wedding invitation wording etiquette

i found this great help in what to write on our wedding invitiation. written by ms. cesai

We had an idea on how our invitation wordings would read like hence, we expected writing it to be a breeze. To our surprise, we couldn't find the perfect words that would best describe what we wanted to say. We had to look up invitations of other people and brush up on our invitation wordings etiquette before we were able to start on ours.

To help other brides and grooms, this post is about the most common wedding wordings etiquette.

Let's start with the announcement of the bride and groom's marriage. Here in our country, as we are a patriarchal bunch, we put the groom's surname first before the bride's. If the groom, for example, is Juan Dela Cruz and the bride is Maria Santos, it would become Dela Cruz - Santos Nuptials. May I reiterate that Nuptials is with an S. I tend to cringe when I see Nuptial on invitations especially on well-known invitation-makers already. They really should know better and should advise couples the right word to use since according to dictionaries:

Nuptials - [noun] wedding
Nuptial - [adjective] pertaining or relating to marriage

Nuptial, as it is an adjective, describes something that is wedding related. Examples would be nuptial mass, nuptial candle, etc. Nuptials, as it is a noun, is the wedding per se. Hence, Dela Cruz - Santos Nuptials is the same as Dela Cruz - Santos Wedding since they are both used as nouns.

Next is who would be the inviter of the wedding. Traditionally, the invites are issued in the third person. Nowadays, however, it is said that it depends on who will shoulder the expenses of the wedding. If the parents will shoulder the expenses, the invitation would read as:

"Engr. and Mrs. Albert Dela Cruz and Mr. & Mrs. Charlie Santos
request the honour of your presence at the wedding of their children,
Juan and Maria"

If the couple and the parents would share the expenses, it would be:

"We,
Juan and Maria,
together with our parents,
Engr. and Mrs. Albert Dela Cruz and Mr. & Mrs. Charlie Santos
request the honour of your presence"

If the expenses would be by the couple only: (Others omit the 3rd and 4th line but I do think Filipinos want to include their parents in the invitations to show their respect.)

"We,
Juan and Maria,
with the blessing of our parents,
Engr. and Mrs. Albert Dela Cruz and Mr. & Mrs. Charlie Santos
request the honour of your presence"

You can also do below if you want to show the mothers' names:

Engr. Albert Dela Cruz              Mr. Charlie Santos
Mrs. Susan Dela Cruz                Mrs. Diane Santos

Other pertinent infos you might want to know:
* The year and numbers are written out in full. Although I've read somewhere that you can write the number as it is after the number 10. To be safe, we've used the Roman Numeral on a number below 10 on ours as it looks formal still.
* "The favour of a reply" is a more formal version of RSVP (Répondez s'il vous plaît).
* Honour and favour is always used with a u.
* If you're using "o'clock" for the time, it is "at half after three o'clock" not "at half past three o'clock." Use "in the morning/afternoon" if you want to use "at half past" (at half past three in the afternoon).

I am not claiming that you should do what is posted here as wedding wordings etiquette changes in time (oh, except the nuptials!). E.g. I've read in an etiquette book that RSVP should be followed by an address and not a telephone number. Filipinos, however, never mail their responses and would just call, sms or email (some never reply at all!) thus making the said etiquette rule inapplicable to us.

This post is only a guide for soon-to-weds like us. It's up to you to decide on what your invites would read like.