Don’t panic. It’s really not as complicated as all that. You just need to know what the rules are and how they affect your choices. Also? Nobody ever died of an ill-worded wedding invitation, so it’s okay to lighten up a bit.

Is your wedding taking place in a place of worship? If so, the correct thing to ask guests for is the honor of their presence. If the wedding is being held in a hotel, garden, living room, skydiving facility, and amusement park or any other place that is not specifically dedicated to religious services, then you ask your guests for the pleasure of their company.

Make certain guests know what precisely they are being invited to attend. Is it a wedding? A reception to honor a couple who eloped? Just make sure that even if you add in phrases about celebrating everlasting love or witnessing the joy of a new family that you still put in words that people will understand to mean a particular kind of celebration they’ve heard of. People want to know for sure whether this is a wedding, a commitment ceremony that will not make the couple legally married, a reception for a couple who has already married, a reaffirmation of vows (vows do not need renewing like a driver’s license, but may occasionally benefit from reaffirmation), or an anniversary party.

According to tradition, the bride’s parents names go first as the hosts of the occasion. The standard wording goes something like this:

Mr. and Mrs. G. Percival Arbuthnot
request the honor of your presence at the wedding of their daughter,
Millicent Penelope
to
Mr. Stanhope Morton Terwilliger
etc.

Once upon a time, Mr. and Mrs. Terwilliger wouldn’t have gotten a mention on the invitation because the bride’s parents were the hosts and the groom’s parents… frankly they were just guests who got extra flowers.

Of course, rising divorce rates, the rising age of first time brides and grooms, groom’s parents equality marches and myriad other things have made this a less and less common form. These days many a bride and groom host their own shindig. Sometimes a bride or groom has multiple stepparents who are part of the celebration. It’s not uncommon that one or the other of the bridal couple has lost a parent, or even both.

So what do you do about all of those situations?

If both sets of parents are acting as hosts, it’s a matter of putting it like this:

Mr. and Mrs. G. Percival Arbuthnot
and
Mr. and Mrs. Virgil Stanhope Terwilliger
Request the honor of your presence
At the wedding of their children
Millicent Penelope Arbuthnot
and
Stanhope Morton Terwilliger

If the happy couple is hosting their own party, there are a couple options:

Miss Millicent Penelope Arbuthnot
and
Mr. Stanhope Morton Terwilliger
Request the honor of your presence

or:

Millicent Penelope Arbuthnot
and
Stanhope Morton Terwilliger
Together with their parents
Request the pleasure of your company

If you’ve got a whole lot of parents between you, this might be the smartest way to go, just so nobody gets left out or feels snubbed by the order.

or:
Miss Millicent Penelope Arbuthnot
Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. Percival Arbuthnot
and
Mr. Stanhope Morton Terwilliger
Son of Mr. and Mrs. Virgil Stanhope Terwilliger
Request the pleasure of your company

Tune in tomorrow for hints and tips in cases where divorce or death will affect the wording of the invitation, thursday for how to word a same-sex wedding invitation, and friday for when the invitation isn’t to the ceremony.

If they didn't want you there, one hopes they wouldn't have invited you.

Though we mainly address our wisdoms to brides-to-be, we don’t like to neglect the needs of wedding guests and prospective wedding guests. How to respond to a wedding invitation can be just as tricky as writing one, and that goes double when someone who’s been invited to a wedding is unsure whether she or he should happily accept or decline with regrets. Here’s a question we received a few years back – I felt like this post needed to see the light of day again in case other invited wedding guests out there were on the fence as to whether yes or no is the right response. That said, here’s the question posed by a prospective guest:

I was recently sent a “save the date” card by a friend who is, well, no longer really a friend. Not that we had a falling out, but we don’t really travel in the same social circles anymore. However, I was in the couple’s life when they became a couple, and I’m so happy for the two of them. I’m not sure what to do. I wonder if she invited me because she felt she should because I knew about the wedding? I wonder if I’ll just feel terribly socially awkward the whole time? I wonder if people will think I accepted just to get a free meal, rather than to celebrate the union of these two people? Would the bride be happier if I accepted or if I declined?

To anyone,anywhere contemplating an invitation to an event they’d rather not attend, I say this: Not replying at all is a dis of the highest order. While it might seem that dragging one’s feet until it’s far to late to reply is the easiest option, there are some things polite people simply do not do. That’s not to say I was suggesting that either party who wrote to me would do such a thing. Far from it! It’s simply a gem of truth that bears repeating now and again.

