Yet another response card wording question...

[ladypirate]

So I know there have been several of these threads in the past, but after searching I haven't been able to find an answer to my question.

We are going over our proofs for the invitations and we are trying to figure out how to word our response cards. Right now, they say:

We look forward to celebrating with you!

PLEASE RESPOND BY THE EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE

M_______________________________________

__ACCEPTING WITH PLEASURE

__DECLINING WITH REGRET


I'm wondering, though if it makes sense to say accepting/declining vs. accept or accepts/decline or declines. We did it this way because we felt like otherwise it wouldn't make sense for either single guests or couples/families. Does that makes sense? What did you guys do?

 

[LtlFirecracker]

Mine are very similar to your's in wording and has accept/decline

I am not sure which is correct, I suck at grammar. I just took the suggestion of the invite company on that one.

 

[Haven]

I would not use "accepting" or "declining" on your response card if your discomfort with "accept" or "accepts" is about using proper grammar. Adding -ing to the end of a verb turns it into the progressive tense*, which is grammatically incorrect in this case.

You could use:

M_______________________________________

__ACCEPT/S WITH PLEASURE

__DECLINE/S WITH REGRET


We didn't use either on our response cards because we simply sent a card that said "The favour of a reply is requested by the fifteenth of June" and left the rest of the card blank so people could write their own proper formal response. Had we gone with this even more modern type of response card I would have probably used the wording I suggested above.

ETA:
*Adding -ing to the end of a verb can also turn it into a gerund, but that's not the case here. I just wanted to add that info before anyone else came on here and said "Hey! You're wrong! It can become a gerund, as well!

 

[Rock_of_Love]

Yeah, I''m not liking the -ing either. You could either use the slash as mentioned above or parentheses.

___accept(s)
___decline(s)

Also, I would say "kindly reply by..." vs. "please respond by..." - to me it just sounds more elegant vs. demanding.

 

[PumpkinPie]

ditto the other two posters

 

[ladypirate]

Yeah, I guess I was thinking of it in terms of by sending this card, "___ is accepting with pleasure". I think I''ll go ahead and just use the parenthesis around the s at the end.

Thanks guys!

 

[ladypirate]

OK, one other question if anyone sees this. Our invitation wording is as follows:

MR. AND MRS. LP''S DAD''s NAME
REQUEST THE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY
AT THE MARRIAGE OF THEIR DAUGHTER

Ladypirate Middlename

TO

Fiance Middlename Lastname

SATURDAY, THE TENTH OF JULY
TWO THOUSAND TEN
FIVE O''CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

PLACE WE''RE GETTING MARRIED
WRITTEN OUT ADDRESS
CITY, STATE

RECEPTION TO FOLLOW

Now my question on that is should it say "Mr. Fiance Middlename Lastname"? If we do that, does the Mr. look weird?

Also, did you guys include the address of your venue? We could just say the venue name and the city and state, since it is a well known location, but many of our guests are from out of town. Also, it is in a small town outside of Portland rather than in Portland proper. If we just listed the city and state, could we put Portland rather than the name of the actual town? If you input our venue''s name with Portland rather than the actual town into any search engine or gps, it will take you to the right place (it''s only about 10 minutes outside of town).

Maybe I''m over thinking this, but I want the invitations to look nice since they are so darn expensive and we need to get them ordered in the next couple of days.

 

[vc10um]

LP, I''d leave Mr. off of ManPirate''s name.

Do you have a website? If so, I''d just put:

Venue Name
City, Oregon

and then you can put the full address as well as directions from Portland proper on your website.

 

[AustenNut]

I actually have a different response about the response cards.

I accept
We accept

Neither has an "s" at the end. The only thing that has an "s" is s/he accepts. Your guests are not expected to respond in the third person, so accept and decline should be fine without the (s).

As far as the Mr. goes, I agree with VC10um. Leave it off.

ETA: Neglected to see that you have them writing in their name and indicating if that person is attending, hence the 3rd person. So nix my advice above.

 

[Haven]

Even if you wrote "M_______ is accepting with pleasure" it would still be grammatically incorrect, so I think you're right to *not* use that version.

As for the "Mr." in front of your fiance's name, using "Mr." is traditionally used on formal invitations. It looks like you are following formal invitation standards for the rest of your wording, so I would include it. I don't know if you're having a formal wedding, though, so that is the most important thing to take into account, of course.

Our invitation read "Mr. Thenfiancefirst middle lastname" because we had a formal wedding. If we were having a semi-formal wedding, we wouldn't have included the title.

 

[caribqueen]

I didn''t realize that leaving out the "Mr." indicated a semi-formal wedding. Our wedding is formal, but we didn''t use the "Mr." because it didn''t seem to work as far as the symmetry and look of the invitation (in my opinion). Also, we used formal words spelled like "honour" and "favour" to indicate formalily. We also did include the address of the ceremony location on the invite.

 

[Haven]

caribqueen--I never said that leaving off "Mr." indicates a semi-formal wedding. I just said that *if* we had a semi-formal wedding, we would have left the title off of the invites.

It sounds like you have an otherwise formal invite (in appearance and wording) so I''m sure your guests will understand that you''re having a formal wedding. I imagine that most people won''t even notice that the title was omitted, anyway. The OP asked a question and I offered my version of the answer.

Different families have different expectations and traditions, anyway. Had we left off that particular title, my grandmother would have noticed it immediately, HOWEVER DH''s father wouldn''t be likely to notice either way.

 

[missjaxon]

I agree with Haven, she is always right on the money!

I must say that I always enjoy these types of threads because I really enjoy reading your replies Haven, you are very knowledgable in all things grammar!

 

[Haven]

Date: 4/19/2010 1:51:09 AM
Author: missjaxon
I agree with Haven, she is always right on the money!

I must say that I always enjoy these types of threads because I really enjoy reading your replies Haven, you are very knowledgable in all things grammar!

Why thank you, missjaxon.

I wish my students shared your sentiments!

 

[princessplease]

Here our ours, with the same tag line
I didn't care about grammar

with the (s) in parentheses