The first toast is the invitation

There is a toast that happens days or weeks before the wedding, and it has no glass. It happens when someone opens the link on the sofa and reads, quietly, what you wrote. If the text is correct and cold, they toast politely. If it sounds like you, they toast for real. You can tell by how they answer.

Most invitations ask to be looked at. Very few ask to be answered. An RSVP hidden at the end, in small type, is not a toast. It is a form. The close can be a line of yours, the same one you would use to invite someone to dinner. People answer a voice more readily than an instruction.

The toast does not wait for dinner

Read the sending note and the invitation as one conversation. If the message says “hey, we’re getting married” and the card says “the families request the honour”, there are two weddings. Pick one voice and keep it in the note, on the cover and in the details. Formal, if you want it, has to be the same in all three.

• One voice in the note, the cover and the details
• The date said the way you would say it
• One concrete detail, not an adjective
• A close that asks for a reply

Write the way you talk

A date is easier to keep when it is said, not coded. “Saturday 12 June, at one” stays. “12/06, 13:00” gets looked up. You can use both: the spoken one first, the exact one underneath, for the calendar. The toast uses the first.

Tell one concrete thing about the party, not an adjective. Not “a magical night”. Yes “we eat in the courtyard, and if it gets cold there are blankets”. That is the line people forward. Adjectives disappear as soon as the phone is closed.

The invitation is the first toast. If it only asks to be looked at, nobody has toasted yet.

A close that asks for something

When you have the text, send it first to two people who will tell you the truth: one from the family and one from outside. If both answer with more than “how lovely”, the toast is poured. If they only say it is lovely, it is still decoration.