But every once in a while, the actual wedding is held quietly and privately, or is held very far away from many friends and family members, or the happy couple wants to honor some form of milestone by reaffirming their commitment to one another publicly, or the relationship may not be recognized legally where the couple lives, but they wish to make a public commitment anyway. No matter which case is the one that fits your situation, you still need to understand how to word your invitation so that it is both polite and understandable.

First off, no matter how little publicity it received, if you are already married, do not invite people to a wedding. No matter how bare bones or secret it was, you already had your wedding. A wedding is the ceremony that binds you as a married couple, whether or not it involves a formal gown, cake, champagne, or flowers. Those are trimmings.

So, if you have already exchanged vows and signed papers, the celebration you are holding now is not your wedding. Depending on the activities involved, what you are now holding is either a religious blessing, a reaffirmation of your vows, or a reception. Have all the trimmings you like for this, and enjoy the heck out of what you are doing. Just don’t call it a wedding.

If you are having your religious leader celebrate your marriage, then you are having a blessing. Call it that on the invitation:

Mr. and Mrs. Drew Howland Gibb
request the honor of your presence
at the blessing of their marriage

Or, if the couple are not sharing a last name:

Ms. Honora Violet Howe
and
Mr. Drew Howland Gibb
request the honor of your presence
at the blessing of their marriage

If you are choosing to reaffirm your vows, whether because you’ve reached a major anniversary, overcome a significant test of your commitment to one another, or simply enjoy celebrating your marriage, here’s how to pass on the good news:

Mr. and Mrs. Drew Howland Gibb
request the pleasure of your company
as they reaffirm their marriage vows

If you are not having any sort of a ceremony, then what you’re doing is holding a reception. Whether you got married quietly because that was your plan all along, eloped on a sudden impulse, or have family and friends in multiple large pockets around the country and want to celebrate with all of them in turn, a reception is completely appropriate and a lot of fun, to boot. It’s the party part of the wedding.

So how do you word it? That’s the simplest thing of all! You just call it what it is.

Mr. and Mrs. Drew Howland Gibb
request the pleasure of your company
at their wedding reception

Note that the form ‘honor of your presence’ is never used in this form, because there is no religious ceremony involved. Even if you hold your reception in the church hall and have your pastor give a prayer during the party, this is a secular event.

And then there is one final form to cover, even though it isn’t strictly speaking an invitation: the announcement.

Some couples just plain want a very small, intimate wedding with only a handful of people in actual attendance. They will often, however, want to let others know about the marriage. In this case, announcements are a great way to let people know what’s happened without having to plan for a larger celebration than you originally intended. Announcements are also good for cases where the couple have friends and family spread out all over the world and unlikely to be able to come join the celebration up close. Of course it is also absolutely correct to send invitations to people you wish could be with you but likely won’t… you just have to make sure you plan as though these invitations might be accepted. They might be.

One good friend of mine was shocked when her uncle from New Zealand actually accepted the invitation to her wedding. He was more than welcome, of course, but she never really expected anyone from that branch of the family to fly all the way to California for the wedding of a relative they barely remembered as a little girl!

So, once you’ve decided to send out announcements, how do you word them? Well, obviously, you don’t invite them to anything, and you don’t send them out until after the wedding is over. Here’s how they should be worded:

Mr. and Mrs. Xavier Quincey Vann
are pleased to announce
the wedding of their daughter
Clara Marie Eleanore
to
Mr. Alvin Gregory Wheeler

Or, if the couple wishes to make the announcement themselves:

Clara Marie Eleanore Vann
and
Alvin Gregory Wheeler
are pleased to announce
their marriage

And now you can invite and announce with confidence.

Traditionally, the form is ladies first. The bride’s parents were responsible for the entire celebration, and it was often the one day of her life that a woman got to be seriously celebrated. The world has changed, but ladies first is still the rule.

So how do we deal if there are two ladies getting married? What about when it’s two guys and there isn’t a lady to go first?

Well, at that point, we think back to kindergarten. Chances are that’s when you started learning about alphabetical order, right along with learning what an alphabet is.

