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Wedding invitation wording, line by line, from who is hosting
Every wedding invitation says the same six things in the same order. Two decisions settle most of the wording: who is hosting, and where the ceremony is. Make those first and the rest is filling in.
The short answer
A wedding invitation says six things in order: who is hosting, the request, your names, the date and time, the place, and the reception and reply. The host line comes first and depends on who is hosting. For a formal card, the Emily Post Institute uses "the honour of your presence" for a ceremony in a house of worship and "the pleasure of your company" anywhere else, spells out the date and year, and writes the time as "half after four o'clock". Gifts and attire stay off the invitation.
Lists of wording samples are easy to find. What they rarely give you is the reason each line reads the way it does, so when your situation is not one of the samples you are left guessing. This guide builds the invitation one line at a time, with the rule behind each, and ends with one wedding written three ways.
The six lines
| Line | What it says | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The hosts | Who is inviting | Together with their families |
| 2. The request | What you are asking | request the pleasure of your company |
| 3. The names | Who is marrying | Maya Ellen Torres and Daniel James Okafor |
| 4. The date and time | When | Saturday, the twelfth of June, at half after four o'clock |
| 5. The place | Where | Ridge Garden, Asheville, North Carolina |
| 6. Reception and reply | What follows, and how to answer | Dinner and dancing to follow. Kindly reply by 17 May |
The Emily Post Institute's own list is shorter: who is hosting, the nature of the event, where and when it takes place, and how to respond. Everything else, such as directions, hotels and the dress code, goes on a separate card or your wedding website.
Decision 1: who is hosting
Traditionally the hosts are the people paying for the wedding, and their names open the invitation. Today it is more often the people you want to honour as hosts. Our guide to who pays for what covers the money side; for the wording, pick the row that describes you.
| Who is hosting | How the invitation opens |
|---|---|
| The two of you | Your full names, then "request the pleasure of your company at their marriage" |
| You and both families, or everyone contributes | "Together with their families", then your names |
| One set of parents | "Mr. and Mrs. Luis Torres request... at the marriage of their daughter Maya Ellen to Mr. Daniel James Okafor" |
| Both sets of parents | Both couples by name, then "at the marriage of their children", then your names |
| Divorced parents, hosting together | Each parent on their own line, with a new spouse if they have one |
| A parent who has died | "Together with their families" is the simplest way to include everyone; honour them in the ceremony or the order of service |
Two details from the Emily Post Institute's formal wording: the hosts' names are written in full, with middle names and titles, and titles such as Mr. and Mrs. are abbreviated while Doctor is written out unless the line becomes too long. If one of you shares the hosts' surname, only your first and middle names are used, because the surname is already on the card.
Whatever the order of your two names, keep it the same on every card, the envelope and the website. And be consistent within a line: middle names for both of you, or for neither.
Decision 2: honour or pleasure
This is the one formal rule people most often get wrong. The Emily Post Institute uses "request the honour of your presence" when the ceremony is in a house of worship, and "request the pleasure of your company" for every other venue: a garden, a hotel, a barn, a courthouse. Its formal invitations spell "honour" with a u.
If your wording is relaxed, neither phrase is required. "Invite you to celebrate their marriage" or "invite you to share the joy of their marriage" are both in the Emily Post Institute's informal samples.
Writing the date and time
On a formal invitation, the Emily Post Institute's rules are:
- Spell out the date and the year: "Saturday, the twelfth of June, two thousand twenty-seven". There is no "and" in the year.
- Capitalise the day and the month, but not the year.
- Write the time as "half after four o'clock", not "half past four" or "four-thirty".
- "In the afternoon" and "in the evening" are not needed.
On a relaxed invitation, numbers are fine: "Saturday, June 12, 2027, at 4:30pm".
Before anything goes to print, check that the weekday matches the date. 12 June 2027 is a Saturday. Open a calendar and look; it is the most common error on a proof, and a reprint costs more than the minute it takes.
The reception and reply lines
If the reception is at the same place, one line is enough: "Reception to follow", or "Dinner and dancing to follow". If it is somewhere else, give its name and town on the invitation and its address on a details card.
The Emily Post Institute uses a reply line only on invitations that include the reception. A wedding-only invitation, such as one for a small ceremony followed by a larger party, does not ask for a reply.
Set the reply-by date from your caterer's deadline, not by guesswork. For a wedding on 12 June 2027 with final numbers due around 27 May, ten days of following up puts the reply-by date at Monday 17 May. Our guide to when to send wedding invitations works it through.
Free toolWedding RSVP deadline calculatorWork back from your caterer's deadline to the date to print on your invitations.Find my RSVP dateWhat stays off the invitation
- Gifts and the registry. The Emily Post Institute says not to include registry or gift information with the invitation. It belongs on the website and with people who ask.
