Traditional wedding invitation wording

Everything is words. Saturday, the twelfth of June, two thousand twenty-seven — not 12 June 2027, and not the 12th. The year is lower case and carries no and: two thousand twenty-seven, never two thousand and twenty-seven on an American card, though British usage does keep the and.

The hour is spelled the same way. At half after four o’clock is the traditional form for 4:30; half past four is acceptable British usage. On the hour, it is simply at four o’clock. A time is never given as 4:30 pm, and evening or afternoon is only added when the hour is genuinely ambiguous.

It does, and the constraint that shaped it is gone. Traditional wording is compressed because engraving was priced by the line; a page has no line charge, so the words can breathe and the reply moves off a printed card onto the invitation itself.

Two things change. The reply-by line replaces The favour of a reply is requested with a date and a button, and the address block becomes a map. Everything above them — the request line, the names, the spelled-out date — is unchanged. The wording guide covers the host line in full, formal wording is the register one step down from this one, and casual and informal wording is the far end of the same scale — the same facts, in your own voice.