How to word a wedding invitation in Arabic, French and English

Who is named first

The first line says who is doing the inviting. In many Christian families in Lebanon the parents invite, and the couple appear as their daughter and their son. The bride’s parents traditionally lead, with the groom’s parents named after them or on a second line. When both sets of parents are named together, the card reads as one invitation from two households.

In many Muslim families the two families are named as families rather than as individuals: the family name on each side, then the marriage of their children. Older cards name the fathers. Couples who are paying for the wedding themselves, or who live abroad, often put their own names first and name the families in the line below. None of these is more correct than the others. Choose the one your guests expect to hear from, then keep it identical on the printed card, on the digital page and in the message you send on WhatsApp.

• Parents inviting: “Mr and Mrs [surname] request the honour of your presence at the marriage of their daughter [name] to [name], son of Mr and Mrs [surname].”
• Two families: “The [surname] family and the [surname] family have the honour to invite you to the wedding of their children [name] and [name].”
• Couple first: “[Name] and [name], together with their families, invite you to celebrate their marriage.”

The line “together with their families”

“Together with their families” is the line that settles most disagreements. It puts the couple first without leaving anyone out, and it does not force you to decide whose parents come first. It also works when a parent has passed away, when parents are divorced and remarried, and when the two families are of different confessions.

Keep the phrase short. It is a bridge, not a sentence of its own. If you want the families to carry more weight, name them on the line under the couple instead of in the opening. If you want the couple to carry it all, drop the line and name the families at the bottom of the card, under the venues.

• “Together with their families, [name] and [name] invite you to their wedding.”
• “[Name] and [name], with their parents, request the honour of your presence.”
• “Surrounded by their families, [name] and [name] are getting married.”

The formal register and the warm register

The formal register speaks in the third person. It uses full names, titles, no contractions, and the hour written out. It says request the honour of your presence rather than come. It suits a church ceremony, a large reception, and the elders on your list, who read a formal card as a sign that the wedding is being taken seriously.

The warm register speaks as the couple. Short first-person lines, first names, no titles. It works well on the digital page and in the WhatsApp message that carries the link. You can use both registers at once — a formal printed card and a warmer page — as long as the names, the date, the times and the places match exactly. Guests forgive a change of tone. They do not forgive two different times.

• Formal: “Mr and Mrs [surname] request the honour of your presence at the marriage of their daughter [name].”
• Formal: “The ceremony will be held at [church], [town], at [time], followed by a reception at [venue].”
• Warm: “We are getting married, and we would like you there with us.”
• Warm: “Come early, stay late. Ceremony at [time]; dinner at [venue] after.”

Naming the church, the mosque and the reception

Name the place the way a driver would need it: the name of the church and its saint, then the town or the neighbourhood. Saint [name] Church, [town]. If the religious ceremony is a katb el-kteb at a mosque, at a sheikh’s office or at home, name it as plainly: the marriage contract will be signed at [place], [town]. Give the ceremony its own time, and give it before the reception, because some guests come only to the ceremony.

Put the reception in its own block, with its own venue and its own time, so nobody reads one hour and arrives at the other place. Two venues in one day is normal here — a church in the village and a hotel in Beirut, a garden in Batroun, a venue in the mountains above Jounieh — and it is the most common cause of confusion on a card. A digital page can hold the whole schedule as a list of times and venues, with directions for each one that open in Google Maps or Waze, which saves the phone calls that start with where exactly.

• “Ceremony: [time], Saint [name] Church, [town].”
• “The marriage contract will be signed at [place], [town], at [time].”
• “Reception to follow at [venue], [town], from [time].”

A second ceremony or a second reception abroad

Many couples hold the ceremony in Lebanon and a second celebration in a Gulf city, in Europe, in Canada or in Australia — or the opposite, a civil marriage abroad and the real celebration at home. Whatever the order, each event needs its own wording, and each guest needs to know which one they are being invited to. Say the city and the date in the first three lines.

