✦Aisle & After
Before it goes to print
the final readInvitation wording checklist
Read it once as a guest.
✦
You have read this wording forty times, which is exactly why you can no longer see it. Print the proof, sit down with this page, and read every line as somebody who has never heard of your venue and is trying to work out what time to leave the house.
Proof version and date
Checked by
Print deadline
Who and what
- Host line, if you are using one — and the right people on it, in the order they agreed to
- Both names, spelled and styled as each person intends them to appear
- Ceremony and reception clearly distinguished, so nobody arrives for one thinking it is the other
When
- Date
- Day of the week — and it genuinely is that day of that week, checked on a calendar
- Time
- Time zone, for streamed or destination events A guest joining a livestream from another country needs the zone. So does a guest booking a flight.
Where
- Venue name
- Full location — town, region, country — wherever a guest could plausibly go to the wrong one
- Second venue named if the reception is elsewhere
What the guest has to do
- RSVP method and deadline, both stated, both real
- Website or details card referenced, with the address written out correctly
- Dress guidance, only if it is genuinely useful “Black tie” is useful. “Garden party chic” makes eleven people text you.
- Accommodation and transport information, or a clear pointer to where it lives
- Accessibility information and a contact route for someone who needs to ask something quietly
- Child and plus-one wording handled privately where you can A line on a details card is workable. A line on the invitation itself is a public ruling on someone’s family.
The pass that catches the expensive mistakes
- Every name spelled the way that person spells it, including the ones you have known for twenty years
- Punctuation and capitalization consistent across invitation, details card and RSVP card
- Every fact proofed against the contracts — venue name, address, start time — not against your last draft This is the check. Your draft has been wrong since the venue moved the ceremony forward by half an hour in an email in March.
- A second person, who is not either of you, has proofread it cold
- The printer’s final proof approved in writing, after all of the above
Read it backwards. Start at the last line and work up. It breaks the rhythm your eye has memorised and is the fastest way to see a doubled word or a wrong numeral.
Sign-off
| Check | Who did it | Date | Anything still open |
|---|---|---|---|
| Facts against contracts | |||
| Second-person proofread | |||
| Printer’s proof approved |
A beautiful invitation can still send a guest to the wrong building. Facts get the final read.