Wedding Invitation Wording Drama

Since your parents are paying they rightfully get the top billing. You could totally reword them to something less formal and not include any of your parents names, but then your parents may be upset.

How formal is your wedding? Do your parents care? If they don't, what harm does it do to put both sets at the top? If they do care I'd tell them that's what's traditional and suck it up.

It's too late to make any changes cuz they've been printed and sent out and our wedding is two months away. I explained to his mother that this wasn't intentional, I literally just googled some samples online and had my designer go off that. It just happened to be that some ppl told me after, that the way I picked it shows my parents are paying for it all. So his mother knows this to be true and I apologized, I'm just worried this will stir up family drama on his side when they see invites

Technically how you worded it was correct etiquette wise. I'm not sure his extended family will notice or care unless she makes a big fuss about it to them. However, if it would settle any drama and if your parents don't mind then change it.

ETA: just read your follow up. Since they are already printed there isn't much to do now. You have already apologized and explained that you never meant to hurt her so if any drama is started its solely on them and I would try to ignore it.

I don't really think that people pay that much attention to the wording on invites. And like the others said, your wording is correct from an etiquette standpoint. I doubt anyone else will interpret the wording as any kind of snub, and if they do....well first of all, they can go screw themselves. Second, they are just plain incorrect....jerks. lol

Thank you all so much! I just wish I knew better but it's not like I have experience writing wedding invites lol. I could see why she's upset but I'm hoping that IF by chance his family asks her why are they not mentioned as hosts; then she could explain to them that either it was an oversight or something more tactful (hopefully!!).

I used the exact same wording on my invites. My mother is paying for the wedding. I didn't have to include FH's parents at all but chose to honor them by including them on the invite. I actually don't understand why she is upset. If they contributed some of the 5% then the wording you used is still proper. Personally, she should be embarrassed for expecting to be right along side your parents as co-hosts.

I agree and that's what my friends have been saying, its just been stressing me out and I don't want my fiancée to think ill of me. She is still on the invite along with his father, so I just hope this feeling of hers blows over :-/

They're not hosting, she has no reason to be upset. That's just how it is.

Well, hello, namesake! :-)

Glad to see another one share my name on this board. Let's hope it doesn't get too confusing... :-)

Now, as far as your issue goes - I guess a good analogy would be to the movie industry. Would a movie producer get offended if another person got billed as "executive producer" in the movie credits, just because they were the ones who secured the funding for the movie?

I had a similar problem - my mother-in-law got upset because our invites were in the style "together with their families, bride and groom invite blah-blah-blah" - she thought they would be listed by name, like on traditional invites. She was telling me that "it's just not how it's done". My solution was to show her a bunch of samples of non-traditional invites to convince her that there are a million different ways to word invitations, and that we are still honoring them on the invite even if we didn't specifically list their names.

So your solution may be similar - just browse online for a bunch of samples of traditional invites, where the bride's family gets top billing. And show them to your future mother-in-law, explaining that your wedding is formal, and you wanted to make your invites adhere to the traditional, formal style. Tell her that in no way was this meant to hurt her, it's just how formal invites are usually styled. Also it might not be a bad idea to mention that you certainly plan on honoring them at the wedding somehow.

And, if she is the "lazy" type and the type that you expect to not care about the wedding details, you can tell her that since your parents are "hosting" (use that word instead of "paying"), they get to have all the headaches of planning a wedding, and she just gets to show up and enjoy. She might see that as a positive if you spin it correctly :-)

I never pay attention to that and never knew that's what the parents' names on there meant. I would just explain that when you were filling out the form on the website for the invitations, it had it worded that way.

Ahh this is one of the reasons I left the parents completely OFF of them. We did one that said "A friendship has grown into a love shared by two " or something like that. I also lost my mom as a kid, and it looked odd without her name on there. My father passed before the invites were mailed out, so it would have looked even odder to have his name on it. She needs to calm down and shut up. Whats the saying here " No pay, no say". IL's paid ZERO towards the wedding, except a few craft items for FG basket and pew bows. Did not even give us a card. So glad I left them off the invites, and yes they have money, more than my father had. He gave us some towards the wedding for my birthday last year.

Went through the same thing with FH's parents. My parents are paying for the entire wedding. His parents have graciously offered to host the RD. Our invitations do not have his parents' names on it at all- they are formal invitations for a black tie wedding, so we used the formal wording "Mr. and Mrs. (My Parents) request the favour of your presence at the marriage of their daughter etc etc"

FH's mother was extraordinarily insulted and made it known to us. I get it, but they're not paying and have not been involved in the planning process (even though they have been encouraged and we have tried including them) and my mother helped pick out the invitations. She wanted that wording, so we complied.

Sucks, but technically you are correct etiquette-wise and you were nice enough to include them at all.

Etiquette-wise, your invite wording is fine. If your parents are paying, then they get "the spotlight." I have a feeling this is how FH's mother is going to be. She'll want to be included on the invite in the same context of my family, but my family has been the only one to make a small contribution thus far. Our wedding is still a long way off so that could change, but - given her financial status - I doubt it.

I wouldn't worry too much. She will get over it. You did it all correctly.

As your parents are paying the wording is correct. If she is offended that is her issue. Perhaps she can do a fancy rehersal and take credit for something she is actually doing.

You didn't do anything wrong. It's too bad that she's offended, and I guess I get where she's coming from, but that doesn't make her right. She'll get over it, and I don't think too many people will notice when they get their invites. If they want to host the rehearsal dinner, that can be their thing and they can word those invitations however they want. Try not to stress about it too much!

Don't worry about it too much - you did exactly what I would have done. EVEN if your parents weren't supporting you financially they are still giving you away and that is the tradition. She will get over it, that is silly. Maybe FH can talk to her and make her understand?

We had a similar problem with our invitations the first set we ordered my fiance did so with out running them past his parents they didn't have any parents names on them at all. I think they said our names and something about shared adventures. His mother threw a fit that the parents weren't on the invitations. Neither his nor my parents are paying for our wedding it is all coming out of our pockets.We ended up fixing (reordering) (I wouldn't recommend doing so) our invites to say something about us and our parents without actually naming them as I have not talked to my father in years and didn't want him listed on the invitations and the whole finance issue. I was surprised that his mom didn't say anything about the second version.

My parents hosted 100% and their names were at the top of our invitation. We were thinking of doing the "son of his parents," below his name, but we didn't have an extra line to fit it.

Honestly, my father wasn't too keen on doing it that way, anyway, as all we got from his side was a lot of suggestions and a large guest list. His parents paid for the rehearsal dinner and issued those invitations in their names.

You're right, your FMIL is wrong. You can just tell her what my father always said, "No pay, no say!"