If you feel uncomfortable accepting an invitation to a bridal tea, bridal shower, or wedding, then by all means decline. There is nothing discourteous or ungracious about saying, “No.” When it comes to the invites to the main event, it’s usually as easy as pie…at least I’ve never seen a response card that reads “______ declines with regrets, now tell us why in 500 words or less _________.” If you’re asked to RSVP via phone or the individual doing the inviting just has to know why you can’t attend, things get stickier.

In the 1987 version of Emily Post on Entertaining Ms. Post wrote, “If you are declining simply because you don’t want to go or dislike the host or hostess, but have no other plans, it is best not to give a reason, if asked, other than ‘I’m terribly sorry, we’re busy that evening.’ This leaves you free to accept another invitation.” Of course, if you’re being asked to attend an event that’s still months and months away, this doesn’t work so well.

To the lovely lady who asked the original question, I would say that unless the bride-to-be is a very silly person who is inviting people just to pad her numbers, she probably invited you because she’d like you to attend. She’s likely as aware as you are that you two aren’t as close as you once were, but it may be that she still cares enough about you to extend an invitation.

If you’d consider going but you can’t fathom why she’d invite you, why not ring her up and say something like, “I received your save-the-date! I was so surprised because we haven’t talked in so long.” That puts the ball back in her court. On the other hand, if you’d really rather not go at all, there’s no reason to get in touch just yet, being that the invitations have not gone out. As mentioned previously, you can decline without going into specifics, but be aware that your friend might ring you to ask why. Popular reasons for declining an invitation include chaos at work, being unable to travel, monetary concerns, and previous commitments.

My own experience: When I was a bride-to-be collecting the response cards that came in, I honestly did not give a lot of thought to those that read “declines with regret” instead of “accepts with pleasure.” That’s not to say that I wasn’t saddened to learn that certain relatives and friends wouldn’t be there, but I certainly didn’t make any assumptions about their inability to attend. They had lives to lead and bills to pay and obligations of their own! Likewise, I didn’t read overmuch into the affirmative responses I received – for all I knew, half of the attendees were coming for the free beer… which wouldn’t have bothered me a bit, truth be told.

And now a question for all the brides-to-be and former brides-to-be out there: Did you analyze the response cards that came in? Or were you too busy thinking about other things?

P.S. – You may notice that I’m not around as much in the coming days. Well, lovelies, it’s August! Time to play! Yours truly hasn’t had a proper holiday in ages. BUT I’ll still be around on our Facebook page, so hit me up there with any questions, promotions, suggestions, etc. FYI that’s where I’m going to answer the questions you posed while I was in Europe, so head over, ‘like’ us, and enjoy all the fun extras!

Wedding guests, be good!

The Bride-to-Be Is the Point Person for Wedding Info
The bride-to-be is busy. Ever heard of wedding stress? Family is the number one reason for wedding stress, but simple busyness comes in at a close second. Sure, there’s plenty of downtime in the wedding planning process, but there is also plenty for the bride-to-be to do. Especially as the wedding date looms ever closer. Now there are those wedding guests who literally know no one other than the bride (old middle school chums, for instance) and so can’t exactly dial up the MOH out of the blue, but most other guests will know someone, like the MOB for instance, who can answer questions like “Will there be a vegetarian option at the reception” or “Would a summer suit be appropriate attire?”

There Is an Implied +1 or ‘and Guest’ On Your Wedding Invitation
This is one of those areas where weddings bring out the worst in people. It would never occur to me, were I invited to a conference or luncheon or going away party, to RSVP or worse yet, to just bring an “and guest” out of the blue. Then again, I take invitations at face value and there are apparently a whole lot of people who don’t. To avoid confusion, experts like myself recommend that everyone who is invited to a wedding be listed by name on the wedding invitation. That way, no one can claim ignorance.

The Couple Must Provide Free Booze/Cake/Hors d’œuvres/Etc.
What the couple is responsible for is serving some form of refreshments at the reception. Things the couple is not responsible for include helping you get your crunk on, making sure what is served is your favorite ever food, or having so much on hand to eat that wedding guests actually have to remove their pants after dinner. The wedding reception meal is one brunch or lunch or dinner out of a guest’s life, yet some guests get really cranky about it. And they shouldn’t. It would be entirely impossible for brides and grooms to take every single dietary particularity into account when planning the reception menu. Don’t like it? Don’t eat it, and don’t complain.

