Wedding reception invitation wording

Second to last. The order on every invitation is hosts, the request, the two names, the date, the time, the venue, then the reception line, then the reply line. It comes after the venue because it answers the question the venue raises — is that where we stay? — and before the reply, because the reply covers the whole day.

Three forms cover almost everything, and they are not interchangeable.

• Reception to follow — same venue, starting when the ceremony ends. Four words, and the only version that needs nothing after it.
• Reception immediately following the ceremony — the formal version of the same promise, and worth the extra words when there is any chance a guest suspects a gap.
• Dinner and dancing to follow — the same line doing extra work. It tells guests a meal is coming, which is the thing they actually want to know, and it sets the length of the evening without naming an hour.

The mistake to avoid is the shortest line in the wrong place: Reception to follow on an invitation whose reception is across town. A guest reads it as stay where you are. The moment anyone has to move, the line needs a venue, and usually a time. For the lines above it — the host line, the request and the ceremony hour — what a wedding invitation has to say walks the card from the top.

Five things, and nothing that is already on the invitation in front of it. The word Reception at the top; the time, either as immediately following the ceremony or as an hour; the venue and its address; one line on what the evening holds; and the dress code. Example four is the whole card.

No host line, no names, no date — they are on the main invitation, and repeating them is what makes an enclosure look like a second invitation to a second wedding. The dress code is the exception worth noticing: the reception card is where it traditionally lives, which is why couples who put black tie on the invitation itself are often told to move it.

The reply stays on the main invitation unless the reception has a guest list of its own. Two reply routes for one day means two lists to reconcile the night before, and the reconciliation always goes wrong in the same direction — someone counted twice, someone not at all.

Two lines change and the rest is identical. The reply line stops pointing at an enclosed card and becomes please reply on the invitation by 10 April, because the answer is a tap. And the reception address shortens to a venue name, because the page carries a map — which matters most in exactly the case this page is about, where the reception is not where the ceremony was.

The separate reception card stops being a card, too. On a link it is a section of the same page, under the ceremony details, which quietly solves the enclosure’s oldest problem: nothing can be lost between the envelope and the fridge. If the reception list is a different list, you send the reception-only version of the same design to those households — same typography, same envelope animation, different wording.

A Wedvite invitation is that link: your wording, the venue map, music, and an RSVP whose answers land in your dashboard. It is $89 on the list price and $49 at checkout while the SUMMER45 discount runs to Oct 31 — it applies itself, and both figures are the US price, with your own currency shown at checkout. Paid once for unlimited guests, hosted through your wedding date and at least 90 days after, and a time or a venue can still be edited after you have sent it; everyone sees the change on the same link. Pick the wording first, then a design from the wedding invitation template gallery. If you would rather answer questions than start from a blank page, the wording builder drafts a reception-only version from your names, date and venue.