In This Guide
1The Anatomy of a Jewish Wedding Invitation2Traditional Wording Templates3The Hebrew Date — How to Get It Right4Bilingual Layout: Hebrew & English Together5RSVP Wording for Jewish WeddingsWriting a wedding invitation is stressful enough. Writing one that balances Hebrew tradition, English clarity, your parents' expectations, and your own style? That's a different kind of challenge entirely.
Jewish wedding invitations carry more weight than typical invitations. They include the Hebrew date. They may need to honor both sets of parents in specific ways. They often need to work in two languages that read in opposite directions. And they set the tone for a celebration that's deeply rooted in tradition — even when the couple isn't.
This guide gives you the actual words. Not vague advice — real, copy-and-paste examples in both Hebrew and English, grounded in traditional formulations. We'll also walk through the Hebrew date (and how to avoid getting it wrong), bilingual formatting, and RSVP wording for multi-ceremony celebrations.
The Anatomy of a Jewish Wedding Invitation
Before diving into specific wording, it helps to understand the building blocks. A Jewish wedding invitation typically includes these elements, roughly in this order:
Opening line
An expression of joy — traditionally from the parents, sometimes from the couple
Parents' names
Hebrew naming uses ben/bat (son/daughter of), often with the father's Hebrew name
Couple's names
Connected with 'and' rather than 'to' — a subtle reminder that marriage is a choice, not an obligation
Hebrew date
The day of the Hebrew month, corresponding to the secular date
Secular date & time
The Gregorian calendar date and ceremony time
Venue & location
Full address for the ceremony (and reception, if different)
Ceremony type
Reference to the Chuppah if relevant to your community
Biblical verse (optional)
An increasingly popular way to express values — Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs) is a classic choice
RSVP details
How and by when guests should respond
A note on naming conventions
In traditional Hebrew, names follow the pattern "Yosef ben Avraham" (Yosef, son of Abraham) or "Sarah bat Miriam" (Sarah, daughter of Miriam). Orthodox invitations typically use the father's name; egalitarian invitations may include both parents' names. There's no single "correct" approach — it depends on your family's tradition and your community's expectations.
Popular Biblical Verses
Including a verse or Jewish quote adds depth and signals your values. These are the most commonly used on wedding invitations:
קוֹל שָׂשׂוֹן וְקוֹל שִׂמְחָה, קוֹל חָתָן וְקוֹל כַּלָּה
"The voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride"
— Jeremiah 33:11
אֲנִי לְדוֹדִי וְדוֹדִי לִי
"I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine"
— Song of Songs 6:3
מָצָא אִשָּׁה מָצָא טוֹב
"He who finds a wife finds a great good"
— Proverbs 18:22
Traditional Wording Templates
Traditional Jewish invitation wording centers the parents as hosts and uses formal, joyful language. The key phrase to remember: Jewish invitations traditionally say "share in our joy" rather than "request the honor of your presence." It's warmer and more communal — an invitation into a celebration, not a summons to an event.
Hebrew
English
💡 This format places the groom's parents first, which is standard in Orthodox tradition. Both Hebrew and secular dates are included.
Hebrew
English
💡 Using 'the Goldstein and Rosenberg families' is a softer way to credit both sets of parents without listing every name.
English
💡 Starting with a Hebrew verse sets a spiritual tone. This is especially popular for Conservative and Modern Orthodox invitations.
Already have your design? Bring it with you.
InviteLane comes with professionally designed invitation templates that incorporate all of the traditional elements above — Hebrew/English bilingual layouts, proper date formatting, and ceremony details — ready to customize with your details.
Prefer your own design? Upload any invitation you've created in Canva (or any other tool) and InviteLane wraps it with built-in RSVP tracking, guest management, and Shabbat-aware delivery. Your design, our infrastructure.
The Hebrew Date — How to Get It Right
Including the Hebrew date is one of the most distinctly Jewish elements of your invitation. It connects your wedding to the Jewish calendar and signals respect for tradition. But the Hebrew calendar doesn't map neatly onto the Gregorian one, and there's one particular gotcha that trips people up.
How it works
The Hebrew calendar is lunisolar — months follow the moon, but leap months keep it roughly aligned with solar seasons. A Hebrew date is written as the day of the month, the month name, and the year. For example, the 15th of Kislev 5787, or ט״ו בכסלו תשפ״ז.
The format on invitations typically reads: "on the [ordinal day] of [Hebrew month], corresponding to the [ordinal day] of [English month], [year]." The word "corresponding" bridges the two calendars.
