Invitation Wording - Military

EAR123

I'm starting to think about wording for our wedding invitations and could use the good advice of you etiquette experts regarding verbiage around my fiancé's military rank. Using the construct of "You are cordially invited to the wedding of..." do we finish by stating:

(A) Jane Middlename Smith to Colonel John Middlename Doe, United States Air Force

(B) Jane Middlename Smith to Col John Middlename Doe, USAF

(c) Jane Middlename Smith to John Middlename Doe (no mention of affiliation)

And on our return envelopes (we're self hosting and receiving in the RSVPs), would we use "Col John Doe and Ms. Jane Smith, 123 Wedding Drive,..."?

Thank you for your input!

Jen4948

I think, and CMGragain can confirm, that (A) is the appropriate option.

manateehugger

Either A or C is fine. Abbreviations are never used in social settings. Whether you put his rank on there is totally up to him; my H chose to not list it on there.

The return address I think would be:
Colonel John Doe
Ms. Jane Smith
123 Main Street

For ours, it was easier to just put PDKH first name and PDKH's H's first name with no last names on our return envelopes.

CMGragain

The pleasure of your company is requested
at the marriage of
Miss (Ms.) Jane Ann Smith
and
Colonel John James Doe, United States Air Force
Day, Date
time o'clock
Venue
Address
City, State

mysticl

Does he want his rank used?  DH does not use his rank socially.  

EAR123

Thank you for your input. He has no real preference one way or another whether his rank is used, but we want to use wording that is formal and customary; I'm just not certain what the best practice is here.

manateehugger

It is really up to him. You can obviously still have formal, traditional wording that doesn't include his rank (just sub in Mr. for Colonel).

Maybe a better question is how does your FI like to be addressed in social settings? When people send you social mail like wedding invitations and cards, how do they address it? Or how much will the military be represented in your wedding?

kmmssg

I agree with @PDKH. In my experience, when I saw rank on the invitation it was a military wedding.  When I didn't see rank, the groom had chosen not to wear his uniform.  That isn't a hard etiquette rule, just my experience.

mysticl

kmmssg said:

I agree with @PDKH. In my experience, when I saw rank on the invitation it was a military wedding.  When I didn't see rank, the groom had chosen not to wear his uniform.  That isn't a hard etiquette rule, just my experience.

We didn't use rank but the wedding was in the base chapel and DH and the best man wore their dress blues. 

EAR123

Thanks for your comments. He will be wearing his military dress uniform (mess dress/black tie), but the wedding is not on base and will not include any other formal military customs.

Socially, no one calls him by his rank unless we are with other military people he outranks.

manateehugger

EAR123 said:

Thanks for your comments. He will be wearing his military dress uniform (mess dress/black tie), but the wedding is not on base and will not include any other formal military customs.

Socially, no one calls him by his rank unless we are with other military people he outranks.

Then yeah, just ask him what he's comfortable with. It really doesn't matter a whole lot - you can have formal invitations with or without his rank on there. 

If he's inviting a bunch of junior ranking people, he might want it on there. Or he just may not care. H outranked a lot of the guys who came to our wedding (mostly because they were a year or two behind him in ROTC), but they don't care about that among themselves.