Guide

Wedding invitation wording in Gujarati

The traditional kankotri in Gujarati, from the parents, a short message for WhatsApp, and the same card as a Jain family prints it, reviewed line by line, with an English gloss beneath.

How a Gujarati card is worded

A Gujarati wedding card, the કંકોત્રી, opens with an invocation, most often શ્રી ગણેશાય નમઃ, with the family deity sometimes named beneath it; Jain, Vaishnav and Swaminarayan families often open differently, see the table. Nothing else is needed as a heading, and the word કંકોત્રી itself is rarely the heading, though શુભ લગ્ન may be. Then the grandparents whose blessings the wedding has, the parents who invite, the groom with ચિ. before his name, the bride with ચિ. કુ. before hers and her parents named, then the day and date, the auspicious time as a single moment, and the sentence closes with નિર્ધાર્યાં છે, "has been fixed". The venue follows on its own સ્થળ: line, then the request that the guest come with the whole family and bless the couple, signed by the inviting family. Elders carry શ્રી or શ્રીમતી before the name and -ભાઈ or -બેન after it, which is the printed convention and not a repetition; a departed elder is સ્વ. The English gloss under the first sample says what each line does.

Which convention this follows

આ નમૂના મધ્ય ગુજરાત અને અમદાવાદની પ્રચલિત હિન્દુ (પાટીદાર) શૈલી અનુસરે છે: મથાળે શ્રી ગણેશાય નમઃ, નામ આગળ શ્રી/શ્રીમતી અને -ભાઈ/-બેન, લગ્ન "નિર્ધાર્યાં છે", અને સ્થળ તરીકે વાડી કે પાર્ટી પ્લોટ. આપના કુળ-સમાજ પ્રમાણે મથાળાનું મંગલાચરણ બદલી શકાય છે. નીચેનું કોષ્ટક જુઓ.

The formal body of the card follows standard Gujarati everywhere; the ટહુકો lines, the short playful verses from the younger relatives, are sometimes in the family's own Surti or Kutchi speech.

નમૂના

What each part of the first sample does, in order:

1. The invocation; Jain, Vaishnav and Swaminarayan families use their own, see the table
2. The Vikram Samvat year, the month and the tithi, optional; the tithi changes with your date
3. The grandparents, mother first is common, with -બેન and -ભાઈ after the given names
4. "with whose blessings"
5. The parents who invite
6. "son of"
7. The groom, with ચિ. before his name
8. "whose wedding", નાં agreeing with લગ્ન
9. The bride, with ચિ. કુ. before her name
10. Her parents, "daughter of"
11. "with"
12. Day and date, with તા.
13. The auspicious time, a single moment, "at the auspicious hour has been fixed"
14. The venue, on its own line
15. The request to come with the whole family and bless the couple, "this humble request"
16. The sign-off, "yours affectionately", and the inviting family

Small things that matter

• બંને પક્ષે નામ આગળના માનવાચક શબ્દો (શ્રી/શ્રીમતી, ચિ./કુ.) એકસરખા રાખો.
• મુહૂર્તનો સમય ગોર મહારાજે આપ્યો હોય તે જ પ્રમાણે, મિનિટ સહિત, લખો. આંકડો ગોળ ન કરો.
• દરેક પ્રસંગનું અલગ સ્થળ અને દરેકની અલગ લોકેશન (નકશા) લિંક આપો.
• પરંપરાગત કંકોત્રી મહેમાનને "આવશો કે નહીં" એવું પૂછતી નથી; તે તો તેમની હાજરી અને આશીર્વાદ માટે વિનંતી કરે છે. મહેમાનોની સંખ્યા જાણવી હોય તો નિમંત્રકનો નંબર આપો.
• ચિ. (ચિરંજીવી) goes before the groom and ચિ. કુ. (કુમારી) before the bride; ચિ.સૌ.કાં. is also printed in Gujarat and is not only Marathi, while સૌ. and અ.સૌ. belong to a woman already married. One system, on both sides. A departed elder is સ્વ.; ગં.સ્વ. (ગંગાસ્વરૂપ) goes before the name of a living widow, and પૂ. before a respected living elder. કૈ. is the usual Marathi form and is less common on Gujarati cards.
• The card's verb is નિર્ધાર્યાં છે, "has been fixed". યોજાયેલ છે reads as "has been organised" and is less usual for the marriage itself. તથા is the more formal connector between the parents; અને is also fine. The venue is a વાડી, a પાર્ટી પ્લોટ, a હોલ or a ફાર્મ; કલ્યાણ મંડપ is a South Indian word.
• Each function gets its own dated line on a printed card, in roughly this order, which varies by family: ગણેશ સ્થાપન, મંડપ મુહૂર્ત, પીઠી, ગ્રહશાંતિ, મામેરું, મહેંદી, સંગીત સંધ્યા or ગરબા, જાન પ્રસ્થાન or જાન આગમન, હસ્તમેળાપ, ભોજન સમારંભ, કન્યા વિદાય. Gujarati numerals (૦ to ૯) are very much alive on printed cards; the Vikram Samvat line reads વિક્રમ સંવત ૨૦૮૩, મહા વદ એકમ, રવિવાર, with સુદ for the bright fortnight and વદ for the dark, and some cards print the ચોઘડિયું beside the time.
• શ્રી ૧।, read શ્રી સવા, "one and a quarter", is the mercantile wish that everything increase by a quarter, written at the head of ledgers and kankotris with a single stroke after the ૧, never as ¼; with two strokes, ૧॥, it would read દોઢ, one and a half. Trading families write it, Hindu and Jain alike, and it is optional for everyone else.

The card that fits

Bandhan carries this wording in Gujarati, in the guest's own script, with each function from the mehndi to the reception on its own line, each with its own map.

Make it with Bandhan 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, Engagement invitation wording.