The sunset rule — don't get this wrong
Hebrew dates change at sunset, not midnight. If your wedding is on a Saturday evening (after Havdalah), the Hebrew date is actually the next day's date, not Saturday's. A wedding at 8pm on Saturday, June 6th is technically on the 7th of Sivan, not the 6th. Double-check your Hebrew date with a reliable converter, and if your ceremony is after sunset, use the following day's Hebrew date.
Hebrew date formatting examples
| Secular Date | Hebrew Date | On Invitation |
|---|---|---|
| May 24, 2026 (evening) | כ״ז אייר תשפ״ו | "the twenty-seventh of Iyar" |
| June 3, 2026 (afternoon) | ט׳ סיון תשפ״ו | "the ninth of Sivan" |
| Dec 7, 2026 (evening) | ט״ו כסלו תשפ״ז | "the fifteenth of Kislev" |
Pro tip
Use Hebcal's date converter to look up your Hebrew date. Enter your secular wedding date and note whether the ceremony is before or after sunset. If you're using InviteLane, the Hebrew date is calculated automatically based on your event time and location.
Bilingual Layout: Hebrew & English Together
This is where most couples hit a wall. Hebrew reads right-to-left. English reads left-to-right. Putting them on the same invitation — whether printed or digital — requires careful layout decisions. Get it wrong and the invitation looks like a formatting accident. Get it right and it's elegant.
The traditional layout
The convention is Hebrew on the left, English on the right. This feels counterintuitive (shouldn't the Hebrew be on the right since it reads right-to-left?) but the reasoning is practical: English-speaking guests see their language first when they open the invitation. In some communities, particularly Israeli, the Hebrew takes the right side instead. There's no strict rule — go with what feels natural for your guest list.
Typography that works
The biggest typographic challenge is pairing Hebrew and English fonts that feel cohesive. Some things to keep in mind:
Hebrew serif fonts pair well with English serif fonts — they share a similar sense of formality
Avoid mixing a decorative Hebrew script with a plain English sans-serif (or vice versa) — the contrast is jarring
Hebrew text typically needs to be 10–15% larger than English text at the same visual weight, because Hebrew characters are denser
Test your font pairing with actual invitation text, not lorem ipsum — some letter combinations look great in isolation but awkward in context
Why digital solves the layout problem
Here's where physical invitations hit a hard constraint: a printed card has fixed dimensions. Fitting Hebrew and English side-by-side on a 5×7" card means either shrinking the text to an uncomfortable size or cutting content. And if any detail changes after printing — a venue update, a time change — you're reprinting everything.
Digital invitations eliminate this entirely. The layout adapts to the screen. InviteLane's bilingual Hebrew/English invitations handle RTL/LTR rendering automatically — the Hebrew and English versions are maintained as paired content, not two separate layouts bolted together. If you update the English version, the Hebrew side stays in sync. And guests see the invitation in their preferred language without needing two separate cards.
RSVP Wording for Jewish Weddings
The RSVP section might seem like the simple part. It isn't — at least not for Jewish weddings. You may need to collect responses for multiple events (Kabbalat Panim, Chuppah, reception, possibly a separate Sheva Brachot), meal preferences with kosher considerations, and in some cases, male/female headcounts for gender-separated seating.
Standard RSVP wording
Kindly respond by the fifteenth of October
_____ will attend _____ will not attend
Number of guests: _____
Dietary requirements: _____
Multi-event RSVP wording
If your wedding includes multiple events, each with its own guest list, paper RSVP cards become a logistical puzzle. You'd need checkboxes for each event, separate headcount fields, and enough space to fit it all — on a card that's supposed to be elegant.
This is the single biggest reason Jewish couples go digital for RSVPs. A multi-ceremony RSVP system lets guests select which events they're attending, indicate their meal preferences and dietary needs, and provide M/F headcounts — all in a single flow that takes under a minute. You get a real-time dashboard instead of a shoebox full of reply cards.
Dietary language that works
If your caterer is kosher, you don't need to ask guests "Do you keep kosher?" — the food will be kosher regardless. Instead, ask about specific dietary needs: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, nut allergy. If you're offering both meat and dairy options (at a non-glatt event), you can list the menu choices. And if some guests keep Cholov Yisrael or Pas Yisroel, a simple open-text field for "additional dietary notes" gives them space to mention it.
Ready to Write Yours?
The wording is the soul of your invitation — it tells your guests who you are as a couple and what kind of celebration they're walking into. Whether you go traditional, modern, or somewhere in between, the key is that it feels like you.
If you're looking for a platform that handles the hard parts — bilingual layouts, Hebrew dates, multi-event RSVPs, and Shabbat-aware delivery — InviteLane was built specifically for Jewish celebrations. One flat fee, everything included.