You Should Bring a Gift to the Wedding
Gifts for the bride and groom are an expected courtesy, and one made extra simply by the existence of online wedding registries that let you choose presents in your pajamas and have them sent along to the happy couple’s home. These days, no one other than the UPS man has to lug wedding gifts around. While I do see wedding gift tables set up at most receptions, bringing a gift to the wedding means that someone will be responsible for bringing said gift home from the wedding. And don’t brides and grooms and their families have enough to do post-reception without adding lugging gifts to the mix? Even if you don’t buy off the wedding registry – and you don’t have to – have your wedding gift sent along to the happy couple in advance of the big day.

What are your wedding guest pet peeves?

She looks happy enough!

Children at weddings is one of those topics that’s been debated half to death, here and elsewhere, among couples and families and wedding guests. Some people maintain that children simply do not belong at weddings, while others counter that weddings ought to be family affairs where children are absolutely welcome. The simplest solution, of course, is to defer to the wishes of brides and grooms. If children are invited, then they’re welcome at that particular wedding. If children are not invited, then that particular wedding is an adults-only affair. Simple, no?

The same goes for infants. When La Paloma was very young, The Beard and I were invited to a wedding – our invitation said ‘The Terrys’ – and I made a point of getting in touch with the bride to ask if babies were invited. Because I was not going to inflict an unpredictable 8-month-old on someone’s special day unless she was definitely going to be welcome. She was, we went, and there were no difficulties with the exception of my trying and failing to nurse in the confines of my automobile.

Which brings me to the topic of this post, the concessions brides and grooms can make for their littlest wedding guests. I don’t mean the toddler+ set that can amuse themselves by sticking their fingers in the backside of the wedding cake and crawling under tables, but rather those wedding guests confined to strollers or bucket car seats, the guests who sup from breasts and bottles, and yes, the guests who may not only cry during your ceremony, but actually scream. Babies at weddings aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, that’s for sure. But if they’re yours, then here are 5 things you can do to make your littlest guests (and their mamas and papas) more comfortable in an unfamiliar situation.

1. Make sure that parents of infants know that the infants are invited. Not every invitee with a wee one is going to take the initiative like I did, which means that some may decline simply because childcare isn’t an option. The easiest way to ensure that babies’ mamas and papas know that the whole family will be welcome at your ceremony and reception is to include the little one’s name on their invitation. That doesn’t leave much room for confusion – though don’t be surprised if people are still confused since wedding invitation etiquette is not something taught in school these days.

2. Ask your contact at your wedding ceremony venue where parents with a distressed infant can go for some quiet time. Many houses of worship have nurseries and/or nursing mother rooms, and you can ask that these stay unlocked during your ceremony in case the babies at your wedding need to be removed. Let the mamas and papas know what’s available so they’re not roaming the halls during your ceremony looking for a broom closet to hide in until Junior quiets down.

3. Make sure the babies at your wedding reception are as well fed as the adults. If you have the time, reach out to the parents of infants to inquire as to what the wee ones are eating these days. For those still nursing, ask your reception venue manager if there’s somewhere private where a baby might breastfeed away from distractions. Preferably not a bathroom, because that’s icky. For those who prefer bottles, you can tell your catering manager that it’s likely that someone will request a mug of hot water in which to warm milk or formula.

4. If you really want everyone in your family, from the Age 0 crowd all the way to the oldest matriarch, to attend, plan a daytime wedding versus a late night affair. Bringing a baby to an evening wedding, even if said baby has been specifically invited to attend, is not something most parents really want to do. Not to mention that it’s something that most infants probably don’t want to do, either, unless they happen to be at that very young age where sleep is possible in any environment, at any volume. Daytime weddings, on the other hand, are much more doable, even if it means working around naptime.

5. Speaking of naptime, many infants will happily sleep in a bucket car seat in a pinch, but perhaps not in a room where Love Shack is blaring. As with the ceremony space, check with your reception venue to find out if there’s a quiet room where parents can retire with their sleeping infant (switching off if possible, of course). If there won’t be such a space, let the parents of babies know in advance so they can take that into consideration when deciding to accept as a a family or decline or even accept and then find a sitter.

That’s just what springs to mind, but it’s been a while since I’ve had an infant on my hip. I’d love to hear from parents who have infants now or took their babies to more than the usual number of weddings if there are other concessions that brides and grooms have made or should make. And if you’re a bride or a groom who is specifically inviting the infant set, what concessions are you making to their comfort (if any)?

How can they have closed every road leading to the chapel?!

