What to include on a wedding invitation, and what can wait

A wedding invitation must say who is inviting, who is marrying, when, where, and how and by when to reply. Everything else, from the dress code to the hotels, can wait for a details card, a second page or a wedding website, where guests will find it when they need it.

What are the five things every wedding invitation must say?

Here they are in the order a guest reads them.

• Who is inviting. Your parents, one set of parents, or the two of you. The traditional form names the host first. If you are hosting yourselves, your own names do that job.
• Who is marrying. Your full names, or the first names your guests know you by. Match the formality of the hosting line.
• When. The day of the week, the date and the time the ceremony starts. “Saturday 4 September 2027 at two o’clock” leaves no room for doubt. A date without the day of the week is easy to misread.
• Where. The name of the venue and the town. The full address and the parking can go with the details.
• How to reply, and by when. A reply date and the way to answer: a reply card, an email address, a website or the reply form on a digital invitation.

Between the host and your names sits the request line, the sentence that turns a list of facts into an invitation. “Request the pleasure of your company” is the traditional formal choice. “Would love you to join us” is the warm one. Our wedding invitation wording examples have a version for most families.

Which details can wait for the next page?

The order of the day, travel, hotels and gifts can all wait. Each of them helps a guest, yet none decides whether the guest can come. On paper they go on a details card in the same envelope, or on a wedding website whose address is printed at the foot of the invitation. On a digital invitation they get a page of their own.

Either way, guests come back to them in the week before the wedding, usually to check the parking. Say, too, when the celebrations will end. It is a small kindness to anyone booking a taxi from a village with one taxi.

Which details change who comes?

Two details do: whether children are invited, and whether a guest’s partner is. A guest needs both answers before replying, so settle them before you send anything. The clearest answer is the names you use. Greet exactly the people you are inviting, on the envelope or in the message that carries your link, and write each household in your guest list the same way.

Then ask on the reply for the name of everyone who is coming, so a reply that does not match stands out at once. The wording for both cases is in our guides to adults only wedding invitation wording and plus one wedding invitation wording.

Where does each detail go?

Here is the full list, as a checklist you can work through with a pen. The first seven rows belong on the invitation itself, on paper or on screen. The rest can live with the details.

Do you need to put a dress code on the invitation?

Only if you mean something specific by it. If you have no dress code, leave the line out, because people dress up for weddings without being asked. If you want black tie, morning dress or a colour, name it in one line near the end of the invitation, with one practical note about the place. Our guide to wedding dress code wording has a line for each code.

How should you word the gift note?

Keep it short, warm and specific, and put it with the details: “Your company is the gift. If you would like to give something, we are saving for our first home.” Nobody minds reading it in the details. Some people mind reading it above the date.

How do you collect all of this before you write?

Make two lists. The first is everything you need to know from your guests: who is coming, meal choices, dietary needs and any question of your own, such as one about access. That list becomes your reply card or reply form. The second is everything your guests need to know from you, and it becomes the invitation and its details.

Fill in both before you speak to a stationer or a designer. The brief then takes an evening, not a month of emails.

Which detail is easiest to forget?

The reply date. It is easy to leave it as an afterthought, and then spend weeks chasing replies. Ask your venue when it needs final numbers, and set your reply date about two weeks before that. Our guide on when to send wedding invitations in the UK works back from that date. Then check that the reply date sits beside the way to reply, where every guest will see it.

Before you write anything else, put the five essentials on one sheet of paper and read them aloud to someone who is not getting married. If they can repeat them back, you are ready for our wording examples, line by line.