Wedding Invitation Etiquette and Assembly


The following are a few points of wedding invitation etiquette to help you decide what you will do with your wedding invitations.

Your wedding invitations are the first thing that your guests see that is related to your wedding day. You should carefully decide what kind of invitations you would like to use to make that all important first impression on your guests.

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You should also look at our quick guide to assembling your invitations.


Wedding Invitation Etiquette
The Wording

The Wedding invitation is just for the ceremony and should not include any RSVP instructions for the reception, that information should be included on your reception card

You should coordinate the invitations with your theme and color scheme

Spell out the full day, date and year of the wedding. For example: Saturday, the twenty-second of June Two thousand and two

Spell out the time of the wedding. If the time is on the half hour you should use the wording "half-after". For example: half-after six o'clock in the evening

All street designations should be spelled out. For example

  • Court instead of Ct
  • Avenue not Ave
  • Street instead of St


Wedding Invitation Etiquette
The Assembly

Before you assemble your invitations make sure that you won't have a problem addressing wedding invitations.

  • You should start assembling your invitations one to two weeks before you plan to send them out (ask some friends to help)

  • The invitations should be sent six to eight weeks prior to the wedding

  • Assembly fold each invitation (if required)

  • Place the tissue over printed surface (traditionally for when ink was wet and needed to dry)

  • Place the reception card on the tissue

  • Lay the response card in the flap of the stamped response envelope

  • Place both on top of the reception card

  • Put the remaining enclosures (maps, directions, etc.) on top of the response envelope

  • Put the invitation and enclosures face up in the inner envelope so that the printing is the first thing that your guests see when they open the envelope

  • Put the inner envelope, printed side up, into the outer envelope

  • It may be a good idea to use a water bottle made for closing envelopes so that you don't have to lick the envelopes



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