Turkish wedding invitation wording: davetiye guide
A Turkish wedding invitation (davetiye) names the couple, both sets of parents, and the date, time and venue, with an RSVP line and often a short couplet. The order of the family names is the part people agonize over most.
What actually goes on a Turkish davetiye
A Turkish wedding invitation carries more than a date and a place. The standard davetiye lists, in this rough order: a short opening line or couplet, the names of the bride's parents, the names of the groom's parents, the couple's first names, then the date, time and venue, and finally an RSVP. The single biggest difference from a Western invite is that the parents are front and center. In Turkish culture the families host the wedding, so the invitation often reads as coming from the two families rather than from the couple alone.
The classic phrasing uses oğulları (their son) and kızları (their daughter). A line like "Ayşe ve Mehmet'in oğulları Can ile Zeynep'in kızları Elif" tells a guest instantly who married into which family. You'll also see the verb evlenmek (to marry) and the words düğün (wedding reception) and nikah (the civil ceremony). Many invitations name both the nikah and the düğün, since guests often attend one or both.
- Opening: a couplet, a romantic line, or a simple "We are getting married"
- Families: bride's parents, then groom's parents (order varies, see below)
- Couple: first names, sometimes with surnames
- Logistics: date, day of week, time, full venue address
- RSVP: a phone number or, increasingly, a link
Whose name goes first, and the oğulları/kızları framing
This is the part families discuss for weeks. There is no single national rule, but the most common convention is to list the bride's family first, then the groom's, because traditionally the groom's side "asks for" the bride and her family is being honored as hosts. Plenty of families flip it or list the side that's paying for or hosting the event first. When both fathers have passed or parents are divorced, names get adjusted carefully so no one feels erased.
The grammar does real work here. "Bircan ve Osman Yılmaz'ın oğulları Kerem" means "Kerem, son of Bircan and Osman Yılmaz." Pairing each parent set with oğulları or kızları makes the lineage obvious at a glance, which matters at a wedding where hundreds of relatives need to know exactly who is connecting to whom. If a grandparent or close family elder is deceased and being honored, you may see a small merhum (the late) before the name, or a separate remembrance line.
A practical tip for mixed or diaspora families: decide the order early and get both mothers' sign-off in writing. It sounds dramatic, but name order is the number one reprint reason at Turkish print shops.
Two sample wordings you can adapt
Here are two short templates. Swap in real names, keep the structure. The first is formal and family-led; the second is warmer and couple-led, which younger and diaspora couples often prefer.
Formal (family-led):
"Ayşe ve Hasan Demir'in kızları Elif ile Fatma ve Murat Kaya'nın oğulları Can'ın evlilik törenine teşrifleriniz bizleri onurlandıracaktır. 12 Eylül 2026 Cumartesi, saat 19:00, Lale Garden, İstanbul. LCV: 0532 000 00 00."
("We would be honored by your presence at the marriage of Elif, daughter of Ayşe and Hasan Demir, and Can, son of Fatma and Murat Kaya. Saturday 12 September 2026, 7:00 pm, Lale Garden, Istanbul. RSVP: ...")
Warm (couple-led):
"İki ailenin sevinçle beklediği gün geldi! Elif ve Can evleniyor. Bu mutluluğu sizinle paylaşmak isteriz: 12 Eylül 2026 Cumartesi, 19:00, Lale Garden. Geleceğinizi bilmemiz bize çok değerli, LCV: 0532 000 00 00."
("The day both families have been waiting for is here! Elif and Can are getting married, and we'd love to share it with you...")
Note LCV (from the French répondez s'il vous plaît) is the standard Turkish RSVP abbreviation, and teşrifleriniz is the formal "your attendance." If your guests skew younger or international, plain wording beats heavy formality.
You invite whole families, not single guests
One etiquette point trips up people raised on Western plus-one culture: in Turkey you invite the family, not the individual. Addressing an invitation to "Sayın Korkmaz Ailesi" (the esteemed Korkmaz family) means parents, kids, and often grandparents are all welcome. Sending a single named invite to a married cousin and quietly excluding their spouse and children reads as an insult. This is why Turkish guest lists balloon and why headcounts are notoriously hard to pin down.
Spell out who's invited if you genuinely need to limit numbers. An adults-only reception is unusual and should be communicated gently, ideally by word of mouth through the family rather than a cold line on the card. For very large weddings, families sometimes print a general open invitation for the community and a separate, more detailed one for close relatives. If you're still figuring out your own circle before any of this, our guide to meeting a Turkish partner's family covers the relationship groundwork that comes long before the printer.
Separate invites for kına and nişan
A Turkish wedding is rarely one event, so it's rarely one invitation. The two you'll most often print separately are the nişan (engagement party) and the kına gecesi (henna night, usually for the bride and the women, the evening before the wedding). Each has its own card, tone, and sometimes its own guest list.
The nişan invite mirrors the wedding davetiye in structure but announces the engagement rather than the marriage. The kına invite is warmer and more emotional, often with henna or pomegranate motifs and a bittersweet couplet, since the henna night is traditionally where the bride is sent off from her family home. To understand how these events sequence, see our explainer on söz, nişan and nikah, and the broader Turkish wedding traditions piece for the full arc.
| Invitation | Event | Tone |
|---|---|---|
| Nişan davetiyesi | Engagement party | Formal, celebratory |
| Kına davetiyesi | Henna night (often women) | Warm, emotional, traditional motifs |
| Düğün davetiyesi | Wedding reception | Formal or warm, family-led |
Printed, digital, and the diaspora two-language problem
Printed davetiye are still the default in Turkey. The physical card is part of the gift-and-respect economy: an elder expects to be handed one. Digital invites (WhatsApp cards, simple invite pages, QR codes for RSVP) have become normal for younger guests and for cost reasons, and many couples now do both, posting cards to relatives over 60 and texting links to everyone else.
For diaspora families in Germany, the Netherlands, France or beyond, language is the live issue. A wedding in Cologne with Turkish grandparents and German-raised cousins usually needs two languages on one card: Turkish on one side, German or English on the other, or a clean side-by-side layout. Keep names spelled identically in both versions, including Turkish characters like ş, ç and ğ, which printers outside Turkey routinely mangle. If your guest list is split across countries and you're still building those connections, Lokum's memleket and hometown matching is built for exactly that scattered-but-rooted reality, helping Turks find each other across 81 provinces and 80-plus cities. Whatever you print, proofread the Turkish twice. A reversed name order or a dropped ğ is the kind of small thing relatives remember for a decade.
Get three things right and the davetiye takes care of itself: name order both mothers have approved, the oğulları/kızları framing so every relative knows who's joining whom, and an address line for the whole family rather than one guest. Print for the elders, text the link to everyone else, run two languages if your guests span countries, and proofread the Turkish twice before it goes to press. The card is the first thing your families say to the world together, so make it accurate before you make it pretty.