Here’s how it looks:

Mr. and Mrs. Durward Elliot Bayless
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their son
Arthur Cyril
to
Mr. Abner Clayton DeVere

Or, if the happy couple is hosting their own celebration:

Mr. Arthur Cyril Bayless
and
Mr. Abner Clayton DeVere
request the pleasure of your company
at their marriage

Two women marrying? It’s done just the same:

Miss Annabelle Daisy May
and
Miss Doreen Lola Ramsey
request the honor of your presence
at their marriage

But what if it’s not the happy couple, but a set of parents who are the same-sex couple? Not a problem! Here’s the drill:

Mr. Bernard J. Cummings
and
Mr. Barrisford Alan Greyson
request the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of their daughter
Gloria Daphne Greyson
to
Mr. Charles Leonard Hixon

See how easy that is?

Tune in tomorrow to see how to handle the question of wording the invitation when the celebration isn’t the wedding proper.

Not to panic. There are forms that have developed over time, because no matter your situation, you are not the first one facing it.

If the parents are divorced and nobody has remarried, here is how it looks:
Ms. Julia Eloise Culpepper
and
Mr. Edmund Godfrey Smythe
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Gwendolyn Petunia
to
Mr. Wilfred Mikhail Jones
son of
Ms. Frieda Maureen Jones
and
Mr. Dagwood Edgar Jones

Note that how the divorced mother is addressed depends on which surname she uses socially. That means the parents of the bride in this example also illustrate nicely how to word things when your happily married parents don’t share a last name.

But what if one or both of your parents has remarried? Do they all get listed? And what if one has been remarried multiple times? Do you have to list every step parent you’ve ever had?

Well, if any of those step parents are no longer a part of your life, you are under no obligation to list them. In fact, if you’ve got four step parents between your two parents… it would get mighty crowded up there to try to squeeze them all into the invitation. These things are only so big and the writing can only be so small before nobody can read what it says.

The rule of thumb would be to include only current step parents. In that case, your wording would go like this:

Mr. and Mrs. Donovan Q. Culpepper
and
Mr. and Mrs. Edmond Geoffrey Smythe
request the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of their daughter
Gwendolyn Petunia
to
Mr. Wilfred Mikail Jones

Or, as I said yesterday, you can just skip the names of all the parents and use this form:

Together with their parents,
Miss Gwendolyn Petunia Smythe
and
Mr. Wilfred Mikhail Jones
request the pleasure of your company
at their marriage

But what if one of your parents is dead? In that case, of course, you have my deepest sympathy. It’s not easy to lose a parent. My own beloved mother and Mr. Twistie’s father had both shuffled off this mortal coil well before we were married. We were also hosting our own shindig, so we just went with the ‘together with our parents’ wording.

Then again, you may want your parents’ names on your invitation. Here’s how to do it properly:

The honor of your presence is requested
at the marriage of
Miss Gwendolyn Petunia Smythe
daughter of
Ms. Julia Eloise Culpepper
and
the late Mr. Edmond Geoffrey Smythe
to
Mr. Wilfred Mikhail Jones
son of
Mr. Dagwood Edgar Jones
and
the late Mrs. Frieda Maureen Jones

Please note that this is the only form in which a deceased parent is ever listed on a wedding invitation. The dead cannot host parties. No, not even if they would have approved the match.

If you’re not doing this form, simply use the names of the living parents as shown in whatever other form is most appropriate to your needs.

Tune in again tomorrow to see how to list everyone when holding a same-sex celebration, or when one (or more) of your parents is in a same-sex relationship.

There are great in-laws and ones you wish you could divorce without losing your spouse. There are ones that seem to embody every warning tale and ones who defy all the old saws.

It’s been my fortune – both good and bad – to have known in-laws from both ends of the spectrum. Not, I hasten to add, all in my own marriage. By the time I got married, there was only one in-law left on Mr. Twistie’s side. And while Mamasan Twistie could be frustrating sometimes, she was, all in all, a tremendously good egg. Mr. Twistie was equally fond of both my parents, and has always gotten along with my brothers. We’ve been fortunate.

My mother was dead by the time Mr. Twistie and I married, but my father helped make the food, and bought handmade lace-edged handkerchiefs for my bridesmaids just because he was in Belgium and thought they would make nice bridesmaid’s gifts. He and my brothers did all they could to welcome Mr. Twistie into the family.

Mamasan Twistie welcomed me into her family as a beloved daughter. We hadn’t asked it of her, but she appeared at our wedding with a large platter of her homemade sushi. She just wanted to make sure we knew how happy she was for us.

But as I said, in-laws run the gamut.

On the other end of the spectrum, my brother the alpaca rancher wound up with some serious drama queens for in-laws. His mother-in-law showed up to the wedding in a long, lacy, white gown and scowled in every single photograph.