Wedding Directions Aren’t Just for Guests
Maybe you’re getting married in your hometown, but lots of couples don’t. And to those brides and grooms I say do a few test runs so you know the lay of the land. Do you know how to get to your ceremony venue? Can you navigate from the ceremony space to the reception venue? Even in the event of a road closure? If you needed to send out your MOH for emergency, last minute supplies, could you tell her how to get to an ATM, a drug store, or a florist’s shop? Unless you just can’t get there prior to the big day – because you’re having a destination wedding, etc. – drive around the locale you’re getting married in until you no longer need a map.

Will Your Wedding Maps Be Accurate?
Speaking of maps, have you actually driven the routes you’re suggesting your wedding guests take from the ceremony to the reception? As mentioned above, if you can, get in the car and check the accuracy of your directions before printing them up and putting them in your wedding invitations. When that isn’t possible, is there someone local who can do it for you? Couples having destination weddings may be able to call their venues to confirm the accuracy of directions. Don’t assume that your limo driver will be 100% sure where your wedding venue is – your knowing how to get there may make all the difference!

Your Wedding Maps Are Here – Double Check Them
You’ve driven around the city or town where your wedding will be held. You’ve driven the routes that make up your wedding directions. And now your wedding maps have finally arrived! Time to assemble your wedding invitations? Not quite. First, you need to proof your wedding map one last time. Mistakes happen! For example, my wedding invitation proof were error-free, but my wedding invitations arrived in the mail with a really lame typo. Your wedding maps may contain some slight oops, and reputable companies will replace them for free as long as you catch the error.

What steps are you taking (or did you take) to ensure your wedding guests can find your ceremony and reception?

I know the thought causes an amazing range of emotions from absolute joy to abject terror to… well… whatever it happens to stir up in you. Some people think gifts are the best part of getting married, while others would rather discuss having public rectal surgery than consider the possibility of more stuff in their lives.

Honestly, I don’t care which camp you’re in or whether you’re somewhere in between. This is not my concern. After all, I did my thing. It’s done. This isn’t about how you should feel about wedding gifts or whether it’s okay to want or not want them. This is about the practical aspects of handling this particular part of getting married. If you want pressies, that’s great. If you don’t want them, that’s great, too. But the fact is you will have to deal with the question, and with people who make choices that don’t necessarily match your wishes.

Here’s the deal.

1: You may express your wishes… but there’s a proper way to do it, and then there are not so proper ways. Never, ever, ever mention gifts on your wedding invitation. Even if what you want to print on them is that you don’t want presents, it’s not the right way to do it. You see, even though many of us think of wedding gifts as an obligation, they are not actually required. To put anything about them on your invitation is to assume that people are getting you gifts, and to make them feel obligated even more than they are by expectation. This is profoundly rude.

So how do you correctly get across the idea that you’d rather not get more stuff? How do you explain that you’d prefer a gift to your favorite charity in your name? Or even that you prefer cold, hard cash to china settings? First off, you don’t register for gifts anywhere. Then you tell everyone in your wedding party what your preferences are. If anyone asks you directly or asks a member of your family or wedding party, you/they can then say ‘Oh, Jared and Pansy already have so much, they’d really prefer a donation be sent to greyhound rescue in their name’ or ‘You know, Joe and Penny are in the market for a house and they could really use help scraping up a down payment’ or ‘Really, Jeff and Patty consider your attendance and support the most precious gift they could receive.’ As for registry information, it is passed the same way: by word of mouth.

2: Of course expressing your wishes does not actually obligate anyone to follow them. Sure, you told people not to give you gifts, but then stuff starts arriving anyway. It happens. As I said, gifts are not obligatory, but many people would no more consider arriving at a wedding sans a gift than they would think of skydiving without a parachute. That means you need to be ready to accept a few gifts even if you didn’t want them in the first place. Be gracious, send a thank you note, and if you really, really hate it, quietly sell it at your first garage sale or exchange it for something you can use. This goes for things that weren’t on the registry list you made, too.

3: If you do want gifts and choose to register, think about what is convenient for your guests as well as what you want. More and more of us have our friends and family scattered all over the country, or even all over the world. Consider registering online or at a place that has stores everywhere you have guests coming from. You can even register in more than one place… just try to register for different things at the different places so you don’t wind up with three times the towels you need!

Also make sure you have things in a variety of price points. Putting a few small kitchen gadgets or a couple terra cotta pots for your herb garden offers a welcome option to financially strapped friends and relatives. On the other hand, I consider putting a really pricey thing or two on the list something along the lines of that pony I kept asking Santa to bring. Don’t expect it to happen… but there’s nothing wrong with admitting you’d like a 3-D TV or some sterling silver. And you never know, a group of your buddies might just decide to band together to give you something you really didn’t expect.

