---
title: 'Vow renewal invitation wording'
description: 'You are not getting married, you are saying it again on purpose. Wording for ten years, twenty five, and the ones that follow something hard.'
source: 'https://envelope.love/blog/vow-renewal-invitation-wording'
category: 'Wording'
published: '2026-08-06'
updated: '2026-08-06'
---

# Vow renewal invitation wording

You are not getting married, you are saying it again on purpose. Wording for ten years, twenty five, and the ones that follow something hard.

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

A vow renewal is a different occasion from a wedding, and wording it as a wedding is the mistake almost everyone makes. There is no proposal to announce and no news to break. Everybody reading already knows the two of you are married. What they do not know is why now.

That is the line the invitation is missing when it feels flat. Give the reader the reason, in one sentence, and the rest writes itself.

## The shape

1. Why now. An anniversary, a recovery, a move, a promise you never got to make properly.
2. What is happening. We are saying our vows again.
3. When and where.
4. Come, and tell us if you can.

## A round anniversary

> Twenty five years ago we said a few words in a register office with four people watching.
> We would like to say them again, with all of you there this time.
> Marianne & James Saturday 6 June, 3pm Hollow Farm, Petersfield

## The wedding you did not get to have

Common, and nothing to be shy about. Small ceremonies, difficult years and short notice have left a lot of couples with a marriage and no day.

> We got married in a hurry, in a room with a window that would not shut.
> We are doing it properly on the fourteenth, and it will not be the same without you.

## After something hard

Understatement does the work here. Say the smallest true version and let the people who know fill in the rest.

> It has been a long two years.
> We are standing up in front of everybody we love and saying the whole thing again.
> Please come.

## Words to change

Three habits carried over from wedding invitations that read oddly here.

- **Marriage.** You are not being married, so the word does not fit. Use *vows*, or *promises*, or just say what you are doing.
- **Bride and groom.** Use your names. You have had them for years.
- **Request the pleasure of your company.** Formal third person suits a ceremony where the hosts are the parents. Here it puts distance between you and people who have known you for decades.

## The two questions guests will have

**Is this a wedding?** Answer it without being asked. One line about the shape of the day tells them whether to expect an hour or a whole afternoon.

**Do we bring anything?** Almost nobody knows the etiquette for this, because there is not one. Say so plainly: *Nothing at all, please. You already gave us a toaster in 2001.*

Children, dress, timings and travel work exactly as they do for a wedding. If you are handling those, [writing an order of the day](https://envelope.love/blog/order-of-the-day) covers the practical half.

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