Stupid Question - Addressing STDs

labro

Should I address them as I would a wedding invitation without an inner envelope?

For example:

Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Jones
Bobby, Carol, and Susan
123 Main Street
New York, New York 12345

I think I'm just having a hard time with the families. Since STDs are less formal, should I also be less formal with the addresses? And do this instead?

Mr. and Mrs. Jones and family
123 Main Street
New York, New York 12345

Or is the above example opening myself up to someone's very liberal interpretation of who their family is?

grumbledore

We are doing them very specifically as if they were the invitations (Mr. and Mrs. Whoever) and we are only having my daughter and FI's niece and nephew but if we were inviting kids I would list them by name to be safe.

phira

I struggled with this too (and I'll likely struggle with the invitations as well). We ended up doing ours very informally.

Married with same last name:

Red and Kitty Foreman

Married with different last names OR not married:

Monica Geller and Chandler Bing

With kids:

Henry and Madeline Spencer

Shawn Spencer

Exceptions:

Our grandparents got Mr and Mrs because we knew for sure that they're old-fashioned enough that they'd care.

The new PhD and new veteriarian got titles.

We did not write "and family," and we won't do it on the invitations either. It looks more formal, but it's too vague. I totally know people who would bring their kids, but then also bring along their parents or siblings (e.g. my aunt and uncle might bring my aunt's dad).

HisGirlFriday13

We did ours the same way we did invitations, mostly because I had already gone to all the trouble of asking people how they wanted to be addressed.

Also, I did include all children who were invited because I wanted people to realise the STDates either included their children (in the case of family) or excluded their children (in the case of friends).

I'm always in favour of addressing them as completely as possible without confusing the USPS. I wouldn't do 'and guest' on a STDate, but I would do an SO's name, even if they don't live together. But I would address the STDate then to the person who lives there first, regardless of gender.

Ex.: I invited my MOH (obvs), but I invited her kind-of-an-asshole FI (because I had to). But he wasn't going to be invited in his own right (if they had broken up before my wedding, he wasn't getting an invite), so I addressed it:

Ms. MOH Surname

Mr. FI Surname

Her Address

City, State, ZIP

They did not, at the time, live together, so it went to her, but he was included. If that makes sense.

labro

@phira Struggling is a good way to put it. I know for our friends and probably my cousins it's easy and probably ok to put Paul Brown and Amanda Thatcher...but I'm struggling with FI's family friends (although I can always ask his mom about the best way to address them) and our relatives...especially our parent's siblings, and the older generations.

labro

@HisGirlFriday13 There are definitely a few "and guests" on our list...more as a space holder than anything else right now. But for the STDs I just plan to invite those people by name only and either give them the option of "and guest" when the time comes for wedding invitations (one of our GM is currently single, same for my youngest sister...I want her to be able to bring a friend if she wants) or include their SO's name if they have one at that point.

I think I'm just having a hard time with forms of address. Mr. and Mrs. Jones? Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Jones? Andrew and Jane Jones? The standards are clear for wedding invitations...so I'm wondering if I just need to stick to those standards for the STDs too. Or does it come across as stuffy?

HisGirlFriday13

I stuck with the same standards because I figured people had told me how they wanted to be addressed; i.e., Mr. Him and Mrs. Her TheirSurname. 

To me, it was just easier to address them all exactly the same way than have to worry about offending people by being too informal. 

You'll never offend people by being too formal, but you might offend them by being too informal.