Envelope Etiquette and Creating Your Guest List
In addition to my other roles and responsibilities on our clients’ wedding day, as Studio Manager for Rebecca Rose Events, I am responsible for guest list management. This means that I help guide our clients through the process of creating their list, as well as provide etiquette advisement and ensure all necessary elements are organized and ready to go for their “Save the Date” and invitation mailings. I’m here today to share some helpful insight on creating a guest list for your wedding, as well as a few tips on proper etiquette for addressing your guests’ envelopes.
Heather Beerman
Who to Invite
Inviting your closest friends and family is an easy decision, but selecting other guests who will attend your wedding can be a bit more difficult. When it comes down to making cuts, we advise our clients to ask themselves two simple questions:
Would we call this person on a Friday night and invite them to our home for dinner?
Would we be likely to do that five or ten years from now?
If your answer to both of these questions is a “no” or you’re unsure, then you should not feel inclined to invite them to your wedding. Ultimately, your wedding day will be one of the most important and special days of your life. Your day will feel most meaningful when shared with those you are closest with!
Creating Your List
We recommend starting your guest list template as a spreadsheet in an Excel file. This is an easy and simple way to keep things organized. In addition to the general information, such as first and last names and addresses, we also find that it is helpful to include phone numbers and email addresses. This can be a tedious process, but we promise it’ll be so worth it to have all of this information at the ready when you need it - particularly if and when navigating any changes due to COVID regulations.
Grab our free guide to creating your guest list here!
Etiquette & Template Specifics
When setting up your spreadsheet’s Column Headings, there are three columns we recommend you include. First is an “Informal Combined/Save the Date” column which is where you will list names as you would like them to appear on your “Save The Date” envelopes. It is perfectly fine for your “Save the Date” mailings to be much more informal than your wedding invitations. For example; they could say “Deb and Phil Smith” or “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”.
The next column we recommend including is a “Formal Combined/Invitation Mailing” column. This is where the formality of your event will be shown. You will want to be much more formal by including proper titles and full names. For example: “Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lewis Smith”.
The last column we recommend including is your “Inner Envelope” column. The Inner envelope allows, from an etiquette standpoint, a way to properly convey whether or not children are invited. For example, your inner envelope could say: “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” followed by their children’s names on the next line in birth order (if invited). If you do plan to invite children, be sure to include “Children’s Names in Birth Order” as a column heading. An Inner envelope is also a great way to convey whether someone is welcome to bring a guest. You would simply add “and guest” if you are allowing a single person to bring someone. However, if a guest is dating someone seriously, their significant other’s name should appear on both the inner and outer envelope and not simply as “and guest” on the inner envelope.
Proper Etiquette for Formal Addressing
There are a number of etiquette guidelines to keep in mind for formal invitations. A few examples include:
Children over the age of 18 years of age should receive their own invitation, even if they have the same address as their parents.
A Medical Doctor is listed as “Doctor” whereas someone who holds doctorates in academia or research positions should be listed as “Dr.”
"Miss" is appropriate only for unmarried women under the age of 18. If a woman is over the age of 18 and unmarried, her title would be "Ms."
These are just a few examples of the many tips for wedding guest list and addressing etiquette! If you are tackling this on your own, we highly recommend investing in a copy of The Blue Book of Stationery by Crane & Co., or, of course, since etiquette advisement is a core part of the Rebecca Rose Events planning process, we would be thrilled to work with you!