After all, while I never did, some little girl out there got her Christmas pony.

4: While gifts are properly sent to the bride before the wedding, guests will bring gifts to the wedding reception itself. You see, the happy couple shouldn’t have to deal with the logistics of carting home piles of gifts when they may be in a hurry to catch a flight… or even just catch some Zs after the big event, and that’s why gifts are best given before the wedding. But goodness knows I’ve been That Person carrying a carefully wrapped gift into the reception. Someone will bring a check or a cookware set or a garden gnome with them.

Set up a table off in a corner to hold the gifts, and then make sure someone is keeping an eye on it at all times. The more public your wedding reception site, the more important that pair of eyes becomes. Our wedding was held in private on a spot that took some work to find, so our gift table was pretty safe. But if your reception is being held in a hotel or a restaurant, then safety first! It’s not the most common thing, but people have been known to come into someone’s large reception held in a public place and help themselves to some of those packages… particularly the slender envelope kind.

Oh, and resist the temptation to open your gifts publicly. Duplicate gifts (and these will happen, even with a registry and careful monitoring) will be opened in front of the people who gave them, and sometimes it’s hard to reign in a look of horror at a really, really unwelcome gift. There’s just too much chance of embarrassment for all involved.

After the party is over, make sure you’ve designated someone to cart all the gifts to a place where they’ll be safe and sound until you have a chance to open them at your leisure.

5: Yes, you have to send thank you notes. Even if you weren’t expecting it, even if you hate it with the fury of a thousand raging Pamplonan bulls, even if you opened it in front of the giver and squealed in delight, you still have to send thank you notes. Just get some pretty cards, make sure you have plenty of stamps on hand, use your nicest pen, and don’t let your new spouse off the hook. After all, these are wedding presents and two of you got married.

Keep it simple, mention how you intend to use the gift (or get appropriately vague if you’re ditching it at the earliest possible convenience), and do your best to appreciate the sentiment and effort, even if the outcome isn’t what you’d hoped for.

Would I wear them all? No. Do I love them all? Yes.

And had my own invitation to the royal wedding not gotten lost in the mail – damn the USPS! – I do believe I would have opted for something a bit more conservative than the head wear above. Perhaps something like this:

I'd be the bee of the ball!

Or this:

Maybe the bow of the ball?

Is everyone in this photo on the guest list?

So, unexpected wedding guests. Word on the street is that there are more of them than people thing. And I’m not talking about professional wedding crashers who are just looking for a good time. I mean friends and relatives who RSVP’ed no but decided to come anyway, invitees who never bothered to send back the stamped reply postcard, and wedding guests who arrived at the reception with one, two, or more people in tow. As far as I know, there was no one at our wedding who wasn’t supposed to be there, but since ours was a backyard family affair, I didn’t pay all that much attention once the day got rolling.

If unexpected wedding guests are more common than I assumed, are people taking them into consideration when giving wedding vendors those precious final headcounts? Is it better to pay for a few more chairs, entrees, and slices of wedding cake than to have one to few of any of these things? It’s a question I have trouble wrapping my brain around because I’d never in a million years attend a wedding to which I had not RSVPed or switch my entree choice at the last moment or *gasp* bring a few cronies with me to the reception so everyone could get boozed up on the cheap. But I know not everyone is as polite as I am, hence the poll. I want to know how you’re handling the possibility of unexpected wedding guests and, I suppose, whether you’re anticipating any!

Image: djprybyl

click click click click shrrrrk!

Maybe I can convince you to have a typewriter guestbook at your wedding receptions? The typewriter owners among you, anyway. Or the brides-to-be who’ve been looking for some excuse to buy a vintage typewriter. A wedding! What better excuse? You could even have a typewriter themed wedding! And then later on you can display it in your living room with a nice white sheet of paper and pop over to it whenever inspiration strikes to jot down a few lines. Doesn’t that sound lovely?

Putting together a thread spool table number like this one involve a wee bit of hand embroidery, a little sewing, and cutting some cork, but that’s about as difficult as it gets.

The second DIY reception project comes from Tracey of French Larkspur and can be found here. The hardest part of creating thread spool place cards is stamping all those letters of all those names, one by one by one. So not really difficult, but a bit tedious.

The results are quite pretty in both cases, and perfect for a garden wedding or a sewing and crafting themed wedding.