Avoid wording that ranks the two events. The celebration abroad is not a copy of the wedding, and the ceremony at home is not the only one that counts. A line like we are celebrating with our family and friends in [city] does the job without either implication. One digital page can carry both events in one schedule, and you can send each side the part that concerns them, so the cousins in Montreal are not reading times for a hall in Jounieh.

• “[Name] and [name] were married in [town] on [date]. We are celebrating with our family and friends in [city] on [day, date].”
• “Civil ceremony, [city], [date]. Religious ceremony and reception, [town], [date].”
• “This invitation is for the celebration in [city]. The ceremony in [town] will be for family only.”

Saying “adults only” without offending anyone

In Lebanon children come to weddings unless you say otherwise, and they come with the family. If you are not having children at the reception, say so once, early, kindly, and in exactly the same words to everyone. The offence almost never comes from the rule. It comes from finding out late, or from hearing that another cousin was allowed.

Put the line at the bottom of the invitation, near the reply, not next to your names. Give a reason that is about the evening rather than about the children. If you can, offer a middle path: the ceremony welcomes children and the reception is for adults, or a handful of children are named because they are in the wedding. Then say it again in the WhatsApp message you send each household, with the number of seats you have kept for them, and there is nothing left to guess.

• “We love your children. This evening we have planned for adults.”
• “Children are welcome at the ceremony. The reception is for adults.”
• “We have kept [number] seats for you at the reception, for adults.”

Asking for a reply by a date

Ask for three things: a reply, a date, and a number. The number matters more than the yes, because the venue and the caterer are counting seats, not households. Give the date as a real date and set it earlier than the day you actually need the count, because a share of the list will answer late no matter what you print.

Say how to reply, and keep it to one channel so the answers do not arrive across four phones. If the invitation is a page, the reply can sit on the page itself: the guest writes their name, says whether they are coming and how many, and the reply reaches you on WhatsApp as one written message. Keep the count in one sheet as the replies come in. You will still follow up in the last week. You will just be following up with fewer people.

• “Kindly reply before [date].”
• “Please tell us by [date] how many of you will be joining us.”
• “Reply on the invitation page, or by WhatsApp to [name], before [date].”

One invitation in three languages

A Lebanese guest list often needs Arabic for the grandparents, and French or English for the cousins who grew up elsewhere. On paper that means two sides of a card, or two print runs. On a page it means one link that opens in the language the guest chooses, with the same names, the same times and the same venues underneath.

Write each version natively. A wording that is translated word for word reads like a form: Arabic invitations use يتشرّف and يرجى تأكيد الحضور, French uses ont l’honneur and prient de bien vouloir, English uses request the honour of your presence. Keep one spelling for every name across all three versions, including the transliteration of family names, and check the date in each version against a calendar rather than against the other versions.

• Arabic: «يتشرّف السيّد [الاسم] وعقيلته بدعوتكم لحضور حفل زفاف ابنتهما [الاسم].»
• French: « Monsieur et Madame [nom] ont l’honneur de vous inviter au mariage de leur fille [prénom]. »
• English: “Mr and Mrs [surname] request the honour of your presence at the marriage of their daughter [name].”

Wordings you can copy, in all three languages

These cover the situations that come up most: a formal card from both sets of parents, a warm card from the couple, a card from the two families with a marriage contract and a reception, and a second celebration abroad. Each is written in its own language rather than translated, so you can send each guest the version they read, or put all three on one invitation. Replace everything in brackets, then read the whole thing out loud once. If a line is hard to say, it will be hard to read.

The WhatsApp message that carries the link

Most guests meet your invitation as a WhatsApp message before they see the page. That message is the envelope: short, warm, written to them, with the link on a line of its own so it stays easy to tap.

Send it from your own number, one household at a time if you can. A message that names the person is answered more often than one forwarded to a group, and it is where you say who the invitation is for. Put the reply date in the message too, because some guests will answer the message instead of opening the page.