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Wedding Etiquette Forum

Wedding Invitation Etiquette for a "modern" family when all names can't fit on invite

My fiancee and I would like to recognize both sets of our parents for their contributions for our wedding; however we are responsible for well-over half of the wedding.  According to  wedding invitation etiquette, our invite should read something like:

Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Burch
Mr. and Mrs. John Albert Smith
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Anna Grace Smith...


However, my parents are divorced AND have a different last name, so we are having trouble fitting the following even when decreasing the font size and if we can't fix it, we can't order the invites we want.

Mrs. X and
Mr. John Does
Mr. and Mrs. John Smith
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Anna  Smith
...

Anyone have any recommendations on the most formal way to revise this? The other option would be to go with the following because we are paying for over half of the wedding but it won't really make our names stick out on the invite:

 

Ms. Heather Marie Smith
and
Mr. Michael Francis Jacobson
together with their parents
Mrs. John L. Smith and Mr. XX &
Mr. and Mrs. Mark Franklin Jacobson
request the pleasure of your company
at their wedding
Saturday, the seventeenth of May
two thousand and eight
at half past four in the afternoon.

Re: Wedding Invitation Etiquette for a "modern" family when all names can't fit on invite

  • I'm a little confused. Do you want both yours and your fiance's parents as hosts on the invite? It's not terribly complicated to do that:

    Ms. Bride's Mom
    Mr. Bride's Dad
    Mr. and Mrs. Groom's Parents
    request the pleasure of your company
    at the marriage of their children
    Bride Full Name
    and
    Groom Full Name
    Date
    Time
    Venue
    City, State
  • "Together with their families" is probably the best route for you to take.

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  • edited April 2012
    In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_wedding-invitation-etiquette-for-a-modern-family-when-all-names-cant-fit-on-invite?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:a41584a1-d5ec-4637-899e-82c382d74876Post:2708053d-09b7-4084-8e03-0e801f33cd5b">Wedding Invitation Etiquette for a "modern" family when all names can't fit on invite</a>:
    [QUOTE]My fiancee and I would like to recognize both sets of our parents for their contributions for our wedding; however we are responsible for well-over half of the wedding.  According to  wedding invitation etiquette, our invite should read something like: Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Burch Mr. and Mrs. John Albert Smith request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Anna Grace Smith... However, my parents are divorced AND have a different last name, so we are having trouble fitting the following even when decreasing the font size and if we can't fix it, we can't order the invites we want. Mrs. X and Mr. John Does Mr. and Mrs. John Smith request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Anna  Smith ... Anyone have any recommendations on the most formal way to revise this? The other option would be to go with the following because we are paying for over half of the wedding but it won't really make our names stick out on the invite:   Ms. Heather Marie Smith and Mr. Michael Francis Jacobson together with their parents Mrs. John L. Smith and Mr. XX & Mr. and Mrs. Mark Franklin Jacobson request the pleasure of your company at their wedding Saturday, the seventeenth of May two thousand and eight at half past four in the afternoon.
    Posted by Rebecca Mazzullo[/QUOTE]




    Use a different font/ color/ font size for your names and they'll stick out no matter how you end up phrasing your invite. There are a lot of very beautiful things you can come up with just with some creative typography
  • We said "together with their parents" but didn't name who the parents were, because fairly, seven different people deserve the honor. 
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  • If you want to list the names, don't put an "and" between your parents--"and" implies married.  I don't think it should be that difficult to put all that on the invitation, if you'd rather name names rather than use "together with their parents."
  • If it's not feeling/ looking right on the invite, you could always do something special in the program .
  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_wedding-invitation-etiquette-for-a-modern-family-when-all-names-cant-fit-on-invite?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:a41584a1-d5ec-4637-899e-82c382d74876Post:4e2f4309-d895-4339-9c95-18257af83ad5">Re: Wedding Invitation Etiquette for a "modern" family when all names can't fit on invite</a>:
    [QUOTE]In Response to Wedding Invitation Etiquette for a "modern" family when all names can't fit on invite : Use a different font/ color/ font size for your names and they'll stick out no matter how you end up phrasing your invite. There are a lot of very beautiful things you can come up with just with some creative typography
    Posted by laurenlizzyb[/QUOTE]

    Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think this would look terrible!

     My vote is for "together with their families".
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  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_wedding-invitation-etiquette-for-a-modern-family-when-all-names-cant-fit-on-invite?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:a41584a1-d5ec-4637-899e-82c382d74876Post:e81f51b8-c044-4190-91ca-448a57bf6d9f">Re: Wedding Invitation Etiquette for a "modern" family when all names can't fit on invite</a>:
    [QUOTE]In Response to Re: Wedding Invitation Etiquette for a "modern" family when all names can't fit on invite : Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think this would look terrible!  My vote is for "together with their families".
    Posted by SugarFoote[/QUOTE]<div>
    </div><div>Have you really never seen an invitation with names or other words in a different typeface than the rest of the text? It's really common and really pretty. My invitation suite has three fonts, and it looks lovely.

    </div>
  • On mine I did

    Mr & Mrs J Brown
    And Mr. J Smith
    Request the honor
    blah blah blah
    A. Smith
    to
    B. Black
    Son of
    Mr & Mrs. D Black

    As my parents are divorced and my mom has been with my step dad for 20+ yrs. however, my mom and step dad has different last names and my mom told me for simplicity sake to put her with the same last name as my step dad since they go socially by it even though they aren't technically married.
  • In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_wedding-invitation-etiquette-for-a-modern-family-when-all-names-cant-fit-on-invite?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:a41584a1-d5ec-4637-899e-82c382d74876Post:0d75d874-8163-47e4-89e6-84c98cf37c14">Re: Wedding Invitation Etiquette for a "modern" family when all names can't fit on invite</a>:
    [QUOTE]In Response to Re: Wedding Invitation Etiquette for a "modern" family when all names can't fit on invite : Have you really never seen an invitation with names or other words in a different typeface than the rest of the text? It's really common and really pretty. My invitation suite has three fonts, and it looks lovely.
    Posted by LeiselEB[/QUOTE]

    Mine too... and I believe it is very trendy right now.  Given my age (late 20s) and the size of my family (1,000,000,000,000 lol) I think I might get a wedding invitation every other day... so I see a lot of them and like me, plenty of people are going with what would be an otherwise plain invitation and using typography to acheive the "look" they want.  I've seen this done for very formal affairs to backyrd bbq weddings and each used typeface to convey the type of celebration they were throwing very, very well.
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