So what do you do if you love DIY but don’t have the time or the space or the talent? Why you go to people who have those things and pay them to do it for you. And that’s where Etsy comes into play.


Your invitations will say a lot more than just the time and place you’re getting married. Whether you’re looking for something whimsical or elegant, modern or old fashioned, chances are someone is doing invites on Etsy that will appeal to you. Me? I’ve fallen madly in love with these hand calligraphed ones by PaperandCalligraphy. See? They’re even sealed with wax! At $4.00 apiece and frankly not very practical to send through normal mailing channels, they aren’t for everyone. Still, if you’re having a very small wedding and only inviting people close to home, it’s a charming option.

I’ve fallen madly in love with these pom-poms of dried flowers put together by EcoLectic Events. Styrofoam free and made of organically grown flowers, they’re completely eco-friendly. And at $19.50 each, they’re even pretty budget-friendly as bouquets or as general decoration in the room.

If you’re looking for a special veil on a budget, you might do a lot worse than this English netting bandeau veil with handmade flower decoration by Fascinating Creations. It’s a charming look, and at just $68.95 it won’t harm your wallet at all!

You can even get a custom wedding gown on Etsy!

How about this charming informal wedding dress by atelierTAMI? At just $530.00 (made to your measurements, corseted bodice and petticoat included!), it’s hard to beat for price or perkiness.

Even if you can’t DIY for love nor money, there’s no reason you can’t have a few custom, handmade touches to your wedding, if you want them. It’s all a matter of knowing where to look.

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.

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.

Have I mentioned lately that I am a 100% sucker for anything that is hand drawn or hand painted? Because it’s true. I am. And why not, when opting for handpainted wedding stationery results in awesome and amazing invitations, etc., like these?

Bees buzz along, birds sing a love song...

Handpainted table numbers are certainly a rarity

RSVP cards are an even nicer keepsake when they look this good

While these are all botanicals, Courtney Khail Stationery also accepts custom orders for handpainted wedding stationery so you can embellish your invites (or whatever) with electric guitars, a picture of where you and your love met, or pretty much anything else. You can work with Courtney to create a meaningful graphic that she will then paint on your wedding stationery so you can have something entirely unique! Love it!

You are cordially and electronically invited.

Since I like to keep on top of how people directly involved in the world of wedding planning and those who are expecting wedding invitations are feeling about everything from favors to stationery, I thought it was high time for this wedding aficionada to check in with the next round of brides-to-be, grooms-to-be, and guests-to-be to weigh in on the subject of online wedding invitations and email wedding invitations. Still utterly déclassé? Or gaining ground in terms of acceptability as a paper wedding invitation alternative now that we’re all spending half our lives online anyway?

How would you react upon finding a link to an electronic wedding invitation in your inbox?

Now, you don’t have to wait until the actual big day to have some serious wedding photography fun. For the hardcore wedding photography enthusiast, there’s the Chinese practice of taking insane amounts of wedding photos way before the actual wedding. And for the less dedicated among us, there are always engagement photo shoots and photo save-the-dates and photo wedding invitations. Which is what Toni shared with me just the other day, and she was kind enough to say I could share with you. (Uh, in case you missed it, our very own Toni is engaged, so show her some love!)

This is the back

And this is the front (or is that the other way around...)

I love ‘em, don’t you?! Toni’s wedding invitation makes me wish The Beard and I had done something with photos of ourselves – even our postcard save-the-dates featured a vintage photo with a dour bride and groom instead of a snapshot of us. Oh, well! That’s why I live vicariously through you lovelies and through all the research I do for this blog. Speaking of, to kick start Wedding Photography Week, I though I’d make a list of some of my favorite posts about wedding photography here at Manolo for the Brides for those who may have missed them the first go around.

• A link to a great instructional site for DIY wedding photos
• Fun wedding photos to take as a group
• Wedding photography etiquette for guests
• Some of the best wedding photos around
• Just some brides on bikes!
• How about those artsy-fartsy wedding photos?
• Handling the taller bride and shorter groom “problem”
• On being yourself in your wedding photos

Enjoy! (P.S. – I may extend Wedding Photography Week into two weeks, just because there’s plenty to talk about! P.P.S. – Want to share your wedding photos or wedding photos you’ve taken? Email me the best ones, and I’ll post them!)

Wedding invites at David's? Well, huh.

And they’re none too shabby, with plenty of fun patterns – including monograms – and lots of color choices. The main omission in their stock of invites seems to be embellishments – there are ribbons, but none of the little string ties and leaves and lace and pockets and charms that are still quite popular. Which I used to love, actually. But the older I get, the more I seem to like simple one-sheet wedding invitations with, say, letterpress printing or something that looks like it. One-sheet invites are easier to turn into keepsakes if you want to scrapbook them, and similarly easier to recycle if you’d rather not clutter up the works with a whole lot of paper.

So, you tell me: Did you know David’s Bridal carries wedding invitations now? Would you consider (or have considered) shopping at a chain for your wedding invitations?

This one. It’s a freakin’ papercraft record player, for goodness’ sake! I’m less impressed that it kind of plays an original song written by the couple – Karen Sandler and Mike Tarantino – who sent it out than I am that you can even make a record player out of paper. That someone even conceived of this idea in the first place, and then someone – that would be designer Kelli Anderson who talks more about the whole project on her website – took that idea and rolled with it. Seriously. A papercraft record player interactive wedding invitation. Seriously… Doesn’t that just beat all?