When it comes to your wedding invitations and enclosures, what to say and how to say it can confuse a lot of couples. What time of day is considered evening? What do I do if it’s a black tie event? What if we don’t want children in attendance?

Each piece of your wedding suite can be carefully worded to communicate the proper information. Following these simple rules of thumb will help you get started.

Every invitation should include:
The name of the bride and groom
The ceremony date, date of the week, time and location

And should never include:
Your registry information

It is very important to be consistent in your spellings and dates.. For example, if you are spelling out the date and time of your ceremony, you should spell out the date on your response card as well.
Saturday, the twelfth of May, two thousand twelve
Kindly respond by the first of April

Alternatively, if you are listing the date and time of your ceremony in a casual fashion, you should use a casual way on your response card as well.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Kindly respond by April 1

If you are having a Church wedding, is it commonplace to use the phrase “request the honour of your presence”. Honor can be spelled honor or honour, though honour is the more formal of the two. Regardless of the spelling you choose, make sure your response card matches as well — favour or favor.

If you are having a civil ceremony, or getting married outdoors (at a country club, beach, a museum, etc), you can choose to use the phrase “request the pleasure of your company”.

Always have more than one person proof read your invitations. Sometimes it takes more than one eye to catch a mistake. Many common words are often misspelled, like night or two thousand twelve, and while many designs try their best to catch misspelled words, we often don’t know if your middle name is Marie or Mari.

Try not to abbreviate anything. It’s a good idea to spell out state names, street information and middle names, but certain titles can be abbreviated:
– Mr.
– Mrs.
– Dr.
– Sr.
– Jr.
– Sts.

Numerical time should use the abbreviations like a.m. and p.m.

The way you write the date time on your invitation depends upon the formality of the event.

For a formal wedding, the date and time should be spelled out on your wedding invitations, but never capitalized. “O’clock” is only used when your ceremony time begins on the hour.
at two o’clock in the afternoon
at half past three in the afternoon

Time not on the hour should be hyphenated.
one-thirty
twelve forty-five

Time should always be followed by in the morning, in the afternoon or in the evening.
12:01 a.m. – 11:59 a.m. = morning
12:00 = noon
12:01 p.m. – 5:59 p.m. = afternoon
6:00 p.m. – 11:59 p.m. = evening

For an informal wedding, the date and time can be used in numerical form.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
at 2:15 p.m.

The year should always be spelled out on your wedding invitation. The correct spelling of the year is two thousand twelve. There is no “and” between thousand and twelve, and there is no hyphen between two and thousand.
two thousand twelve – correct
two thousand and twelve – incorrect
two-thousand twelve – incorrect

It is becoming more and more popular to replace “and” with an ampersand, or &. This is a social faux paux. “And” should always be used EXCEPT when you are describing an unmarried couple.
Mr. and Mrs. Derek Smith
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Katherine Marie
to
Jonathan Michael Jones

Using “and” between Katherine Marie and Jonathan Michael Jones implies that they are already married — and they’re not.

Another exception to the rule: When using the phrasing, “together with their parents” is it acceptable to use the word “and” between the two couples.
Together with their parents,
Katherine Marie
and
Jonathan Michael Jones
request the honor of your presence
at their marriage

I know this was a LOT of information to soak in, but I hope it was helpful!
Stay tuned for Part 2, where we discuss the enclosure cards!