns up at midnight.

What moves off the invitation onto the details card

The invitation carries the ceremony. Everything else goes on a smaller card or your website, which keeps the invitation clean. Typical details-card lines are the reception venue when it is somewhere else, hotel blocks, the dress code, directions, parking and your wedding website.

The dress code is the one detail that may appear on a reception invitation. The formal wording guide from Emily Post says not to mention attire on the wedding invitation itself. "Black tie" may be written in the lower right corner of a reception invitation when it is needed. On a details card or website, keep it to the dress code's name so guests can look it up, for example "Cocktail attire" or "Garden party attire".

Adults-only weddings have no printed line at all. Advice from the Emily Post Institute on signaling no children says not to print "no children" or "adults only" on an invitation. The envelope's address carries the message. A card addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Brooks" invites the two of them, and children are invited only when their names are written on it. Ask close friends and family to help spread the word, and repeat it kindly when someone asks.

Gift and registry information does not go on the invitation or in the envelope. Emily Post's wedding invitation guide calls a list of registry stores in the envelope poor taste. Put the registry on your website instead. For a line-by-line plan of that smaller card, see what goes on a wedding details card.

How to choose wedding invitation wording for your wedding

Choose by who is hosting first, then by formality. Your hosts give you the first line. A house of worship calls for honour, any other venue for pleasure. A formal tone writes numbers in words.

Once you have your lines, the card has to hold them without crowding. Our wedding invitation templates give each part its own field on the 5 × 7 in card. There are fields for names, the hosting line, the invitation line, the date and time style, the venue, a closing line and a note on the back. You type them into a personalizer that opens in Google Chrome on a computer, straight from the downloaded folder. Check the preview and click Download PDF to print. It works offline and nothing is uploaded.

A template is the wrong pick if your wording does not fit a 5 × 7 card. A long bilingual invitation, or one that names four sets of parents and stepparents, may need a larger card or a custom design from a stationer. The same goes for invitations in Greek, Cyrillic or other scripts outside the Latin alphabet, which the fonts do not cover.

If you are still deciding how to make the cards, DIY wedding invitations walks through the whole making process. To set the wording on a finished design, start with our invitation templates for every host line and type your first draft straight into the preview.