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Guides to the wording, and to the day itself

These articles answer the questions that turn up between “we are getting married” and “how many are actually coming”: what to write, when to send it, how to collect replies, and how to seat everyone.

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All articles
Wedding
Invitation wording
Planning
Christening
Guests
Birthday
RSVP
Civil ceremony
Seating plan

From the journal

Articles: 8
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Christening · Invitation wording

Christening invitation wording: 28 examples to copy

Twenty-eight wordings you can copy, for the child's name, the parents, the godparents, the church time and the lunch after, plus secular naming ceremonies, dedications and the joint christening of two children.

Wedding bands and a water drop, line drawing on a cream ground

Wedding · Christening

Wedding and christening invitation wording — 27 examples

Two celebrations, one day, one invitation. Here is how to word the opening, name the child beside the couple, lay the hours out in order, and tell a guest they are invited to only part of it.

An outlined number 18 inside a circle, on a cream ground

Birthday · Invitation wording

18th birthday invitation wording — 22 lines you can copy

Twenty-two lines you can lift straight into the page, plus the parts an eighteenth usually gets wrong: the hour it ends, the door policy, what to say about the bar, and how your parents fit in.

A calligraphic signature above a line, on a cream ground

Civil ceremony · Invitation wording

Civil ceremony invitation wording — 26 texts to copy

A civil ceremony fills a small room for fifteen minutes. Here is how to word the invitation to it — the quiet wedding now, the ceremony-then-lunch, the witnesses you ask, and the announcement that follows an elopement.

A clock face with drawn hands, on a cream ground

Wedding · Planning

When to send wedding invitations — the whole timeline

The five dates between the save-the-date and the venue's final headcount, with the interval that belongs to each, what happens when you get it wrong, and how a link changes the arithmetic.

List rows with bullet points, line drawing on a cream ground

Wedding · Guests

How to build a wedding guest list — and how to cut it

The order the list is actually built in — capacity first, names second — with the household row that keeps the count honest, the wording for plus-ones and children, and what the finished list hands to the venue.

An envelope with a confirmation check, line drawing on a cream ground

RSVP · Guests

RSVP wording — the ask, the reminder and the decline

The exact words for asking people to reply, for chasing the ones who never did, and for turning an invitation down kindly, plus what a reply has to collect before it is any use to you.

A round table with eight seats around it, line drawing on a cream ground

Wedding · Seating plan

Wedding seating plan — tables, the top table, who sits where

What has to be true before you start, how many people actually fit at a table, where the parents and the children and the colleagues go, and the numbers your venue will ask for a week beforehand.

Who these are written for

For the person doing the organising, not for someone reading about organising. Every article starts from a question you ask once in your life and nobody answers properly: how to word an invitation when the couple are already parents, what to do about the guests who never reply, how many seats to leave spare so the plan survives the morning of the wedding. They are long because the short answer already exists on ten other sites and helps nobody.

What is in each one

Wording you can copy, not principles. The wording guides carry dozens of ready-written lines, grouped by the parts an invitation actually has — who is hosting, the request, the ceremony, the reception, the closing — with a note on which situation each one suits. The rest carry the messages that usually go missing: the one that asks for a reply, the one that chases it without nagging, and the one a guest can use to decline gracefully. Written by the team that builds the product, and corrected when reality disagrees with them.

The wording, ready to use

Write it on your own invitation.

Pick the event, open a design with your names in it and write the wording straight into the page, with ready-made options next to every field. You pay only when you publish.

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