Trends and Helpful Hints on Sending Wedding Invitations

Before you mail out any of your wedding invitations, keep a few helpful hints in mind to be sure you’re following wedding etiquette to the letter, and sending your invitations out into the world in the best way possible to help avoid any wedding disasters, hurt feelings, and the extra expense of sending invitations a second time.

1. Be sure you’re following wedding invitation addressing etiquette. The first impression made when your wedding invitation arrives is a good one, when you follow the formality rules for penning your outer envelopes. That means the following:

• Making sure you spell all guests’ names correctly.

• Making sure you address guests by their current, formal title, such as Captain, The Honorable (for a judge,) and so on. If you have any questions about a guest’s title, it’s good form to email those guests to confirm their formal title. They appreciate your taking the time to want to honor them with the title they’ve earned.

• Making sure that if you’re inviting a family, you include the proper spellings of their kids’ names, and include all of their kids. (Confirm their current offspring list; a guest may have had a baby since the last time you communicated with them, and it would be terrible wedding etiquette for you to leave that child off their invitation.)

• Making sure you use their current mailing address.

• Using proper addressing name order:

For married couples, it is typical to have the husband’s name first:

Formal (with titles):  Mr. & Mrs. Patrick James

Casual:  Patrick & Alyssa James

For unmarried couples, it is usually suggested that the person whom the couple is closest to is first. If couple is closest to the male, or if couple is equally close to both people, the male’s name is usually first:

Formal: Mr. James Jones & Ms. Melinda Smith

Casual: James Jones and Melinda Smithvier

If guest’s name is unknown, then known name is always first:

Formal: Ms. Larissa Dean & Guest

Casual: Larissa Dean & Guest

If inviting a couple and their kids, use Mr. & Mrs. Patrick Jones and family

2. After you’ve penned your wedding invitation addresses, flip through each of them to check off its presence on your master list. It’s best to do this twice, to be sure you have a full set and that no one has been forgotten.

3. Before mailing, take one assembled but unsealed invitation packet to the post office, so that they can weigh your invitation officially and let you know the proper postage for both your outer envelope and for your response card.

4. Don’t send out invitations in waves, thinking you’ll write out ten tonight and mail them, then ten tomorrow and mail them, etc. Guests share on social media when your wedding invitation arrives, and chat with one another about your beautiful invitation, and if some guests get theirs weeks prior to others, the latter guests can feel B-listed.

5. Keep your B-list wedding invitations organized. When regrets come in, send out a block of B-list invitations.

6. And finally, when you do mail out your wedding invitations, be sure to capture that big moment in photos, for your keepsakes   collection. And celebrate with champagne or a favorite dessert – you’ve just completed a big wedding task after much care and careful attention.