His father-in-law made dozens of demands about how the wedding should be conducted and how my brother and his lady needed to behave themselves if they wanted her father to show up. Then he didn’t show.

We didn’t miss him.

But I’m curious. What about you? Any horror stories about your in-laws? Any happy tales about how wonderful your in-laws are? Tell me the best and the worst.

I can see the same thing happening to professed wedding enthusiasts, which I know many of our readers are. Your loved ones may assume that you don’t need or want any help putting together your ceremony and reception because, well, you obviously know all there is to know about weddings. Then again, maybe you’re drowning under a sea of well-intentioned busybodies who are insisting that you simply must hire their hairdresser’s niece to create your wedding cake, since she just completed a cake decorating course at adult extension. The grass is always greener, right?

Today we’re curious to know about your wedding planning experience? Did your family let you know what their expectations were? Did your friends make not-so-subtle suggestions where the food, drink, or dresses were concerned? Or was your wedding planning experience more like my own, where you found yourself waiting for help that never materialized? Vote in the poll and then elaborate in the comments!

Image via Sandie Bertrand Photography

You see, mother-in-law jokes aside, the stories submitted to sites like I Hate My Inlaws are not just pieces of fiction created by some deranged mind. Sure, one’s biological parents can be a nightmare, too, but one usually has a few decades in which to learn to deal with the idiosyncrasies of one’s own family. Prior to and upon getting married, one is immediately expected to become fast friends with nonblood kin of every description. As if.

So what’s the problem? A reasonably sane adult should be able to cope with a few strained familial gatherings per year, right? Would that it were that easy. You see, it turns out that new research has found that avoiding your in-laws (even the icky ones) can actually harm your marriage.

A husband or wife’s satisfaction with their in-laws is a dominant factor in how happy they are in their marriage, University of Denver associate professor Mary Claire Morr Serewicz found after spending six years researching family issues.

In fact, Morr Serewicz found in-law relations can represent 43 percent of a couple’s satisfaction in their marriage.

Forty-three percent? Yowza! Maybe it’s time to send your future sister-in-law a holiday card or give in and let your future father-in-law fix your brakes. If good relations must be established, why not start establishing them ASAP with a little holiday cheer? Then again, I’m a big fan of setting strict boundaries. If you’re slated to be married or recently tied the knot, this might just be the time to say “I love visiting with you, but it throws off my schedule when you drop by unannounced” and “No, I’m sorry we cannot drive four hours each way to visit you for two hours on Christmas Eve.”

A six-year study might tell us that positive in-law relationships are integral to a good marriage, but I’d venture to guess that sometimes the best thing you can do to maintain good relations between people who mix about as well as oil and water is to avoid one another as much as possible.

I marched in and what to my wondering eyes did appear? Dozens of bridal magazines smack dab in my face almost as soon as I was through the door. The one that really caught my eye, however, was a Real Simple special wedding publication. I rather liked the clean, fuss-free imagery on the cover of a bride (well, most of her, since we see her pretty much only from about mid-torso to toes) sitting holding a simple bouquet composed of several large, plump, purple hydrangeas and a few glossy green leaves tied with pale blue ribbon. Her shoes are ballet flats. The gown is unadorned. In short, it looked all about the simple, the stripped down, and yet the elegantly lovely.

Even the tag line at the bottom of the magazine cover looked like the sort of philosophy I have always liked best: ‘Your personalized plan for a stress-free, beautiful celebration.’ Who wouldn’t want that? I snapped up the magazine and proceeded to read it with growing gawk over lunch.

Most of what was in there was pretty much what you’d find in the pages of any glossy magazine filled with wedding porn: your twelve-month countdown to planning, ads for companies that want you to register for your gifts with them, an article about all the accessories you can buy to go with your gown, advice on choosing the right gown for your figure, etc. I think Crate & Barrel had an ad every three pages. Interestingly enough, there weren’t a lot of wedding gown ads, and this is clearly going for a more upscale market since there wasn’t a peep out of anyplace like, say, Target that caters specifically to people on tight budgets.

