Formal and Informal Invitations

Both formal and informal wedding invitations need to be phrased in a way that clearly informs the receiver about the date of the wedding, what time, and where it is going to be held. Wedding invites also need to show who exactly will be hosting the wedding. Below, we have explained when to use formal and informal wedding invitations.

Formal Wedding Invitations: Needless to say, the more formal your wedding is, the more formal your wedding invites need to be. Formal invitations need to be printed on to formal heavyweight paper. Cream, ivory and white colours are adequate for formal invitations. You should use a classic font type such as Roman.

A good example of a formal wedding invitation is when the bridal couple is hosting the wedding but also would like to honour their respective parents.

If the wedding is not being held at a place of worship, then the line ‘honour of your presence’ will need to be replaced by ‘pleasure of your company’. In those very formal invitations, the date and year need to be spelled out in full, instead of 2^nd or 2009.

Informal Wedding Invitations: If you have decided to have a small and intimate wedding, or simply an informal celebration, your wedding invitation can include slightly more informal language and style.

In the above example, you can change the phrase ‘request the honour...’ to something like ‘wish to invite you to their marriage’

Informal Wedding Invitations: For weddings that are small and consist of just close friends and family, the wording on the invitation can be more casual and informal.

Take the example above, you can change the wording of ‘request the honour...’ by the phrase ‘invite you to join us in celebrating our marriage’ or ‘wish to invite you to their marriage’. Any other informal wording similar to this is acceptable.