I need help on the wording for my wedding announcements and reception invitations. Actually, I think I have the announcements down – but I’m getting hung up on what to include in the reception invitations.
Here’s the deal: my fiance and I will be getting married at the end of this month in a very tiny, private ceremony. We’ll be throwing a party to celebrate it about two weeks later.
Separate announcements will be sent to friends and family out of state, with no mention of the party. The wording will be something like this:
So how should I word this on the party invitations? Do I include wedding information and then details of the party? Or party only?
Sure, I’d just use what you wrote on the announcements and then add something like “We invite you to celebrate with us at a reception at [place, time, details].”
Dopers chime in, because I could be the only one who thinks this, but could you leave out “in a private ceremony”? I know in one sense you’re saying it was small and hardly anyone was invited, but to insecure me I think, I don’t know how many people were invited but I feel left out. I don’t know why that phrase being dropped makes me feel better but it does.
Here’s to you and Your Honey and families being more well-adjusted than I, and Congrats!!
I was wondering about that myself. I threw it in there to sorta-kinda help get the notion across that we’re not inviting people to a party who we deliberately excluded from the ceremony (which will have 5 witnesses, not counting the officiant).
Oh wait. We won’t have been married yet at the time folks receive the invitation, so I guess I’d phrase it “…announce with joy that we will be married…”.
BONUS QUESTION:
How important are outer and inner envelopes? I bought all the supplies to make these puppies completely forgetting about the inner-envelope thing. It’s not really a big deal to go get more (and bigger) envelopes, but shoot. I thought I was done.
Works for me. I’m not sure that the private ceremony thing has the same affect on me as it does on gigi but I don’t think it hurts anything to leave it out.
People will be curious about the details of your wedding. Knowing the place and date will satisfy some, and I think you are better off answering specific questions (even nosy ones, or tell folks its not their business) than trying to anticipate questions. If I were you, I’d consider having a larger than snapshot size, but not neccessarily huge, picture of the bride and groom-- and maybe one with those invited to the wedding, in a place of honor at the Party.
Beadalin
and
Her Honey
invite you all to come
sit your asses in a chair
and raise your glasses in the air
to our happiness
over getting hitched
a week or two ago.
We love each other now we’re young
we’ll love each other when we’re old
We appreciate appliances
but really like the cash that folds.
Ah, so simple, so elegant, so classy. It’s as if you’ve looked into my heart, Sampiro, and drawn out the very essence of what I wanted to convey in my invitations.
Maybe it’s just the grammar nerd in me (okay, it’s definitely just the grammar nerd in me), but if you’re referring to yourselves in the third person (“Beadlalin” and “Beadalin’s Hunka Burnin’ Love”) then it should be in third person throughout: “announce with joy that they will be married” etc. It’s more correct, if slightly more impersonal.
To me, your new version looks funny because the names are on the bottom. This is perfectly acceptable for most forms of invitations–although I’d often vote for handwriting them rather than printing them–but seems a little odd for a wedding announcement.
But I am not a maven of proper wedding behavior, so maybe I’m wrong.
So I guess I’m voting for using 3rd person throughout.
I’m okay with either first or third person, as long as it’s constant. The third person is more traditional and formal, while the first person is more personal and intimate. Whichever you feel fits the tenor of the celebration better is the one you should go with.
Yeah, I would say stick to the past tense and sent out the invites just after the wedding. But I understand that may be late notice for busy social folks.