Did I say budget? Oh yes, I did. Most of the advice ranged from the bland (wedding gowns take months to get to the customer, so ordering early is a good idea) to actually thoughtful (advice on how to choose whether to write your own vows or use the standard form for your denomination), to the aspirational (here’s what Muffy and Chip did, and isn’t it quaintly charming?). Then I started reading the article entitled 10 Common Budget Questions. It was numbers 2 and 4 that really struck me as seriously bad advice. But let’s take a look at what the magazine said and what’s wrong with it:

Our relatives haven’t offered to help us pay for the wedding. Is it okay to ask them for money?
Certainly. Here’s how:
*Gather photos you’re using for inspiration and any vendor estimates you’ve received.
*With your fiance, sit down with your families separately and show them the type of wedding you are hoping to have.
*Broach the subject of finances: Explain how much you and your fiance can afford and the amount your dream wedding will cost. Then, in a gracious and non-threatening tone, ask whether your families would consider paying for a specific aspect of the wedding – such as the flowers or the cake – instead of purchasing a gift for the two of you.
*If they still don’t bite, consider showing them the average wedding costs in your area. Go to www.costofwedding.com and enter your ZIP code for a breakdown of expenses in all major categories.

So…if your parents don’t react to your good news with promises to lavish cold, hard cash for the event on you, you should show them pretty pictures and ask them – in a gracious, non-threatening way, of course – what they’re going to pony up for? It seems to me that if parents expect or want to pay for all or part of the wedding, they’ll find a way to volunteer that information without being informed that your dreams cannot come true if they don’t make with the checkbook.

Plus there’s that assumption that there’s a gracious and non-threatening way to share that message. Somehow all I could think of was Marlon Brando making an offer Mom and Dad can’t refuse.

If you really can’t cover what you want on what you have, I suggest looking into what can be scaled back. After all, even if you try to coax money out of your parents, you might not succeed…and considering the next question is what to do if the ‘rents promise money but then fail to come through with it, I’m guessing the author of the article got that, too.

For my money, though, it was question 4 that really looked like a can of worms waiting to be opened.

My in-laws can’t afford to contribute as much as my parents. How do we handle this situation?
Arrange a dinner with all of the parents together. Beforehand, speak with your families individually about whether they might underwrite parts of the wedding and the financial constraints, if any, of the other couple. At dinner, talk through who will contribute what. (Note that contributions don’t necessarily have to involve a price tag.)

Well, that certainly won’t be the most awkward dinner party anyone at the table has ever attended.

These people are actually suggesting discussing your in-law’s finances with your parents, and vice versa and then holding a party to make sure everyone knows who has more money to spend on the wedding. Trust me, even if price tags are never brought up at this dinner of the damned, everyone will know how the money played out. After all, if Mimsey’s parents are footing the bill for the open bar, the ice luges, the catering, Mimsey’s wedding gown and accessories, and all the flowers…everyone will know that there’s no way Brad’s parents are spending anything like the same amount of money on their generous offer of the wedding cake and a backyard barbeque after the rehearsal.

Do your parents, your in-laws, your fiance and yourself a favor: graciously accept offers of budgetary help from any family members (providing the strings attached are ones you can live with), but don’t wheedle for money with pretty princess fantasy pictures and don’t embarrass your parents or his by sharing their financial situation with people they may hardly know.

If you want money from your parents, ask up front and be prepared for the answer to be no. It’s what grown ups do.

Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky enough to have great in-laws all around. Maybe your MIL is really the pits but your SIL has become your best friend. Or maybe you really feel a connection with your FIL that just isn’t there with the rest of the family. People are only human, and the likelihood of your liking every single one of your spouse-to-be’s relations is pretty darned slim.

Infer from this what you will, but I do enjoy stopping by M.I.L.D.E.W. to read through the new entries. If it happens that you fall into the second category of people (i.e., the “er, my in-laws are…okay, I guess” category) you may come to realize that you’re not alone after reading tales of horror like this one:

Right before my wedding, my MIL kept asking me if DH and I had had our blood tests. I kept patiently explaining to her that in California, you don’t need a blood test to get married. Finally she came out with her true worry, at SIL’s house and in front of Grandma.

She asked, ‘Have you had an AIDS test?’

She was certain that DH and I were ‘doing it’ and that I was giving DH all kinds of cooties. We weren’t and I wasn’t. DH had gone over that with her when we announced our engagement and she asked me (the second we were alone together, of course) if I was pregnant.

Now it warms my heart to see all of the pro in-law comments that come rolling in whenever I post about in-laws, but I know there is a whole contingent of people out there who reside on the other side of the MIL/FIL/SIL/BIL fence. I ask you…no, wait, I’m begging you to weigh in. Don’t worry, we’ll protect your privacy!