Wedding invitation wording builder

Six lines, six jobs

A wedding invitation is six lines doing six different jobs, in the order guests read them. The builder above drafts the lines each tone needs. Fill in what you know, switch the tone until it sounds like you, copy it out, then finish the rest by hand. Everything you type stays in this browser tab, so real family names are safe to use here.

1. The host line

Answers who is inviting. Traditionally that is whoever is paying, which is why so many invitations open with parents’ names; when the couple host it, the line becomes theirs. The hosts field is optional, and an empty one behaves differently per tone: modern and warm fall back to a neutral families line, formal leaves a [Hosts] placeholder for you to replace, and the WhatsApp and reception-only drafts carry no host line at all.

2. The invitation itself

The verb — request the pleasure of your company, invite you to celebrate, would love you there. It sets the register for everything underneath it, so read it aloud before you commit to it.

3. The names

On their own line. First names alone read modern; full names read formal. This is what a guest looks for first, and the only part they repeat when they tell someone else.

4. The date

Opens the factual block, where precision matters more than elegance. The builder takes one date field, so write the day of the week, the date and the year into it together — Saturday, 12 June 2027.

5. The time and the venue

Finish that block. The builder has no time field, so add the ceremony time yourself after you copy the draft, and put the venue’s town in the venue field beside its name. A guest checking the address from a station platform is not charmed by a clever line.

6. The reception and the reply

What follows the ceremony, how to reply and by when. Not every tone drafts that last line: the WhatsApp and reception-only drafts end with a reply-by deadline for you to fill in, the formal draft points to a reply date you add below it, and the modern and warm drafts close on a celebration line instead, so write the reply line yourself there. On a digital invitation it is one tap through to the RSVP form, so it is shorter than on card: no return address, no stamp, just the deadline.

Where drafts go wrong

Mixing registers, most often, so a formal host line collides with a casual request line. After that: burying the reception-only distinction, which leaves guests unsure whether they are invited to the ceremony; printing the time you would like everyone seated rather than the time the ceremony begins; and squeezing dress code, parking and hotel notes onto the invitation when a line on the wedding website explains them better.

The two registers differ consistently. Formal wording spells things out — numbers as words, no abbreviations, honorifics kept. Casual wording contracts and talks the way the couple talk. Neither is more correct, but choose one and hold it across the whole invitation, including the reply line and the website.

Draft here, check the phrasing there

This page is the builder. The wedding invitation wording guide is the reference beside it: ten worked examples to copy line for line, the longer host-line explainer for divorced, remarried and bereaved families, and the UK evening-invitation and digital-wording conventions.