Wording Wedding Invitations When Multiple People Paying

In the past, it was traditional for the wedding to be paid for by the bride’s family.  In fact, normally weddings were completely paid for by the bride’s parents.  But today there are many couples that have family relations that are not your traditional parents of times past.  There are blended families, step-parents, divorced parents and it can get complex doing wedding invitation wording. 

You ideally want the wedding invitation to reflect who is funding the wedding.  This person is normally the one requesting that guests attend the wedding.  If the couple is paying for the wedding you should put the couple’s name as the request for attending the wedding.  If it is in conjunction with the parents then you should put together with the parents as the wording and then the couple’s names for the invitation.

What if the parents are divorced?  You should list the father’s name first with the prefix of Mr. and the mother’s name second with the prefix of Ms. This will make certain both names are on the wedding invites without offending anyone.

For friends of the family that aren’t relatives that are helping to fun the wedding you can list the friends of the bride and groom or you can list the names of the friends depending on how many are helping to pay for the wedding.  It is best to ask them their preference.

If there is more than one person in the household that you are addressing the wedding invitations to you might need to send more than one invitation.  If the people are a couple, you can address the envelope with both their names alphabetically.  If the people in the home are roommates, you should address a separate invitation for each person.  Children over the age of 18 years should be sent a separate invitation even if you sent one to the couple or roommates of the home.  If however, the children are under the age of 18, they’re invite is considered part of the parents’ invite.

Always hand address the wedding invitations.  You should write neatly on the front the names and address of the guests.  On the back flap of the invitation, you should put your return address.  Don’t use sticky labels or rubber stamps for this.  Your return address should also be written by hand.