How To Address Your Philadelphia Custom Wedding Invitations

Once your Philadelphia custom wedding invitations are all designed and printed, the last thing to do is send them off! To do that, you need to address them, either by hand, pre-printing your guests’ addresses on the envelopes or you can use a calligrapher. I do offer both envelope printing and calligraphy services.

However, if you have nice handwriting, and your guest list isn’t too big, address the envelopes yourself for a personal touch, using the following guidelines:

1. Determine Guests’ Relationships To One Another

Guests relationships to one another will determine how many invitations you send, and how you’ll address them. Roommates traditionally receive separate invitations, as do couples who live apart from one another. You only need to send one for couples who are living together.

2. Include Titles

Unless they are a doctor, military personnel, or an elected official, everyone should be referred to as Mr., Mrs., or Ms. on the invitation’s outer envelope. You can encompass children by addressing the envelope as “The Lastname Family”, or list them individually, using “Master” or “Miss”.

Titles like “Doctor” should be fully spelled out. All elected officials (other than the President) should be addressed with the prefix “The Honorable”.

3. Keep The Proper Order

The order in which you list people’s names on an envelope is as follows:

A married couple with the same last name: “Mr. and Mrs. Firstname Lastname”.

A married couple with different last names: Write the name of the person with whom you are closest first, or write them in alphabetical order.

An unmarried couple: The names can either be separated by a comma, or they can be given their own lines.

A family: Write the word ‘The’ followed by the family’s last name, or “The Family Lastname”.

For a more detailed look at how to address envelopes for wedding invitations, check out this slideshow from Real Simple. It has examples for possible scenario, including different title combinations, ages, divorced people, and more.

Photo by Ashley Bartoletti Photography