Wedding Invitation

Basic Guide For Proper Wedding Invitations


As you make plans for the wedding day, taking care of every issue and detail will ensure it goes well. When you are preparing the wedding invitations you should consider the use of proper etiquette along with the other essentials. Here are five basic guidelines to ensure proper etiquette for invitations to the wedding.

Send The Invitations In Advance

Wedding invitations can be sent out by email, phone, or regular mail. Proper etiquette requires that all of the guests have enough time to make plans to attend. This becomes essential when the guests are coming from some distance. The general rule here is to send out wedding invitations eight weeks ahead; six weeks is the least amount of time needed for guests to respond.

The Guest List

Slight mistakes need to be caught and avoided when creating the guest list. Wedding invitations need to be checked before sending out to ensure proper wedding invitation wording.
Do not send invitations to Mr. and Mrs. for same sex couples
Do not invite divorced couples without first warning each that the other is invited.
Be aware of any family situations such as recent deaths, nursing home or hospital placements and other unforeseen issues.

Be Sure The Wedding Guests Are Invited To The Reception

This is especially true if you are having the wedding and reception separately or on different days. You will need two guest lists for this issue. The rule of etiquette for this is to send out two separate wedding invitations; with care taken to invite all the guests from the wedding ceremony to the reception so that there is no ill will. The etiquette for the reception is simple, start the list with everyone from the wedding ceremony, then add everyone else to the reception list.

General Rules For RSVP

Making sure that guests can get back to you is one main consideration when preparing wedding invitations.
Enclose an RSVP card with the invitation
Be sure to have a stamp on the RSVP
If using email, allow replies both by email and land address for people not comfortable with email
Allow guests enough time to respond

Be All Formal Or All Informal

If you choose a formal setting for the wedding and reception, the wedding invitations need to follow formal rules. Proper etiquette states that formal procedures are used for more formal events. If having a church wedding, do not send guests an email about the event. If there is a doubt about formal guidelines, do some research online.

If you need more guidance on proper wedding invitation etiquette, you can find much of the information on the internet. Knowing what you want, and how to address it, are the main decisions on if you want to have formal or informal wedding invitations.