How to Address a Wedding Invitation

I get the question “How to Address A Wedding Invitation” a lot from my clients, so I wanted to “address” it here for everyone’s reference! Addressing envelopes can be confusing since there are several different scenarios where different rules apply, but here are a few hard and fast rules that apply to every envelope that you address:

• Spell out the word “and.”
• Do not use initials
  • Example: “R. Reid Frankenberg” should be “Robert Reid Frankenberg”
• Use numbers only when writing house numbers and zip codes.
• Write out the words
  • Example: Street, Court, Avenue
• Do not abbreviate state names
  • Example: use Illinois, vs. IL

Now to the nitty gritty. There are several unique scenarios when addressing an envelope that raise questions. I tried to outline the most common ones below. A few fun facts before you dive:

• In the old-in-days “and” use to signify marriage, which is not necessarily the case any more.
• If the woman’s professional title outranks her husbands, her name should be listed first.
• In the case of same-sex married couples, the same rules apply as male and female marries couples #lovewins.
• And for a final fun fact, The first commercially made envelope was made in 1845 🙂

Here is a handy guide for most unique envelope addressing situations. If I did not list one you are curious about, please do ask me in the comments!