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How to Address your Invitations:

Traditionally, two envelopes are used with wedding invitations, an outer and an inner envelope. The outer envelope will have the guests’ mailing address, the inner will be the names of all people who are invited on the invitation.

Inner Envelope

• Married couples are addressed by their last names, written as “Mr. and Mrs. Cooper”
• Titles are spelled out, such as “Doctor and Mrs. Cooper”
• When inviting a family, the parents are listed on the first line as “Mr. and Mrs. Cooper” and on the next line, the children’s names are listed by age as “Master Thomas Cooper and Miss Jacqueline Cooper”
• Very close friends and family may be addressed more informally such as “Grandpa and Grandma” or “Aunt Sophie” or “Bill and Judy”

Outer Envelope

• No abbreviations should be used in the address, all words such as Street, Boulevard, state or province names such as New York, Ontario should be written in full.
• The invitation should always be extended to both parties in a couple, even if you know that one won’t be able to attend. The same thing with families, if you are inviting the whole family, but know one of the children won’t be able to attend, they should still be included on the invitation.
• When inviting an unmarried couple, both names should appear on the invitation, for example, “Mr. Thomas Cooper and Miss Isabelle Smith”
• When inviting a family, the outer envelope is addressed to the parents, for example “Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Cooper”. The fact that the invitation is also extended to the children in the family is noted by the inclusion of their names on the inner envelope.
• Couples using different last names are listed alphabetically on the envelope.
• The only abbreviations that may be used are Mr., Mrs., Jr., and Dr., other titles such as military ranks are spelled out in full.
• If you are choosing to use only one invitation for guests who will be bringing a date, you should find out the name of the person your guest is bringing and add it to the invitation. As much as possible, you should not add “and guest” to your invitations. Ideally, according to etiquette, the guest should receive their own, individual invitation.
• Be sure to have a return address on your outer envelope, many people choose to put it on the back flap of the invitation. It is needed for first class mail in many countries.
• Although it’s more time consuming, handwriting the names of your invitees on the envelopes is considered proper etiquette. In this day and age of computers, software and printers, people tend to take short cuts and print out their guests’ names and addresses on labels and then apply them to the envelopes. It’s much nicer to receive an invitation that someone has taken the time to do by hand.

Assembling your Invitations:

There are no hard and fast rules regarding the way the inserts are ordered, but logic dictates that the pieces be stacked from smallest to largest from the top. You’ll want to tuck the response card under the flap of the return envelope and place it with the response card face up (the address side of the envelope will then be face down). The whole package is tucked into the invitation itself if folded and simply stacked on top of it, if it’s not. Slide the invitation into the inner envelope so that it is facing the back of the envelope, this way when your guests open the envelope, the front of the invitation is visible. Do not seal the inner envelope, the flap is left loose. Slide the inner envelope into the outer envelope, with the front of the inner envelope facing the back of the outer envelope (when the outer envelope is opened, you should see the flat side of the inner envelope, not the side with the seams).

Mailing your Invitations:

• Assemble one set of invitations and have them weighed at the post office to ensure you put sufficient postage on each invitation.
• Hand cancel your invitations for a classier look. Hand cancelling ensures that your invitation doesn’t go through machines where there is a chance they may be damaged.
• Add an extra wow factor to your invitations by creating your very own stamps. Use your engagement picture or other creative picture of the two of you. You can order your customized stamps in Canada from Canada Post at https://www.picturepostage.ca and in the U.S. from several companies at http://www.usps.com/postagesolutions/customizedpostage.htm
• if you’d rather not go through the expense of custom stamps, most post offices will have special wedding themed stamps that you may purchase to make your invitations a little more special for the same price as regular stamps.

Save the Date Cards:

These cards are used to announce your wedding in advance of any details being provided. The purpose is really to alert your guests to keep the date of your wedding open and are sent several months up to a year before the date of the wedding. Typically they are sent to those guests who are out of town, to allow them enough time to arrange time off work and to start travel plans. The cards may match your invitation stationary, but increasingly people are taking the opportunity to use fun items to alert their guests of the date of their upcoming nuptials. Some ideas are magnets, postcards featuring your reception site and calendars with the wedding date highlighted.

Guest List Tips:

Usually, the guest list is divided into thirds; one-third to the bride’s family, one-third to the groom’s family and the bride and groom share the last third. Problems can arise with this if one party is paying for the wedding and another party wants to invite too many guests. This can easily be solved by allotting a set amount to each party and any guests over and above that will be paid for by the inviting party.

The “A” List and the “B List”
If the number of people you would like to invite exceeds your capacity or budgeted number of guests, go through your list and assign a letter of “A” or “B” beside each guest/couple. “A List” guests are those guests that you absolutely must invite and “B List” are those that are not quite as important. As you receive decline responses from your A-Listers, you can start sending invitations out to the B-Listers. You will have to make sure that you send A-List invitations early enough so that you will still have enough time for B-Listers to receive their invitations and send back the response cards. If you’ve used response cards, be aware of the return date on them. You don’t want to send out an invitation to someone, only to have them receive it passed your response card return date!

Additional Tips: