Wedding Invitation Wording

abartosavage

I am needing some advice on wording for the invitaions for my wedding in september. Its a casual wedding and i am only wanting to invite close family to the ceremony due to space and we are going to have about 100 more people to the reception. i want to send out 1 invitation to everyone but am having a hard time wording it.

SlothGoals

You're having a hard time wording it because it can't be done. There's no polite way to tell people where the ceremony and reception are but that only some are invited to the ceremony.

itzMS

You spread the news about the ceremony via word of mouth to your VIPs (should be less than 20 people). I don't understand the fascination with private ceremonies in general, but I digress. The last "private ceremony" invitation I got went something like this.

Katie Ann Williams
and
Mark Thomas Smith

will be married in a private ceremony
Saturday, the twenty first of September
two thousand and thirteen

please celebrate with us at our reception
following the ceremony
five o'clock

XYZ Venue
St Louis, Missouri

daria24

Private ceremonies are OK, etiquette-wise, if they are truly private. Parents, siblings + SOs, maybe a close friend or two=OK. But inviting 50 people to the ceremony and 100 to the reception=not OK. 

CMGr will give you the wording, but the proper thing to do is send everyone an invitation to the reception celebrating your marriage, and then you provide an insert for those invited to the ceremony with the ceremony information.