Wedding Program Wording

If you have never made a wedding program before, you may not know what wording to include. The purpose of the program is to walk guests through the ceremony so they can follow along and know what to expect. I’ve shared a list of examples of different wording for each section and tips on how I created the program shown above on a budget.

For a simple one page program, you don’t need to include every part of the wedding day, it is sufficient to list the wedding party and those involved in the ceremony. To keep the lists formal, always include everyone’s full name.

List of things you can include on a wedding program:

Top of the Program

Use any of these wordings to introduce the couple. Then list the couple’s full names.

Celebration of Holy Matrimony

Double Ring Ceremony

Unity Ceremony

The Wedding Ceremony of

The Marriage of

The Marriage Celebration of

Parents of the Bride & Groom

Parents of the Bride
Parents of the Groom

You can choose to list other family members if they are taking part in the ceremony or you can list grandparents, aunts and uncles, foster parents or the persons who raised the individuals. This is usually noted because the parents are paying for part of the wedding. For older couples, or this section can be left out.

The Wedding Party

List all members of the wedding party:

Maid of Honor
Matron of Honor
Best Man
Bridesmaids
Groomsmen
Flower Girl
Ring Bearer
Ushers
Officiant
Musical Accompaniment, or Soloist, or Musician, Pianist, Director of Music
Readers

Optional Sections

List of Songs

Prelude
Processional
Hymns
Recessional
Outline of the ceremony such as:

Some additional things you can include:
Prayer of Dedication
Prayer of Blessing
Statement of Intentions
Readings
Exchange of Vows or Exchanging of the Rings or Lighting of the Unity Candle
Declaration of Marriage
Pronouncement
Prayer of the Faithful
The Kiss

Quotes or Sayings
Thank You note from the Happy Couple
Happily Ever After Begins Now
Information about the reception or Directions

Dressing up your Program
Tips for adding personal touches

There are many different ways to customize your wedding program and make it more personal and unique. Above, I choose to use a Martha Stewart decorative edge craft punch along the bottom of the programs. The top had stick on rhinestone details, but you could also use colored ribbon to match the wedding colors. I also recommend using a rounded corner edge punch to give your corners a rounded and more professional look.

What Size to Make your Program

You have a variety of sizes to choose from. You can choose 1/3 page size for long, thin programs.  This uses a standard 8.5×11 letter sized piece of card stock and cut it into thirds to create the skinny style from the intro photo. The only problem we ran into was the difficulty of cutting the programs into thirds exactly. 11 divided by 3 is not an even number! Trying to find the 3.67 inch and 7.34 inch marks and cutting all parts exactly turned out to be quite a challenge.

Half page programs will create 2 lists per sheet of cardstock and it’s easy to cut the page in half at 5.5 inches. This is also a way to create a booklet style by folding the page in half and having text printed front and back of each side.