- Attire. Its formal guidance is not to mention attire on the wedding invitation; "Black tie" may go in the lower right corner of a reception invitation. A dress code in words belongs on the website or a details card.
- "No children" or "adults only." The invitation is addressed to the people invited, by name, and that is the signal. Our adults-only wedding guide covers how to tell parents.
- Plus-ones by implication. An envelope addressed to one person invites one person. Our plus-one guide covers who usually gets one and how to address the envelope.
One wedding, three ways
Here is the same wedding written three ways, so you can see which lines change and which stay. Maya and Daniel marry on Saturday 12 June 2027 at 4:30pm.
Formal, in a church, Maya's parents hosting
Mr. and Mrs. Luis Torres
request the honour of your presence at the marriage of their daughter
Maya Ellen
to
Mr. Daniel James Okafor
Saturday, the twelfth of June, two thousand twenty-seven, at half after four o'clock
Saint Mark's Church, Asheville, North Carolina
Together with their families, in a garden
Together with their families
Maya Ellen Torres and Daniel James Okafor
request the pleasure of your company at their marriage
Saturday, the twelfth of June, two thousand twenty-seven, at half after four o'clock
Ridge Garden, Asheville, North Carolina
Dinner and dancing to follow
Relaxed, in a garden
Maya Torres and Daniel Okafor invite you to celebrate their marriage
Saturday, June 12, 2027, at 4:30pm
Ridge Garden, Asheville
Dinner, drinks and dancing after
Notice what decided each change. The church made it "honour"; the garden made it "pleasure". Maya's parents hosting meant her surname is left off, because theirs is already on the card. The relaxed version drops the host line entirely, because the two of you are the hosts.
Yes, I Do
Every guest, every reply
Paste a list from anywhere and it becomes names. Replies, plus-ones, dietary notes and tables stay in one place, for both of you.
Proofreading, as two people
Proofreading goes better when you split it. One of you reads the card aloud, slowly, line by line. The other checks each fact against its source:
- The weekday against a calendar.
- The time against the venue contract.
- Every name against how that person writes it, including middle names and accents.
- The venue name and town against the venue's own website.
- The reply-by date against your caterer's deadline.
Then swap. Do it again on the printer's proof, not only on your draft, because the proof is what gets printed. Our guide to what wedding invitations cost has what a reprint adds.
Invitations in Yes, I Do
In Yes, I Do, the invitation templates are filled in from your wedding: your two names, the date, the ceremony time, the venue and the town. The formal templates write the date in words ("Saturday, the twelfth of June" and "two thousand twenty-seven") and the time in words. They write half-hours as "half past", so if you want the traditional "half after", type over it: every line on the card can be changed. The back of the card carries the details and a reply line set six weeks before the wedding, which you can change to the date your caterer's deadline gives you. You can add your own photos and save the card as a PNG or a PDF.
When replies come in, you and your partner mark them on the same guest list, from your own phones.
Questions
What is the correct wording for a wedding invitation?
Six parts in order: who is hosting, the request ("request the pleasure of your company"), your names, the date and time, the place, and the reception and reply lines. On a formal card the date and year are spelled out and the time is written as "half after four o'clock". Directions, hotels and the dress code go on a separate card or your website.
Whose name goes first on a wedding invitation?
The hosts' names come first, because they are the ones inviting. If your parents host, their names open the card. If you host yourselves, your own names open it, or "Together with their families" if you want to include everyone. Between the two of you, any order is fine as long as it is the same everywhere.
When do you use "the honour of your presence"?
The Emily Post Institute uses "the honour of your presence" when the ceremony is in a house of worship, and "the pleasure of your company" for any other venue. On a relaxed invitation, neither is needed.
How do you word an invitation when the couple is hosting?
Start with your full names, then "request the pleasure of your company at their marriage", then the date, time and place. If your families are contributing or you want them included, open with "Together with their families" before your names.
Should the registry go on the wedding invitation?
No. The Emily Post Institute says registry and gift information does not go on the invitation or its enclosures. Put it on your wedding website and let family and the wedding party share it with anyone who asks.
How do you say adults only on a wedding invitation?
You do not write it on the invitation. Address each envelope only to the people invited, by name, and say it kindly on your website and to parents directly. The Emily Post Institute advises against printing "no children" on the invitation itself.
Sources
- Emily Post Institute: formal wedding invitation wording, for honour and pleasure by venue, the spelling of honour, spelling out the date and year without "and", capitalisation, "half after", not needing "in the afternoon", hosts' names and titles, the surname rule, the reply line only on reception invitations, and no gifts or attire on the invitation.
- Emily Post Institute: informal wedding invitation wording, for what every invitation says and the relaxed samples, including "Together with their families".
- Emily Post Institute: samples of formal wedding invitation wording, for the host line when one set of parents, both sets, divorced parents or the couple are hosting.
- Emily Post Institute: wedding invitations, for leaving registry and gift information out of the invitation.