---
title: 'Engagement party invitations'
description: 'Send an engagement party invitation as one link. Six designs, replies collected, nothing printed.'
source: 'https://envelope.love/engagement-party-invitations'
occasion: 'Engagement party'
price: '$100'
---

# Engagement party invitations.

The first thing you send as a couple. One link, one evening, and a number back before you have to book anything.

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

An engagement party invitation is the least formal one you will ever send and by some distance the most pleased with itself. Nobody expects letterpress for drinks in a room above a pub, and half the guest list heard the news in a group message anyway.

What you do need is a date that sticks and a number to give whoever is feeding everybody. A link does both. It goes out in the same conversation the news went out in, it opens as something that looks like an occasion rather than a calendar entry, and it answers back.

It is also a rehearsal for the bigger list. Most of the people invited here will be invited to the wedding, so the guest list you build now is the one you start from later rather than a list you write out twice.

## What is different about this one.

It is the only invitation of the four that is allowed to sound exactly like the two of you.

- **It can be casual.** Drinks, a garden, somebody kind lending their kitchen. The wording should read the way you actually talk, and the lightest of the six designs will carry it better than the most formal one.
- **It might be the announcement.** If everybody has not heard yet, this invitation is how they find out, and the first line should say so rather than assume. That single sentence changes how the whole thing reads.
- **Usually no gifts.** Most couples do not want presents at an engagement party, and most guests will bring one unless told otherwise. One kind line saves fifty people a trip to a shop.
- **A much shorter notice.** Three to four weeks is plenty. The point of the evening is a room full of pleased people, not a diary managed half a year out.

## One that works.

Short, warm, and it does not pretend to be a wedding invitation.

> We are getting married.
> Come and have a drink about it.
> Sarah and Tom
> Saturday the fourth of April, from seven
> The Lamb, Holywell Street
> No presents. Bring nothing but yourselves.

## Six to choose from.

- **Atelier.** Ink set enormous down the middle, one pressed stem in the corner. Live sample: https://envelope.love/i/atelier
- **Noir.** A hairline frame with the date cut into the rule. Parts down the middle. Live sample: https://envelope.love/i/noir
- **Verdure.** Everything ranged left, foliage running the full right edge. Live sample: https://envelope.love/i/verdure
- **Poster.** No flowers at all. Names the size of a headline, ranged hard left. Live sample: https://envelope.love/i/poster
- **Arch.** A single arch holding your photograph, closing around it as it opens. Live sample: https://envelope.love/i/arch
- **Horizon.** A band of solid colour over paper, names reversed out of the dark half. Live sample: https://envelope.love/i/horizon

## Guides for this occasion

- [How to ask for money instead of gifts](https://envelope.love/blog/asking-for-money-instead-of-gifts.md): Nobody wants to write this line, and every couple has to. Wording that asks plainly without sounding like an invoice.
- [Engagement party invitation wording](https://envelope.love/blog/engagement-party-invitation-wording.md): It is the first thing you will send as a couple, and it sets the tone for everything after it. Wording for a dinner, a garden, a pub, and a surprise.
- [Who you have to invite, and who you really do not](https://envelope.love/blog/who-to-invite-guest-list-etiquette.md): The obligations that are real, the ones that are imagined, and a method for building a guest list that does not take four months.
- [Cutting the guest list without losing friends](https://envelope.love/blog/cutting-the-guest-list.md): Where to cut, in what order, and how to handle the two or three conversations that will actually be difficult.
- [Choosing a date, and what it quietly does to your guest list](https://envelope.love/blog/choosing-a-date.md): The day of the week, the month and the weekend you pick change who can come, what it costs and how early you have to tell people.
- [Planning an engagement party, start to finish](https://envelope.love/blog/engagement-party-planning.md): Whether to have one, who pays, who to invite, when to hold it and how it differs from every other party you will throw this year.

## What it costs

$100 once. No subscription. No renewal. Nothing to cancel. Publishing is free for the first 24 hours, so the invitation can be live and looked at before anything is paid.

## Questions

- **How far in advance do engagement party invitations go out?** Three to four weeks is normal, and two is not rude for something this informal. The exception is anybody travelling for it, who should hear as soon as there is a date at all.
- **Does everyone at the engagement party have to be invited to the wedding?** Traditionally yes, and it is still the safest rule to follow. If the wedding is going to be much smaller, keep this evening small as well rather than inviting people twice and then withdrawing it.
- **Should the invitation say no gifts?** If you mean it, say it, and say it warmly rather than as a rule. A line at the bottom is enough, and it is far kinder than letting half the room feel underdressed for arriving empty handed.
- **Can the same design be used again for the wedding?** Yes. Each invitation is its own link with its own words, so a couple often sends the engagement party on one design and the wedding on the same one, which makes the two read as a pair.

## Other occasions

- [Wedding invitations](https://envelope.love/wedding-invitations.md): Design a wedding invitation online and send it as one link. Six designs, replies collected, $100 once.
- [Vow renewal invitations](https://envelope.love/vow-renewal-invitations.md): Send a vow renewal invitation as one link. Six designs, replies collected, nothing printed.
- [Anniversary invitations](https://envelope.love/anniversary-invitations.md): Send an anniversary party invitation as one link. Six designs, replies collected, nothing printed.

Start yours. Make an invitation: https://envelope.love/create