Wedding Invitation/reception card wording help

[espressa]

I''m getting the invitations printed tomorrow morning (we decided to DIY, and I''m taking the paper to Office Depot in the morning) and I have a few last minute things that I could use opinions on!

First, we''re getting married in Italy. On the actual invitation, I''m putting the full address for the town hall in Italy (including country, obviously). However, on the reception and accommodation cards I left off the country, because it seems superfluous to me. Example:

Town Hall Name
Street Name, 12
54321 City Name (Province)
Italy

Then, on everything else:

Name of The Place
Street Name, 34
12345 City Name (Province)

Look ok? Should I add Italy at the end of all of the addresses?

Next... On the reception card, we''re including information about the dinner and brunch we are also hosting. Here is what it looks like:

Please Also Join Us For...

Pre-Wedding Dinner:
Wednesday, October 8th, at 6:00 pm

Post-Wedding Brunch:
Friday, October 10th, from 9:00 to 11:30 am

Should it be "Please Also Join Us For A..." or instead have dinner and brunch say "A Pre-Wedding Dinner" etc.? Or leave it as is?

Next, does pre-wedding dinner and post-wedding brunch sound stupid? We didn''t want to call it a rehearsal dinner because we aren''t having a rehearsal, and everyone invited to the wedding is invited to the dinner. And I don''t know if there is a better thing to call the brunch.

Lastly, is "9:00 to 11:30 am" correct or should it be "9:00 am to 11:30 am"?

Thanks!

 

[Amandine]

Unfortunately, I don''t know how to answer your questions. But I did want to say that as a guest, I would be unsure of the time frame for the brunch. Does it mean that your guests can show up at any time during those hours, or do you want them to be there from 9am onward?

 

[espressa]

It''s supposed to mean that they can come anytime from 9 to 11:30. Do you think I should just put 9:00 am instead, and we can just let people know at the pre-wedding dinner that they don''t have to be there right on time?

And if we''re putting 9 am, is that too early to call it brunch? I''m wondering if maybe I should change the brunch to 10 am.

Thanks for the input, Amandine. It''s very helpful!

 

[newbie124]

I think 9 am might be a wee bit early to start brunch, especially if people are going to be out late celebrating at the wedding the night before. I think 10 am would be fine, and I''d probably leave off the end time.

"Post-Wedding Brunch" sounds fine. Instead of "Pre-Wedding Dinner" you could also just say "Welcome Dinner."

 

[basil]

We''re doing "Welcome Dinner" instead of rehearsal dinner. And "Open house brunch" to let people know they can come and go.

 

[espressa]

Thanks for the help, newbie and basil!

I agree, I think 9 is too early. I thought that from the beginning but FI didn''t want it to start late (to him, 10 is somehow late). I suppose I shouldn''t take FI''s suggestions too seriously though since he actually proposed having the two of us make the brunch the day after our wedding (for 30-some people). We''re getting a chef instead, lol.

I really like the idea of calling the dinner a welcome dinner, however, we are also having a "welcome dinner" earlier in the week for a smaller group of people. A welcome dinner comes included in the cost of the castle we''re renting out for the week, but that''s just for the 14 people staying in the castle. I didn''t want to confuse people by having two welcome dinners, but maybe that''s the best way to go.

 

[MMM]

what about calling the first "welcome dinner" something else. like, a wedding weekend kick-off dinner. but maybe something that sounds less like a tailgate.

i just do think that ''welcome dinner'' is more preferable than ''pre-wedidng dinner'' and so i would "save" that title for the party that will include all your guests and then find some 2nd best wording option for the dinner that only includes 14 guests.

 

[espressa]

MMM, thanks for the ideas. I wanted to do that but FI was pretty adamant that we not call it the welcome dinner, because we''ve already been calling the first dinner the welcome dinner to everyone we''ve mentioned it to (which is, basically, everyone invited to it) and also because by the time the pre-wedding dinner rolls around we will have already spent most of the week sightseeing with the majority of our guests (most are going to be there for the whole week). It wasn''t a battle I wanted to pick so I left it as is.

I did end up changing the brunch time to 9:30 though. That was the latest FI wanted to do it, and I really don''t care that much so it wasn''t worth arguing over. He did make a good point though that having it earlier is helpful for people who plan to go sightseeing that day, which makes sense. We''re going to plan on it lasting from 9:30 to noon and we''ll explain in our schedule of events that people don''t need to come that early, but they can if they want to. We''re having welcome baskets so we''re going to be including all of this information in that as well.

So the invitations are finalized, FI is taking them to be printed today so I''m hoping everything turns out ok. I''m just worried that they''re going to cut the invitations or inserts wrong. When we were there doing a test print the guy cut them for us really quick and they were totally off, but he wasn''t using their really good paper cutter. I included crop marks on everything though so I''m really hoping they will be much more precise on these. FI promised to stress how important it is that they are cut correctly ("I''ll just tell them that if they screw them up my fiancee will kill them" LMAO), and I typed up a whole page of directions so they don''t mess anything up.

Thanks everyone for your help. It''s crazy how all of these stupid details (which I''m sure no one else notices) give us so much stress!

We''re assembling them on Saturday (I''ve got 4 other people helping me! my family rocks) and I will be putting up lots and lots of pictures once they''re done.