English-Vietnamese Invite Wording

lanncredi

My fiance and I originally planned to do a bi-lingual wedding invitation (in Vietnamese and English) but his parents told us that they want the invitation in English only.  However, they basically want to translate the traditional Vietnamese wedding invitation into English and I'm not sure exactly how to do this.  Specifically they requested that the invitation be worded as to come from the parents and to leave a blank within the invitation for each guest's name to be filled in.

Does anyone have any advice about how to do this so it won't look funny/make sense while keeping the elements of a traditional Vietnamese wedding invitation?  Any examples?

Thanks so much!

quyencong

AP printing should have some samples for you.  Here's a link to one with Engish translation.  Good luck!

http://ap-printing.com/?module=shopping&a=invitation_detail&invitation_name=
v1883&blank=N

lanncredi

Thank you!

clearheavens

imo, I think the English and the Vietnamese sound very different from each other.

The Vietnamese one, for example, names the two sides of their families and their mailing addresses or at least their hometowns.  It also mentions the wedding ceremony as a generic "ceremony" no matter if it takes place in a temple, church, or a non-religious setting.  It also states something like "have the honor of announcing the marriage of their children..." instead of "request the honor of your presence (religious)/pleasure of your company (non-religious..." because in the Vietnamese culture an invitation is an announcement regardless of who is host and in the American culture the invitation states who is hosting by listing the host at the top of the invitation.  So you can see, there are different vibes between the English and the Vietnamese wording.

For example, there is no Vietnamese translation for these English wordings for a traditional Catholic wedding.

Overall, I recommend that you do both English and Vietnamese wordings.  I hope this helps!

The honor of your presence is requested
at the celebration of the Nuptial Mass as
[bride's name]
&
[groom's name]
are united in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony
on [date & time]
[church]

Mr. and Mrs. [bride's parents]
request the honour of your presence
at the Nuptial Mass uniting their daughter
[bride's name]
&
Mr. [groom's name]
son of Mr. and Mrs. [groom's name]
in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony
on [date & time]
[church]

Together with their families
[bride's name]
&
[groom's name]
request the honour of your presence
at their marriage in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony
and the celebration of the Nuptial Mass
on [date & time]
[church]