How to address invites

Either or for the smith family is fine. Mr. and Mrs. Smith and family sounds more formal if thats what youre looking for. As for the single one write Ms. X plus one and family or something like that

For families, I think the The Smith Family would suffice - that is what we did for the few kids we invited.

We also did what Tori suggested: on the RSVP card we wrote out how many seats the invitees had. For couples - they had 2, for families they had however many kids that were included. For your friend (for example has 2 children) with an additional plus one, I'd write 4 seats so they'd know that both kids were invited, as well as a plus one.

Our RSVP card looked like this:

I think that having "The Smith Family" or "Mr. &/or Mrs. Smith & Family" would be perfect!

Just maybe have a note in there letting them know you have reserved #___ of seats for them so they can do the math and see that you have invited them, their kids, and/or a plus one.

Coming from an Indian family and going with the etiquettte of addressing invitations, names of the family members would be put on the label.
Not everyone will do or think the same manner. Its just good to know the guests are personalized.

I think "the Smith family" or "Ms. Smith and family" is clear.


Your RSVPs would need to be clear about how many kids and adults are going and what meals (I think most venues offer a kids meal at a lower price) from each household.

View quoted message My invitations came with inner and outer envelopes and I put the names on both.

View quoted message Did you write each name on the envelope or just the invitation itself?

I wrote out the full names of everyone invited just because I’m paranoid about it not being clear who is invited and who isn’t.

For families we addressed them as Mr. and Mrs. Smith & Family.


I would do the same for a single parent and children except Ms. Smith & Family.

For my own, on the outer envelope I'll be addressing them to "Mr and Mrs Smith", then on the inner envelope with the actual invitation I'll be writing out the names for the kids too since there's only 2 families that are invited that have them. If it had been more, then I would have used Mr and Mrs Smith and family. Depends how personal you want them to be, too.


As for the single friend with kids, I'd address it to the Mrs/Mr Smith and guest, plus the kids names.