Guide

Engagement invitation wording

Roka, sagai, sakharpuda, nishchitartham, mangni: four wordings, from the parents or from the couple.

What an engagement card says

An engagement invitation is the wedding card's younger sibling: shorter, warmer, one evening. It names who is hosting, the two families, the couple, and one date, time and venue. What it does not do is promise the wedding date, unless that is already fixed, in which case one line at the foot is enough.

The word changes with the family: roka or sagai in the north, sakharpuda in a Marathi home, nishchitartham for Telugu families, nichayathartham for Tamil families, nischayam in Kerala, gol dhana or chandlo matli for Gujarati families, aashirbad or paka dekha in a Bengali home, mangni or nisbat in a Muslim household, and "ring ceremony" when nobody wants to choose. The wording below works for all of them; swap the word.

Roka, sagai, ring ceremony: which word

A roka is the first, smallest event: the families agree, a few relatives attend, often at home, and it is often not carded at all. A sagai or ring ceremony is the engagement proper, with the rings, the guests and the card. A nishchitartham, a nichayathartham or a nischayam does the same work and is usually the more formal of the two, fixed by a priest to a muhurat. Use the family's own word on the card; the wording around it does not change.

Wording you can copy

Small things that matter

• An invocation is optional and belongs to the family. Many engagement cards carry none at all, and there is no single default: a family that opens its cards with a line uses its own, whether that is Shri Ganeshaya Namah, Om Namah Shivaya, Hari Om, Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha, Jai Shri Krishna, Jai Shree Swaminarayan, the Navkar Mantra or the Bismillah.
• One evening, one venue. If there is a dinner, say "dinner follows".
• If a priest has fixed a muhurat, as for a nishchitartham, a nichayathartham or a nischayam, print the date and time exactly as he gave them.
• If the wedding date is fixed, one line: "Wedding in February 2027, invitation to follow". If not, say nothing about it.
• Name the hosts in the first line. Engagements are family affairs and relatives want to know whose house it is.
• A card without photographs is entirely normal for an engagement, and often preferred by the families.

The card that fits

Guldasta draws you through an arch that then stands around the names, which suits an engagement. For a Muslim household, Mangni, with the envelope and the ring.

Make it with Guldasta See it first

More guides: Nikah invitation wording, Walima invitation wording, Mangni invitation wording, Hindu wedding invitation wording in English, South Indian wedding invitation wording, A digital wedding invitation in India: how it works.