The Information You Should Have on Your Wedding Invitation
“Who should be included in the “hosting” line? Should I put the actual ceremony start time or make the time a little earlier? Do I put both the ceremony and reception details on the main card?”
These are all questions that may have come up as you think about how to format your invitations. As a professional wedding stationer, I guide all my couples through the intricacies of invitation wording and today we’re going to explore exactly what you should include on your invitations and the things you can, or should, skip.
The Anatomy of a Wedding Invitation
1. Personalized Elements
In the example, you can see that the couple choose to include an initial crest, but these personalized elements can be anything that you choose to show your style as a couple and/or the theme of your wedding. And of course, they’re not limited to just the top of the invitation. These design elements can be placed anywhere on the invitation. Or maybe you’re going very minimal and want to focus all the attention on the typography. That’s a personalized element in itself!
2. Hosting Line
Traditionally, the hosting line indicated who was paying for, and therefore hosting the wedding. In this day and age, couples and their families may be working together to pay for the wedding and the lines may be a little blurred. Or maybe the couple is paying for the wedding themselves, but still want to honor the families that raised them.
There are so many different types of wording you can use, but the important part is to convey the event that’s taking place. I’ve seen so many examples of wedding invitations where the wording is ambiguous – is the couple hosting an engagement party, a vow renewal, or a housewarming party? You’ll want to make sure that somewhere on the hosting line there is an indication that your guests are being invited to a wedding.
3. Names
This one is a little self-explanatory, so I won’t go into tons of details. One thing I wanted to mention is that with more casual invitation wording, it can be easy to omit last names. However, if you both have very common names, it might be useful to include both first and last names. I know you think there’s no way your friends and family will not realize it’s you, but you never know.
4. Date & Time
The most common question I get for this portion of the invitation is if you should put the actual ceremony start time or add a buffer. This is a know your crowd situation. Are most or your guests like my husband’s family who are at least 15 minutes early to every event, or are they like my family, where a 5 pm start time really means that people start showing up at 6:30 pm? If you think your guests might benefit from a little buffer, I would recommend no more than 10-15 minutes. You don’t want your early guests to be waiting for upwards of 30 minutes just because they were polite and arrived early. A good compromise is to add two times to the invitations, worded something like this:
Doors open at 4:00 pm
Ceremony starts promptly at 4:30 pm
5. Ceremony Location
You’ll want to make sure to include the name of the venue and perhaps a specific location (i.e. ballroom name) if your venue has multiple possible locations for weddings. If you’re getting married in a big city, a full address can be helpful, but in a smaller town, just the city and state can suffice. One thing that should never be included is the zip code. Zip codes are only used for mailing addresses, not directional addresses.
Also, note that I specifically said ceremony location. Typically, the ceremony information is all that is included on the invitation itself, while reception information is noted on a separate insert card, along with any other important information. I find that invitations start to look cluttered when you try to fit in too much information on one card, especially if your reception is at a separate location. A good way to let your guests know about the reception is…
6. Reception Indicator
This is how you can let your guests know they can expect a reception without cluttering up your invitation with all the details. Wording for this can range from a more formal “reception to follow” to a more casual “join us for drinks, dinner, and dancing after the ceremony”. Whatever you choose, this little line lets your guests know what to expect after the ceremony.
Those are the six easy things you need to remember to include in your wedding invitations! There are so many ways you can personalize these components to make your invitation unique.
If you work with me, I guide you through all of the details about what to include in your wedding invitations. Whether you order one of my semi-custom Collection suites or you decide to go with a fully custom invitation suite, my design process will ask you all the questions you may never have even thought of when deciding what to put on your invitations. If you want the guidance of a professional, slide into my inbox and we can chat all things wedding invitations!
