How to Create, Print and Send Out
an Official LDS Wedding Announcement
(By Bettyanne Bruin)

First: Begin collecting the names and addresses of everyone you, your fiancé, both sets of parents, grandparents and everyone else involved in the wedding have ever met before, including: relatives, friends, acquaintances, past boyfriends or girlfriends, former schoolmates, former roommates, mailmen, milkmen, enemies who might not want to be enemies any more, and anyone else you have met or may meet somewhere between now and the time of the wedding -- to make up the break the record for the largest group of people to ever meet in a LDS setting before.

Second: Begin creating the LDS Wedding announcement. The announcement must include the following:
* One picture of the happy couple (preferably with bleached teeth and an over-sized engagement ring) tucked in a natural setting.
* One set of directions that will mislead attendees for hours before finding the proper location of the wedding reception.
* A collection of foil snowflakes, leaves, hearts (or anything else that might symbolize the love or the season) that fall out and get stuck in the carpet and have to be commercially vacuumed by the attendees for up to five months later. (The tinier the better)
* Ten “Registered at” cards in case the attendees accidentally come to your wedding and forget to buy you a gift.

Third: The LDS wedding announcement usually expresses something so personal that the happy couple becomes extremely touched just knowing that special something they’ve expressed will be the most important thing ever read by an attendee before -- even though the happy couple’s statement will be sent to hundreds of attendees they’ve never met before.
Statements such as:
There is something we wanted only you to know, or
In life, there are few real friends like you, or
Since you have been so close to us through every year of our life, we…

Fourth: Remember, LDS wedding announcements do have some restrictions, for instance:
On a temple wedding invitation, it would not be in good taste to have an old-time, Country Western picture taken with one of you holding a gun while the other one holds a whiskey bottle.

Fifth: LDS wedding announcements are usually filled with kind words, such as, “Tom and Martha are pleased to announce…” and not, “After waiting two years for Bill, Laura is pleased to announce that she has decided instead to marry Jim Smith, the son of...”Sixth: The bride usually writes the LDS invitation. This prevents the groom from including such things as, “I was told right before I was released from my mission to get married. So, to follow my Mission President’s advice, I am pleased to say that I have chosen Ann Wall to be the person I have selected to go to the Celestial Kingdom with me.”

Seventh: The following words should never be printed on a LDS Wedding invitation:
“Til death do us part.

Eighth: You will know you are ready to send out your LDS Wedding invitation when you can answer “yes” to the following questions:a. Has your fiancé asked you to marry him yet?
b. Do you know your fiancé’s given name and surname name?c. Have you met your fiancé’s parents?d. Do they like you? (If not, invitations can still be sent out)
e. Does your fiancé have a job yet or will your fiancé have a job by the time you get married?f. Have you made the necessary arrangements to live at your parent’s house yet?g. Have your parents said yes yet? (If not, invitations can still be sent out.) h. Are you familiar with all of the collection agencies you will be dealing with once the bills for the enormous reception start coming in?
i. Is your fiancé at least half way finished with his mission yet?

If you can answer yes to the above questions, you are ready to create, print and send out your very own LDS Wedding invitation.