Inviting Elements: Invitation Basics
Filed under Expert Advice, Invitations, Wedding How-toReception Card
Your invitation card indicates the time and location of the ceremony. If you are having your reception at a different site, a reception card indicates its location and time. In effect, the reception card serves as an invitation to a separate event. Here is a traditionally worded example:
immediately following the ceremony
Kohl Mansion
2750 Adeline Drive
Burlingame, California
If your reception site is not available until a certain time, and therefore you have a gap between the ceremony and reception, indicate the specific starting time of the reception on the second line of the reception card.
A more contemporary version of a reception card might be worded as follows:
immediately following the ceremony
with cocktails, dinner and dancing by the bay
The James Leary Flood Mansion
2222 Broadway
San Francisco, California
Response Card
The purpose of a response card is to make it easy for your guests to reply to your invitation, and to make it easy for you to figure out who’s coming. The RSVP deadline on your response card should be one month before your wedding date, so that you have enough time to determine seating arrangements, then have escort cards and place cards printed.
Here is an example of a traditional response card:
| The favour of a reply is requested before the twenty-sixth of August |
| M will attend |
| M will be unable to attend |
Note the English spelling of the word “favour.” Response cards should never ask for the number of guests coming to the wedding—instead, the specific names of guests who are being invited are indicated on your envelope(s), and those guests who can come to the wedding will so indicate by writing their names in the appropriate blank on the card.
Again, you are free to choose more contemporary wording for the response card. Many couples drop the traditional “M” in front of the blank line, so guests can write their names more casually.
A pre-addressed, stamped envelope accompanies the more conventional form of response card, but some contemporary versions are designed as a postcard, with the address and stamp placed on the back side of the card. If you go with the postcard option, make sure that it meets the U.S. Postal Service’s sizing and layout requirements for a postcard—go to http://www.usps.com for details.
Inviting Elements: Invitation Basics: page 2 of 3 pages. < 1 2 3 >