Guest Addressing Part 1 - Building Your List
One of the most frequently asked questions in regard to wedding invitations (other than how to word your invitations, which you can read about here), is how to appropriately address your guest envelopes in certain situations.
Think about this: you are going down your list and filling in all the names and addresses, feeling like this is such a breeze. "The Hardaway Family" - check, "Mr. and Mrs. James Wilson" - check, and then you run into an issue: Allison and Brad aren't married but they live together, and then right below them on the list you realize David is a doctor but his wife is not - how in the world are you supposed to know the correct way to address their envelopes?! No more wondering or worry after today, because we are going to settle those issues right now with this post so you can confidently address your guest envelopes going forward!
Single Friends
If you only wish to invite a single friend without a plus one -
Female: Miss Casey Waters
Male: Mr. John Davenport
If you wish to include a plus one -
Female: Miss Casey Waters and Guest
Male: Mr. John Davenport and Guest
Families
If you wish to invite the entire family and all children in the household are under 18, many times you can simply put "The Hardaway Family" and that works well! However, if you would like to be more clear and direct, you can make sure every family member is covered on the envelope by doing the following where the children's names go on a separate line below the parents’ names:
Mr. and Mrs. Tristan Hardaway
Janie and Christopher
Note: Every person over the age of 18 should receive his or her own invitation, even if living under the same roof as the parents. So if Janie and Christopher are 21 and 19, they would each receive his or her own invite which would be addressed like those of your single friends (see section above).
Dating Couples Living Together
This one may seem complicated on the surface, but it is actually quite simple. Depending on how formal your wedding, there are a few different options for how to approach addressing their envelopes. Let's use Allison Collins and Brad Thompson as an example:
Formal Wedding: Mr. Brad Thompson and Ms. Allison Collins (or if their names will not fit on one line you can list Mr. Brad Thompson on one line and list Ms. Allison Collins on the line directly below)
Semi-Formal (in-between option): Brad Thompson and Allison Collins
Casual: Brad and Allison
Married Couples with Different Last Names
This one is actually the same as dating couples living together because the naming structure has not changed. So you can refer to the above examples of dating couples and use the same addressing technique!
Same Gender Couples
If the couple does not have the same last name, you will order the names alphabetically by last name, either on the same line connected by "and" or on separate lines if the names will not both fit on one line:
Mr. Jordan Best and Mr. Anthony Meadows (alphabetized by last name)
Or if your wedding is really casual: Anthony and Jordan (alphabetized by first name)
If the couple does have the same last name, you have a couple of options:
Mr. Anthony Meadows and Mr. Jordan Meadows (alphabetized by first name)
Or simply "The Meadows"
Doctors, PhDs, or Reverends
This one always seems to make people nervous because they don't want to accidentally offend anyone, which is totally understandable! Those who hold certain titles have definitely worked hard for them, so you want to make sure you honor them appropriately when addressing their envelopes. For this example we will use David and Christine Garrison and walk through several different scenarios that you could potentially run into:
They are both Doctors, PhDs, or Reverends
Drs. Christine and David Garrison
Doctors Christine and David Garrison
The Doctors Garrison
The Reverends Christine and David Garrison
The Reverends Garrison
Note: If both spouses hold the designation, you typically list the wife's name first, as we did in the above examples. In addition, there is debate about whether it is appropriate to use Dr. for a PhD designation (it typically has been deemed appropriate), as well as whether to spell out "Doctor" for medical doctors and just use "Dr." for PhDs, but in reality, your point will come across just fine if you have some form of Doctor/Dr. on the envelope, so don't stress about it too much!
Only the wife is a Doctor, PhD, or Reverend
Dr. and Mr. David Garrison
Doctor and Mr. David Garrison
Dr. Christine and Mr. David Garrison
Doctor Christine and Mr. David Garrison
The Reverend Christine and Mr. David Garrison (or drop Christine here if you would like!)
Only the husband is a Doctor, PhD, or Reverend
Dr. and Mrs. David Garrison
Doctor and Mrs. David Garrison
The Reverend and Mrs. David Garrison
Note: You list the spouse with the professional designation first.
Doctors with different last names (either spell out Doctor or use Dr.)
Dr. Christine Loughlin and Dr. David Garrison (or list their names on separate lines if both names will not fit on one line)
How to Collect and Format Guest Addresses
Aside from figuring out the naming conventions, another challenging part of wedding planning can be getting the information you need from your guests in order to actually invite them. If you have several addresses you need to collect, I recommend breaking up the list among you, your fiancé, and your families. For example, you can reach out to your friends (via text or email), your fiancé reaches out to his, and your families reach out to their friends and family members. This relieves you as the bride from having to collect everything. You could also just type up an email and send it out requesting addresses, but that also requires gathering everyone's email address to do so - it may just be easier to break up the list among your wedding planning crew!
Once you hear back from everyone (it may take repeated requests), you can begin formatting your addresses for printing. I always provide my clients with a spreadsheet template, but it is really quite simple to setup:
Column A: Name (as you would like it to appear on the envelope - The Eubanks Family, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Eubanks, etc.)
Column B: Address 1 (Main Street Address)
Column C: Address 2 (Apartment or Suite Number, if applicable)
Column D: City
Column E: State (abbreviation or full state name depending on your envelope design)
Column F: Zip Code
Note: Sometimes you may have foreign country addresses - you can make a note for your stationer and leave these out separately to be manually added in since they do not usually correspond perfectly to the US setup.
I hope this is helpful to you as you begin building your guest address list! If there is something I haven't covered that you have a question about certainly let me know - I'll be glad to answer you and then update this post accordingly!
Be sure to check out Guest Addressing Part 2 which is all about printing your guest addresses on your invitation envelopes!
