Although the etiquette of the wedding invitation itself can be easily described if one's wedding is going for a traditional theme, the words that appear on the invitation itself vary from one individual family situation to another, some of which are fraught with potential for misunderstandings and hurt feelings.
Once the bride and groom have decided on the style and type and color of their wedding invitations, the crafting of the message to write inside those invitations, how to deal with delicate family situations, and issues such as “kids or no kids” at the reception all of a sudden become front and center.
And, because you really should send out your invitations six to eight weeks before your wedding, some of these topics will become issues that may threaten or at least influence some of the other planning you do for your wedding. Therefore, they not only offer an opportunity to talk about and decide on the final number of people being invited, but these also allow the families to deal with some topics they may have different opinions on (such as whether children are invited to the reception or not) and in the process, get to know each other better.
As far as the composition of the wedding invitation, starting from the outside in, it should consist of an outer, formally addressed envelope with no abbreviations or punctuation at the end of lines. Even if children are invited, the outside envelope only has their parents name on it. For details on the subject of what should be included and where in a wedding invitation, visit another article in this area.
What is of concern now is what is actually stated on the invitation? A traditional invitation from a wedding being sponsored by the bride would read far different from one being paid for by the bride and/or groom themselves.
Wedding Invitations Under Unusual or Difficult Circumstances
The rules for wedding invitation wording are fairly strict, and depend entirely upon who is paying for the wedding and what that group of people wants. Even so, this does not make it an easy task, as within the bride's family, for example, there are doubtless some people who do not want a certain aunt or uncle invited because of past behavior.
Still, if tradition is ruling the day and the bride's family is paying for most of the expenses of the traditional wedding ceremony and reception, the wording on the invitation is an easy matter and should read, as an example:
1. Bride's Parents Financially Responsible for Wedding Ceremony and Reception
Mr. and Mrs. John James Overkind
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Marjorie Jean
to
Jacques Bernard Smith
on Saturday, the 12th of January
two thousand and five
at five o'clock
Saint Michael's Church
Smalltown, Massachusetts
Sometime, the bride's family is happy to include a line identifying the groom and who is the son of, but other times, custom dictates that the groom's family should be splitting the cost of the wedding and/or reception for the invitations to give the perception that it is a joint financial effort. In such a case, the correct wording would be:
Mr. and Mrs. John James Overkind
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Marjorie Jean
to
Jacques Bernard Smith
the son of Mr. And Mrs. Jean Baptiste Smith
etc.
2. Groom's Parents Financially Responsible for Wedding Ceremony and Reception
Although this does not happen frequently, if the circumstances are such that the groom's family is footing the bill, the correct wording places the groom's parents at the top of the invitation:
Mr. and Mrs. Jean Baptiste Smith
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of
Miss (or Ms.) Marjorie Jean Overkind
to their son
Mr. Jacques Bernard Smith
etc.
3. Bride and Groom's Financially Responsible for Wedding Ceremony and Reception
These days, the bride and groom themselves are often paying for the wedding, particular if this is a second marriage or the couple has delayed marriage. Here, your wedding invitation could look either of these ways:
Marjorie Jean Overkind
and
Mr. Jacques Bernard Smith
request the honor of your presence
at their marriage
etc.
Or
The honor of your presence
is requested at the marriage of
Ms. Marjorie Jean Overkind
to
Mr. Jacque Bernard Smith
etc.
4. Divorced Parents of Either the Bride or Groom's and the Wording of Wedding Invitations. Unfortunately, we do have too often to face the reality that the couple getting married may have come from a family that has suffered through a divorce (or more than one) along the way, or a parent may have passed away prior to the wedding.
These situations are a little trickier to handle etiquette-wise, but there are some standard and simple solutions to what might otherwise be awkward situations to express.
If the bride's parents are still sponsoring the wedding, just change the wording to make it clear that her parents are no longer married. An example would be:
Helen Marie Overkind (or Mrs. Helen Nottingham, if she has remarried)
and
John James Overkind (add the title “Mr.” If his ex-wife has remarried)
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Marjorie Jean
to
Jacques Bernard Smith
etc.
5. The situation can become a little more sticky if the father of the bride is no longer present in her life enough that anyone expects the divorced parents to act politely to each other and each other's new spouses, if any.
As well, the bride's father may be deceased and her mother may or may not have remarried in either situation. To deal with such complications, the mother of the bride is considered as the person “giving her away” if her father has not been a part of her life for a significant period of time. To indicate this kind of a situation in a wedding invitation, the wording could read:
Mr. and Mrs. George Nottingham [if the bride's mother's has remarried]
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of her daughter
Marjorie Jean Overkind
OR
(at the marriage of their daughter)
OR
(at marriage of Mrs. Nottingham's daughter)
etc.
And if the bride's mother is currently unattached, the invitations should read:
Mrs. Helen Marie Overkind
requests the honor of your presence
at the marriage of her daughter
Marjorie Jean
to
Jacques Bernard Smith
etc.
6. Indicating that the groom's parents are divorced or one or the other is deceased is usually a less touchy situation, unless of course they are funding the wedding and ceremony. A typical solution in this case should be: Mr. and Mrs. George Nottingham (the second husband of the bride's mother)
(or)
Mr. and Mrs. James Overkind (if all is well with the bride's parents)
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Marjorie Jean
to
Jacques Bernard Smith
son of
Mrs. Brenda Rhonda (Smith) Bowles
and
Mr. John Baptiste Smith
etc.
There are, of course, many other situations that could arise as a result of divorce, separations, remarriage, death and desertion during the course of previous unions. The thing for everyone to try to keep in mind when crafting the wording used in the invitations is that you certainly do not want to intentionally hurt someone's feelings but not mentioning their names, but mistakes can happen if the situation is complicated.
In cases such as this, it is often easiest to consider a less tradition and lot more intuition when putting together what will be said on the invitation.
The simplest solution is to leave out references to who is the daughter of whom and who is the son of whom and merely bypass those discussions for the reception, when you know all the guests will be spending time identifying other guests whom they do not recognize and new marriages and remarriages and divorces and separations will likely be part of the lively conversation that inevitably occurs when families normally separated by distance come together to celebrate an occasion.
Most importantly, all guests should keep in mind that their presence is requested to celebrate a wondrous occasion, and consequently, any minor annoyances at the wording of the invitation needs to overlooked for now, lest it spoil the happiness of the day. Weddings are a day to set aside family differences, rather than to highlight them.
A less traditional, but perfectly correct invitation could be as simple as:
Together with their parents
Marjorie Jean Overkind
and
Jacques Bernard Smith
request the honor of your presence
at their marriage
on Saturday, the 12th of January
two thousand and five
at five o'clock
Saint Michael's Church
Smalltown, Massachusetts
With this kind of wording, all references to current relationships of the bride and grooms parents to each other is removed and “who is paying for what” is also sidestepped – both topics bound to be high points at the site of any wedding, no matter how carefully the invitation had been worded to make the situation crystal clear. |
