Funny wedding wishes: 50 lines that make both of them laugh

A joke in a wedding card has an unusual audience. It is read after the party, often by both of them together and sometimes by half the family. So one rule covers everything: laugh at situations every couple knows, the shopping list, the box set, the flat-pack wardrobe, and never at a person. A line only one of them laughs at is not a joke; it is a dig.

Every line here keeps to that rule. The old standards still found in many collections are missing on purpose: jokes about exes, the ball and chain, "game over" and the mother-in-law. They wore thin long ago, and they nearly always hit someone holding the card.

A funny line works best with one sincere sentence beside it. How to build the card around it is in what to write in a wedding card; warmer, less playful messages are in the collection of wedding wishes.

These work for almost any sender, from close friends to the people next door. None needs inside knowledge or a word of explanation.

• You survived the seating plan together. Nothing marriage throws at you will be that political.
• Congratulations! You are now each other's plus-one for life. No more "and guest" on the envelope.
• May you never find out which of you has been eating the last slice of cake.
• Congratulations on the last piece of paperwork you will ever enjoy signing.
• Wishing you a lifetime of love and at least one working pen in the kitchen drawer.
• Anyone who can agree on a font for the invitations can agree on anything. Congratulations!
• May your fridge always be full and your karaoke always out of the neighbours' earshot.
• Married life comes with a free upgrade: someone who will always tell you there is spinach in your teeth.
• Here's to a marriage where you finish each other's sentences, and occasionally each other's chips.
• Congratulations on finding the one person who genuinely wants to see all your holiday photos.
• We give it forever. Congratulations!
• Congratulations! From today, "we'll see" officially counts as a joint decision.

If you are unsure how cheeky the card can be, stay in this section. These lines also suit colleagues you know reasonably well.

Everyday life is the safest material for a funny card, because every couple knows it and nobody comes off badly. Duvets, dishwashers and the weekly shop are neutral ground.

• May every disagreement in your marriage be as low-stakes as who walks the dog in the rain.
• May you always agree on the bedroom temperature, or at least on a truce.
• Here's to many years of saying "you choose" and then vetoing every option.
• May your weekly shop end with both of you remembering the milk.
• Congratulations on finding someone to hold the other end of the duvet cover.
• Wishing you the patience to share a car and its radio presets.
• May every flat-pack you build together come with the right number of screws.
• Here's to growing old together and still arguing about how to load the dishwasher.
• May you always know where the other one's keys are, even when they don't.
• May your sofa always have room for two, and for a dog who thinks it makes three.
• Congratulations on the start of a lifelong debate about which way the toilet roll should hang.
• Wishing you a kitchen with two cooks and, somehow, one clean pan.

An everyday line is funniest when it hits the couple's real running argument, provided it is a harmless one: window open or shut, at the station early or just in time, tea or coffee. Swap that into the line and you have something no other couple could receive.

The closer you are, the more personal the joke can be. The line stays in the same place, though: tease the person you know well, affectionately and about something harmless, never the new partner you may have known for a year. Square brackets mark where your own detail goes.

• [Name], you have found someone who does not just tolerate [your quirk, such as the car playlist] but sings along. Hold on to them.
• We have known you since [school/uni] and have finally met someone who can beat you at [game]. [Name], we are so glad it is you.
• As your [brother/sister], I have briefed [Name] on everything. They married you anyway, which tells you all you need to know. Welcome to the family!
• You have found someone who thinks your dancing is charming. Hold on to them; there may not be a second.
• The group chat has already started planning your first anniversary. You have been warned.
• Remember our [student flat] fridge? [Name], thank you for raising [Name]'s standard of living considerably.
• [Best man/maid of honour] duties complete: rings delivered, speech survived. From here you are on your own, and in very good hands.
• You were sickeningly in love before today, and you will be worse now. We would not have it any other way.
• [Name], you are now officially in charge of reminding [Name] where they parked. Good luck, and congratulations.
• One condition for accepting you as a married couple: quiz night stays on Thursdays.

An inside joke that only one of them understands shuts the other out. If you cannot resist one, choose a joke both of them were there for, or add half a sentence that lets the other in on it.

Puns and rhymes are the most good-natured kind of humour, because they laugh at the language and at nobody else. In a guest book, next to photos and scribbled hellos, they can be as silly as you like.

Rhyming

• You'll share the bed, you'll share the rent, and argue where the remote went.
• One cooks, one cleans, one sings off-key; you'll work out which is which, you'll see.
• Two toothbrushes, one tiny sink: it's more romantic than you think.
• The cake was great, the band was loud, and you two were the happiest in the crowd.
• Whoever's brave with spiders wins; the other one takes out the bins.
• Through burnt toast and forgotten keys, you'll make married life look a breeze.

Puns and wordplay

• Congratulations on tying the knot. Keep anyone with scissors well away from it.
• You two are simply ring-credible.
• Congratulations on your merger. The board approves unanimously.
• You have gone from "I" to "we" without a single typo.
• Here's to the perfect pair: better matched than any socks in your drawer.

For the guest book

• Danced until our shoes filed a complaint. Thank you for a brilliant night!
• Ten out of ten, would attend again. No pressure on the vow renewal.
• Whoever did the seating plan deserves a medal. We made friends for life at table six.
• Today we learned you can throw a party as well as you can pick a partner. See you at the silver anniversary.
• Signed by the people who requested that song three times. Sorry to the DJ, congratulations to you.

A guest book can take a louder tone than a card, since everyone writes over everyone else and nobody expects a letter. A cash gift can take a wink too; there are lines for a wedding card with money, a few of them light-hearted.

Not every wedding, and not every relationship, can carry a joke. In these cases a warm, simple line, perhaps one of the short wedding wishes, is the better choice.

You are not close. Colleagues you barely know, a manager, distant relatives and people you met on the day are better served by warmth than by wit. Humour relies on the other person knowing how it is meant.

It has been a hard time. If someone close died shortly before the wedding, if one of them is ill, or if the wedding is tiny because it could not be otherwise, a sincere sentence carries further than any joke.

The card will be passed around. In some families cards are read aloud or handed round the table. What is funny among friends may land differently in front of grandparents or a devout family.

The subject is off limits, even among friends. Exes, babies and pregnancy, weight and looks, money and debt, age, background and anything about the wedding night have no place in a card, however harmless the line is meant to be.

It is not a first marriage. Nothing about "this time", practice or third time lucky. A second wedding gets exactly the card a first one would.

Three questions before you seal the envelope

1. Will both of them laugh? A joke where one laughs and the other winces has failed, however well it is phrased.
2. Is it about a situation or a person? Duvets, traffic and flat-packs are safe; a person's traits are fair game only among the closest friends, and only kindly.
3. Could they show the card to their parents without explaining anything? If not, the line belongs in a conversation, not in a card that may be kept for decades.

A speech is held to a stricter standard than a card, because a whole room is listening and nobody can skip the sentence. What matters there is covered in how to write a wedding speech.