When you are planning for your wedding day, you will most likely take great care in every detail to make sure it goes well. When preparing your wedding invitations, proper etiquette should be considered along with all other things. Here are the top five general guidelines for ensuring proper etiquette for your wedding invitations.

Always Send Invitations Far In Advance

When sending out the invitations, be it email, phone, or regular mail, you need to make sure that all of your guests know far enough in advance to plan the time to attend; this is especially true if they are traveling some distance. Proper etiquette for wedding invitations suggests at least six weeks ahead and eight weeks as being ideal.

Know Your Guest List

The main event might become uncomfortable for some people if slight mistakes in the guest list are overlooked. It would not be proper etiquette for the wedding invitation to be addressed to Mr. and Mrs. if the couple is of the same sex. It would also not be adequate to invite divorced couples without warning the individuals that both have been invited.

Make Sure The Wedding Guests Make It Onto The Reception List

If you are having the wedding and reception separately, or on different dates, you will need to have two lists of guests for each event. Proper etiquette for wedding invitations requires two separate invitations. Be sure that all the guests you invited to the wedding ceremony are also invited to the reception so that no one feels they were not good enough for the festivities afterwards. Wedding reception invitation etiquette is simple; start with the ceremony guests first then add everyone else to the reception list.

Make Sure Guests Can RSVP

When sending out the wedding invitations you should make sure that the guests can get back to you with all the convenience possible. If you use proper etiquette for wedding invitations this should not be a problem. Enclose an RSVP card with the invitation. Make sure the RSVP has a stamp to mail with. If using email, use both an email address and land address for people not comfortable with email. Give people enough time to respond.

Don't Mix Formal And Informal Guidelines

If you start out using formal settings for the wedding and reception, it is common sense that you should use formal rules for the wedding invitations. Proper etiquette requires that more formal events use more formal procedures. An example would be not to email everyone about a church wedding. If in doubt, do research to find formal guidelines to help you.

These are just five of many tips for proper etiquette regarding wedding invitations. If you look around the internet, there are many more available. Simply knowing what you want and how to address it are the main aspects of deciding whether to go with formal or informal invitations.