---
title: 'Anniversary party invitation wording'
description: 'Wording for a fortieth, a sixtieth, one thrown by the children, and a quiet one for two. Including the line that gets the older guests to reply.'
source: 'https://envelope.love/blog/anniversary-party-invitation-wording'
category: 'Wording'
published: '2026-08-11'
updated: '2026-08-11'
---

# Anniversary party invitation wording

Wording for a fortieth, a sixtieth, one thrown by the children, and a quiet one for two. Including the line that gets the older guests to reply.

This is the plain markdown copy of https://envelope.love/blog/anniversary-party-invitation-wording, published by Love Envelope for machine readers. The page itself carries the same words.

An anniversary invitation has a problem the others do not. The guests already know each other, they have been to a version of this before, and half of them will assume it is casual unless told otherwise.

So the invitation has two jobs. Mark the number, and be unambiguous about the shape of the day.

## Thrown by the couple

> Forty years.
> We are having everybody over, the way we did for the twenty fifth, only slower.
> Marianne & James Sunday 14 June, from one o’clock Hollow Farm, Petersfield

## Thrown by the children

The most common version, and the one where the wording usually goes wrong, because the hosts write about their parents rather than to the guests.

> Our parents have been married for fifty years, which we think deserves a lunch.
> Please come and surprise them.
> For Marianne and James Whitfield Sunday 14 June, 12.30 The Anchor, Bristol
> Reply to Eleanor, and not to them.

That last line is doing real work. Without it, a third of the replies go to the people the party is for.

## A quiet one

> Ten years, and we would like to spend the evening of it with the eight of you.
> Dinner at ours, Saturday the ninth, 7.30.

## The number, and what it lets you say

Anniversary invitations are one of the few places where a small piece of trivia genuinely earns its space, because it gives you a first line.

- **Tenth, tin.** Ten years, and still not dented.
- **Twenty fifth, silver.** Silver, and none of it polished.
- **Fortieth, ruby.** Forty years, one house, four children, no regrets on record.
- **Fiftieth, gold.** Half a century of putting up with each other.

One line only. A whole card built on the metal becomes a greetings card.

## Getting a reply out of an older guest list

This is the practical difference between an anniversary and a wedding. A proportion of your guests will not fill in a form, and telling them to is not going to change that.

Two things fix most of it. Give a phone number as well as whatever else you offer, and name a person to ring rather than a household. *Ring Eleanor on 07700 900 118* gets answered. *RSVP* does not.

Then treat the phone replies as part of the same list rather than a pile of notes on the counter. Whoever is collecting them should add each one wherever the rest are being kept, on the day it comes in. More on the mechanics in [collecting replies without chasing anyone](https://envelope.love/blog/collect-rsvps-online).

## Gifts

By an anniversary, nobody needs anything at all, and the guests know it. This is the one occasion where *no gifts* is completely believable, so say it and be done.

> Absolutely nothing, please. Bring a photograph of us from any year and we will call it even.

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