Plenty of couples reach the invitation stage and realize they would rather not put any parents at the top at all. Maybe you are paying for the wedding yourselves. Maybe the family situation is complicated enough that naming some parents and not others would cause more hurt than leaving everyone off. Maybe you are simply adults who are inviting people to your own celebration and want the invitation to say exactly that. Whatever the reason, hosting in your own names is a completely legitimate, increasingly common choice, and there is elegant wording built for it.
Put yourselves in the host position
On a traditional invitation, the first line answers a single question: who is doing the inviting? When you leave parents off, the answer becomes the two of you. That means your names move to the top and carry the invitation. A clean version reads: your two names, together with the line request the pleasure of your company, or request the honor of your presence if the ceremony is in a house of worship. From there you add the date, the time, and the place. That is a full, correct, gracious invitation with not a single parent named, and nobody reading it will think anything is missing. If you want to see how your names look carrying the top line instead of a parents block, you can design one on InviteDrop and preview the layout before you commit a word of it.
It helps to remember that hosting in your own names is not a modern shortcut or a break with tradition. Couples have always been allowed to host their own weddings, and doing so simply reflects the reality that many people marry as established adults rather than as children being presented by their parents. The wording follows the fact. If you are the ones inviting, you are the ones named.
The gentle middle path: honor without listing
Sometimes you do not want to name individual parents, but you also do not want the invitation to feel like it sprang from nowhere. There is a lovely middle option. A phrase such as together with their families invites everyone's people into the moment without singling anyone out or ranking anyone. It acknowledges that you both come from families, it keeps the tone warm, and it sidesteps every awkward question about whose name goes where. This single line is often the perfect answer for couples who feel caught between hosting solo and hosting under their parents.
The beauty of together with their families is that it is genuinely equal. No parent is above another, no divorced pair is linked, and no stepparent is either pointedly included or pointedly left out. For families where any specific naming would start a fight, this one line quietly removes the entire battlefield.
Wording samples you can copy
For a couple hosting entirely alone and keeping it formal, try leading with your names, then the request line, then the marriage details. For something warmer and more contemporary, you might open with a short line like we are getting married and we would love for you to be there, followed by your names and the particulars. If you want the together with their families softener, place it as the very first line, above your names. Each of these is complete on its own. The formality is a dial you set, not a rule handed to you.
One thing worth deciding early is how much of your own personality to let into the wording. Because no parents are setting the tone, the voice of the invitation is entirely yours, and that is a gift rather than a burden. If the two of you are playful, a warm and slightly informal opener will feel truer than borrowed formal language. If you love tradition, the classic request lines are yours to use without anyone's sign-off. The freedom that comes from hosting in your own names is not just about who is named, it is about being able to sound like yourselves from the very first line, and guests tend to feel that authenticity the moment they read it.
What to do when a parent expects to be named
The hardest part of a no parents named invitation is rarely the wording. It is the conversation. If a parent has always pictured their name on your wedding invitation, seeing it absent can sting even when no slight was intended. It helps enormously to tell them before they receive it, and to frame the choice as being about all parents rather than about them specifically. A line as plain as we decided to keep the invitation in our own names so nobody felt ranked usually lands well, because it is honest and it is fair to everyone at once. You are not hiding a decision, you are explaining one, and most parents relax the moment they understand it was not aimed at them.
Timing that conversation matters as much as the words. Telling a parent after the invitations have already gone out puts them in the position of learning about a choice everyone else has seen, which is exactly the sting you are trying to avoid. A quiet chat before you send, framed as bringing them in on the plan rather than announcing a done deal, lets them feel included in the decision even though it is ultimately yours. Parents who feel consulted rarely fight a choice, while parents who feel presented with a fait accompli sometimes dig in on principle alone.
Give parents a role somewhere else
Leaving parents off the invitation does not mean erasing them from the wedding. If you want them to feel included, there are warmer places to do it than a host line. You can name and thank them in the ceremony program, seat them in honored places, toast them at the reception, or write them a note the morning of the wedding. Often the parent who felt uneasy about not being on the invitation feels perfectly wonderful about a heartfelt thank you in front of a hundred guests. Decoupling the honor from the stationery frees you to word the invitation cleanly and still make everyone feel loved, and it usually delivers more warmth than a name in small print ever could.
Make the reply match the tone
An invitation issued in your own names pairs naturally with a reply that comes straight to the two of you. This is one place a digital invitation genuinely shines. Because you are the hosts, the responses should reach you directly, and a digital invite puts every yes and no on one dashboard so you are not routing replies through anyone's parents. The animated envelope reveal gives your guests a small moment of delight the instant they open it, which suits an invitation that is unmistakably yours. When your wording is ready and you want the replies to land in one clean place, you can design one on InviteDrop, drop in your names, and send it out the same afternoon.
