Wedding Invitation Q&As

Composing wedding invitations involves complex-and beautiful-etiquette guidelines. We RSVP to your urgent questions.

Charitable Donations in Lieu of Gifts

Q: My fiancé and I would like our guests to make donations to two of our favorite charities in lieu of giving us gifts. How should we share this information with them? Would an insert in the invitations be appropriate? —Raleigh, North Carolina

A: It’s very generous of you to request that your guests give to charitable organizations. The best way to inform your guests is by word of mouth, since gift giving is never mentioned in the wedding invitation. You can, however, set up a wedding website and in that way let guests know your preferences. Share some information about your favorite charities and the reason why you have selected them. Include the addresses where the donations can be sent, as well as links to the charities’ websites. On your wedding invitation you can then write, “For more information about our wedding, please visit (give your website name).” You can also create a registry of your charities with the I Do Foundation and JustGive. Go to idofoundation.org and justgive.org for more information.
 

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I have a few friends who included a Save the Date magnet in their wedding announcements. It was pretty helpful - I attached the invitation to my fridge using the magnet provided, and then on the day of the wedding, when I was scrambling to get out the door on time, I was able to quickly locate the invitation for directions. For my Save the Dates, I did a postcard. However, I still like the idea of including a magnet in the actual invitations. My invitations will have a pocket for the RSVP card, and I was thinking of including a magnet of my fiance and I there. Would this be OK, and if so, what would be the proper wording on the magnet at this point - would "Save the Date" still be OK?