September and October have quietly become the busiest months for UK weddings. Cheaper than August, better light for photographs, and nobody sweating through a morning suit.
The messages want to be a little different too. A summer wedding card can get away with sunshine metaphors. An autumn one that leans on "new beginnings" and falling leaves ends up sounding like a card about endings, which is not the note you want.
Here is the range, from short and safe to the ones worth writing.
The short and genuinely good
Most wedding card messages are too long. Two sentences that mean something beat six that do not.
- "Congratulations to you both. Today was exactly as lovely as everyone said it would be."
- "So happy for you. Thank you for a day we will be talking about for years."
- "To the two of you, and to whatever comes next. Have all of it."
- "Married! Delighted. Long overdue."
If you know them well
Specific beats poetic, every time. Name something only you would know.
- "I have watched you two become steadily more yourselves since the day you met. Whatever that is, keep doing it."
- "Twelve years, three houses, one extremely difficult cat. About time."
- "You are the only couple I know who genuinely make each other laugh at breakfast. That is the whole thing, really."
- "Thank you for making today feel like a good party rather than an event we had to attend. That takes work and it showed."
If it is formal, or you do not know them well
A colleague, a cousin's wedding, a plus-one where you have met the couple twice.
- "Wishing you both a very happy marriage and every good thing that comes with it."
- "With warmest congratulations on your wedding day."
- "Delighted to have been part of the day. Wishing you both every happiness."
Short is entirely fine here. Nobody expects a stranger to be moving.
If they have been together a long time already
Increasingly common, and a lot of standard wedding wording sits awkwardly on it. "The start of your journey" is odd for two people who bought a house in 2019.
- "Not a new beginning. Just an official one. Congratulations."
- "You have been married for years. Today the paperwork caught up."
- "Congratulations on finally getting round to it. Worth the wait."
If there are children already
Say so, warmly, rather than writing around it.
- "Congratulations to all four of you."
- "A great day for your family, which was already a family, and now has better photographs."
What to avoid at an autumn wedding
Season metaphors that turn morbid. "As the leaves fall" and "as the nights draw in" both start somewhere lovely and land somewhere bleak. Autumn imagery is about endings whether you intend it or not.
"Mr and Mrs" if you have not checked. Plenty of people do not change their name, and plenty of couples are not a Mr and a Mrs. Their names are on the invitation. Use those.
Marriage advice. Unless it was asked for, or you have forty years of your own to point at, it reads as slightly smug. The exception is one line, funny, self-deprecating.
Anything about children next. Even lightly. You do not know what the last two years have held.
The practical bits
How much to give. There is no rule, and anyone who tells you there is has invented it. In the UK, £50 per person attending is a common middle. £25 is completely acceptable, particularly if you have paid for travel and a hotel to be there. The couple has spent more on your dinner than you are giving, and they knew that when they invited you. They invited you anyway.
Write the envelope before the day, not at the reception with a borrowed biro on a table covered in glasses.
Sign both your names in full if the couple only knows one of you well. "Love from Sam and Priya" is more use in six months than "love Sam and P x".
Put the date in. Cards get kept in a box and pulled out on anniversaries. A date turns a nice message into a record.
If you are sending rather than handing it over, a printed card can be posted to you first so you can bring it to the day, which avoids trusting a venue post tray with a card that has money in it.
For a summer wedding the register is slightly different, and what to write in a summer wedding card covers that. More across every occasion.
