How Does Wedding Invitation Etiquette Handle The Deceased Parents Of The Groom?

There is a traditional format for the first item that your guests will ever see, your wedding invitation. With so many families fitting into categories other than the traditional mom, dad, and kids.

There have been adjustments made to wedding invitation etiquette to accommodate deceased parents, divorced parents, both sets of parents as hosts, and the couple as hosts. In the traditional format, the wedding invitation etiquette is as follows:

• The first line includes whoever the host may be.
• The second line is the request and can be formal such “requests the honor of your presence
  
  

  Photo Credit: Flickr american_wedding[/add_caption_link]

  at the wedding of” or informal such as “invites you to celebrate the wedding of”.
• The third line explains the relationship between the host and the bride or groom (i.e. their daughter, their son, etc.)
• The fourth line will be the bride’s first and middle name only. Her last name is implied since traditionally it is her parents who are hosting the ceremony.
• This line is followed by “to” on a line by itself.
• The sixth line has the title, first, middle, and last name of the groom.
• The seventh line names where the ceremony will take place.
• The eighth line has the date with everything spelled out; there should be no numbers or abbreviations.
• The ninth line has the time, which is also spelled out.
• The tenth line explains what type of reception there will be. For example, if children should not attend the reception, you may want to put “A reception for the adults”.
• The last line should explain where the reception will be held and a time if it is not immediately after the ceremony.

If the bride’s parents are hosting the ceremony, there is no need to change anything for the deceased parents of the groom. As a matter of fact, it actually is not proper wedding invitation etiquette to include the deceased parents of the groom nor of the bride.

However, many couples want to honor their loved ones and choose to ignore this etiquette guideline in order to include their loved one in their special day.

If the groom’s deceased parents were to be included on the invitation, the words “the late Mr. and Mrs. John Smith” would be the correct format. This line would be under the bride’s parents with “and” between the lines.

Since wedding invitation etiquette is based on the accepted norms, we can see through the trends of adjustments that deceased parents can be added if the couple so chooses.

If only one of the parents is deceased, the proper wording would be the living parent’s name “and the late” with the title and name of the deceased parent.

Typically, in a case like this the couple is hosting their own ceremony and the invitation will have “together with their parents” beneath their names so that it is more appropriate to include the decease parent as a host.

There is no reason that a deceased parent cannot be added even if wedding invitation etiquette for the situation declares otherwise. Parents are always important on a wedding day, even if they can’t be there in body.

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