Your wedding invitation wording will set the tone for your big day to come. It should contain all the vital details your guests need to prepare for and participate in your big day. While there are many different ways to word your wedding invites, there are certain wedding invitation details that are absolutely essential.
1. Who is hosting the wedding?
Your wedding invitation will be from whom ever is hosting (paying for!) the wedding. This will be the opening line of your invitation. Traditionally this would have been the bride’s father, and so the invitation would have come from him, and his wife.
Dr. & Mrs. T Thomas
request the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of their daughter
While this traditional opener is is still very popular, increasingly weddings are being hosted by the couple themselves. Often there are contributions from both families and this should be acknowledged in the wedding invitation details
Jo & Rich
would be delighted if you would join them
to celebrate their marriage
or
Together with their families,
Joanne Thomas & Richard Shaddick
invite you to share and celebrate their marriage

2. Names of the couple to be married
Now, depending on who is hosting (couple or parents) this may have already been covered in the open line. If it isn’t then make sure you have your names nice and clear in the wedding invitation details. It is, after all, your big day! Full names, first names only or even nicknames are all acceptable and whichever you choose will depend on how formal you would like your wedding invitation wording to be. Traditionally the bride’s name would go first, but go with whatever you feel most comfortable with.
Joanne & Richard
Read more: Which name goes first on a wedding invitation?
3. The venue for the wedding ceremony
Your guests need to know where the wedding is being held, so it’s vital that you put the venue for the ceremony on your invitation. If you are including extra guest information cards, I suggest putting the full address and postcode for sat nav in there, and keep the actual invitation panel details shorter e.g.
The Vale Resort, Hensol
on the invitation and then the full address and postcode on the information card.

4. Date of the wedding ceremony
Possibly THE most important of the wedding invitation. Your wedding date should be prominent. It’s a good idea to include the day of the week as well as the date, and don’t forget the year too. You can write it in words
Saturday, the fourth of September two thousand and twenty five
or a shorter, more familiar format:
Saturday, 4th September 2025

5. What time goes on the wedding invitation?
What time goes on the invitation is one of the questions I’m asked most when finalising wording with my couples. Here’s my advice; the time on the actual invitation part should be the time that the wedding ceremony is due to start. Again, you can write it in different formats e.g.
four o’clock in the afternoon
or simply
at 4:00pm
If you’d like your guests to arrive earlier than this, perhaps for welcome drinks before the ceremony, put this in your guest information card, it will avoid any confusion.
Read more: What time do you put on a wedding invitation?

6. Don’t forget the wedding reception
Simply, tell your guests what’s going to happen after the wedding ceremony. Traditionally, with a church service and reception at a different venue, this would be worded as:
and afterwards at
The Manor Parc Country Hotel, Thornhill
(again with the full address and postcode on the guest information card).
Often the ceremony and reception are all in one venue, and in this case just tell your guests what’s happening. You can choose either something formal or more casual depending on the rest of the wedding invitation wording.
Simply:
Reception to follow
or, more informally
Followed by dinner, drinks and dancing

7. RSVP details
Finally, you need to let your guests know that you require a reply to the invitation, along with how and when they should do that. If you’re enclosing an RSVP card, tell them. Otherwise include a postal address, so they can buy their own card to send to you, or more often used these days an email address or telephone number.
Read more: What to include on your wedding RSVP cards
That’s everything you need in your wedding invitation details
So that’s it, all the essential details you need to include in your wedding invitations, along with some pointers on how to word them. I’ve mentioned guest information cards a few times in this post, if you’d like to read more about them and what you should include have a read of my post HERE. If you’re looking for more advice and tips on wording your invitations take a look HERE.
Don’t forget, if you’re looking for eco friendly wedding invitations and stationery in South Wales, do get in touch. I’d love to help you with all your questions about wedding invitation details too. I have years of experience of making and wording wedding invitations. As part of the service I offer my couples, I will go through all of these wedding invitation details with you and make sure that you’ve covered it all.
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