7 मिनट
Kankotri wording: who is named, and in what order
A kankotri is not a poster with names on it. It follows an order, and that order is doing work: it says who is inviting, on whose blessing, and for whom. Getting it wrong is the sort of thing an older relative notices immediately and mentions for years.
The invocation comes first
A Hindu invitation traditionally opens with a Ganesh invocation — શ્રી ગણેશાય નમઃ — because Ganesha is invoked before any new undertaking.
A Jain invitation does not. It opens with the Navkar Mantra. This is not a stylistic preference and the two are not interchangeable; putting a Ganesh invocation on a Jain kankotri is a genuine error, not a design choice.
Then the blessing, and the elders
Many families include a line invoking the blessings of elders who have passed, marked with સ્વ. before the name. If you are naming late family members, this is where they belong, and the honorific matters.
Living elders whose blessing the wedding carries are named next, before the hosts.
The hosts invite; the couple do not
In the traditional form the invitation is issued BY the parents or the family, not by the couple. The host block names them, and the announcement is phrased as their request.
Younger couples increasingly invite in their own names, and that is a real choice — but it is a choice, and it changes the wording throughout, not just one line.
Honorifics around the couple's names
The bride and groom are named with honorifics — ચિ. for a young man, ચિ.સૌ.કા. for a young woman — which most invitation tools drop entirely because they were not built for this.
If your invitation cannot carry them, it is not a Gujarati invitation with Gujarati text in it; it is an English invitation that has been translated.
Muhurat, then the days, then the aagrah
The muhurat is stated precisely, often with the Vikram Samvat date alongside the Gregorian one. The individual functions follow.
The invitation closes with the aagrah line — the insistence that you come — and the nimantrak sign-off naming the family. This closing insistence has no real equivalent in English wedding stationery, and translating it literally usually reads oddly. It is better left in the original.