Wording Etiquette for Wedding Invitations

When wording your wedding invitations the first and most important thing to consider is providing all the information that is needed to attend the wedding.

What needs to be on the invitation?
The basic information is: who is hosting the wedding (usually the parents names), who the wedding is for (bride and grooms names), day (i.e. Saturday) and date of wedding, time of wedding, location and address of wedding ceremony.
You will also want to include the reception information.
For example:

Reception immediately following the ceremony
The XYZ Country Club.
San Diego, CA

Here's one wedding invitation example:

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Mitchell
invite you to join them
in a celebration of love
as their daughter, Kara Lynnette
is united in marriage to
Mr. Daniel Robert Stevens
son of Mr. and Mrs. David Stevens
on Saturday, the eighteenth of June
two thousand and seven
at six o'clock in the evening
St. Luke's Church
San Diego, CA


Other parts of the invitation to consider are:

1. The reception card if your reception is at a location other than the ceremony or if the guest list for the ceremony is larger (or smaller) than that for the reception
2. An RSVP card & RSVP envelope
3. Directions to the church and reception
3. Inner envelope

Here are a few more things to consider that you may want to convey to guests:

Do you want to include children or will the wedding be for adults only?
It is not proper wedding invitation etiquette to address envelopes as Mr. and Mrs. Joe Smith and Family. Children living away from home or over the age of eighteen should receive their own invitation. If you don't want to send each child a separate invitation, you can write, Miss Jill Smith under the parents name. If you don't want children to be invited to the wedding, then do not add their names on the invitation. Parents will see the invitation as addressed specifically to them and hopefully will understand.