A Guide to Wedding Stationery Etiquette

Stationery etiquette is one of those topics that sounds stuffy until you're actually staring at a blank invitation, trying to work out whether your divorced parents go on the same line. The old rules were written for a very particular kind of formal wedding, and most couples today need something looser. So let's keep what's genuinely useful and quietly drop the rest.

Getting names and titles right

The first job is deciding how to refer to everyone, and this is where people freeze. The honest answer: match the formality to your day. A black-tie hotel wedding can carry full titles and surnames. A relaxed barn do reads oddly if it suddenly goes very grand on the paper.

For a formal invitation, the traditional form uses full names with titles: "Mr James Whitfield" or "Dr Priya Shah". Married couples have historically been written as one line, but plenty of couples now list both names in full out of fairness, and that's completely fine. For a relaxed wedding, first names alone (and your own first names on the invite) feel warm and modern without putting a foot wrong.

A few small things that genuinely matter:

• Spell every name correctly. Check the spelling of partners and children you don't know well rather than guessing.
• If a guest has a professional or military title they use, include it on a formal invite.
• Keep your treatment consistent. Don't give some guests full titles and others just first names on the same set.

Who is hosting, and why it goes first

The opening line of an invitation answers one question: who is inviting you. Traditionally that was the bride's parents, because they paid. Today the hosts are whoever is actually paying or simply whoever you want named, and the wording follows the money or the meaning, not a rulebook.

You've got three common situations:

The couple host themselves. Increasingly the norm. Something like "Together with their families, Name and Name invite you to celebrate their wedding" covers it warmly and sidesteps the whole parents question.

One set of parents host. The classic "Mr and Mrs Whitfield request the pleasure of your company at the marriage of their daughter..." still works beautifully for a formal day.

Both families host. List both sets of parents, bride's side first by tradition, though you can choose your own order. Blended families need a little more care, and there's a dedicated piece on wedding invitation etiquette for blended families worth a read if that's you.

The order of the wording

There's a standard running order to invitation wording, and following it means guests can find what they need at a glance. From top to bottom:

The formality of the language is your call. "Request the pleasure of your company" is the traditional, more formal phrasing; "would love you to join us" is friendlier. Pick one tone and hold it across the whole suite.

RSVPs, reply dates and the modern bit

Every invitation needs to tell guests how to reply and by when. Set your RSVP deadline three to four weeks before the wedding, which gives you time to chase stragglers and get final numbers to your caterer.

This is also where a wedding website saves real effort. Rather than printing reply cards and stamped envelopes, you can point guests to a single link to RSVP, choose a meal and flag any dietary needs. Build The Day handles the online replies and meal choices in one place, so you're not transcribing forty postcards into a spreadsheet at midnight. Pop the web address discreetly at the bottom of the invitation, or on a small details card tucked inside.

If you do go paperless entirely, that's a respectable choice now, not a shortcut. The etiquette still applies; it just lives on a screen.

A note on tone

Whatever the rules say, the kindest invitation is a clear one. Guests want to know who's getting married, where to be, when, what to wear and how to reply. Get those across cleanly and you've done the important part. The titles and the ordering are there to help, not to trip you up, so use the bits that fit your day and let the rest go.