Mrs. XYZ and all family members
together with
ABC and DEF
joyfully invite you to celebrate their wedding ceremony.
What does 'Their' mean here? I want 'Their' to refer to ABC and DEF. What should be used instead of this sentence?
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Traditionally, the bride's parents invited people to the wedding of their daughter ABC with DEF, but nowadays arrangements as to who hosts the wedding are often different. Technically your sentence is ambiguous, though probably not in practice. Unless you particularly want to include the bridal couple among the hosts, you could say Mrs XYZ and... invite you to the wedding of ABC and XYZ.– Kate BuntingJul 6, 2022 at 13:30
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@KateBunting Hey, it is unfair to peer into my mind while I am writing.– Jeff MorrowJul 6, 2022 at 13:55
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2 Answers
In isolation, it is not the clearest of sentences although, in an actual social context, it probably is crystal clear.
The sensible and likely meaning is that the “their” refers to ABC and DEF, the closest preceding nouns. It looks as though someone took the traditional “Mr. and Mrs. X invite you to celebrate the wedding of their daughter” and tried to join that to “ABC and DEF invite you to celebrate their wedding.” The result is a bit clunky, but, as I said, it almost certainly works in practice. In what seems to be a very modern social situation, it might be better to forget the traditional structure altogether.
Mrs. X, ABC and DEF, and family invite you to celebrate the wedding of ABC and DEF.
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Actually I don't want to write bride and groom names twice. So what should be the sentence? Jul 6, 2022 at 19:58
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Two suggestions. "Mrs. X, all the family, and the happy couple invite you to celebrate the wedding of ABC and DEF." Or, which I prefer, "You are invited to celebrate the wedding of ABC and DEF by Mrs. X, the family, and the happy couple themselves. Jul 6, 2022 at 21:45
I think 'their' is what you want to be using. It is a possessive pronoun.
