What to print on the cover, in the order of service, on the wedding party page and in the closing note — with specimens you can copy and adapt, for a nuptial Mass or a wedding without one.
Four things, in this order: what is being celebrated, who is being married, when, and where. Everything else belongs inside.
This is the page guests actually read during the ceremony. It should be a list of what happens, in sequence, with a name against each item — never a paragraph.
Two conventions make the difference between a program guests follow and one they fold up. First, put the movement headings in small caps and the items beneath them in the reading face, so the eye finds its place after looking away. Second, print the music selections against the moment they happen at, not in a separate list at the back — a guest wondering what the choir is singing will not turn the page to find out.
The full order of both forms, movement by movement, is set out in the liturgical guide.
Two lists, kept apart. The ministers page is formal and uses titles; the wedding party page is warm and uses roles.
A Catholic wedding usually has guests who are not Catholic. The booklet is what stops them guessing.
Two short blocks, and the tone of the whole booklet turns on them.
A wedding with a Mass is a Nuptial Mass; one without is the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony or a Wedding Ceremony. Guests plan their morning around which it is.
Naming a late parent among the living reads as an error to everyone who knows. Put them in the memorial and the whole page becomes a kindness.
The order of service is a list. Set as prose it cannot be followed by someone who has just looked up from the aisle.
Print each selection against the moment it happens at. A separate credits page answers a question nobody is asking at the time.
Each folded sheet makes four pages. Anything else gets padded with blanks by the printer, usually in the wrong place.
Have someone from each family read the names aloud. It is the one error that survives into the photographs.
When the wording is settled, the printing guide covers the rest: imposition, paper stock, and the printer settings that decide whether the fold lands where it should.
Every template ships with this wording set correctly. You replace the names and the details; the conventions are already handled.
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All 44 readings the Church offers for a Catholic wedding — Old Testament, psalms, New Testament, acclamations and Gospels — with the rules for choosing them.
Read the guide →How a booklet for the 1962 Nuptial Mass differs from a Novus Ordo one: the ceremony before Mass, the fixed Propers and facing Latin and English.
Read the guide →The order of service in both forms of the Roman Rite, movement by movement, and what a wedding program should list for each.
Read the guide →