Baby shower and gender reveal invitations — what to write and when to send them

What goes on each card

A baby shower invitation leads with the hosts and the guest of honor. A gender reveal invitation leads with the secret — and keeps the answer off the card.

The two cards share a skeleton — date, time, place, reply — but they lead with different things, and they leave different things off.

On a baby shower invitation:

Who is hosting — a shower is thrown forthe parents, so the host’s name goes on the card: “Hosted by Aunt Dana and Priya.”
Who it is for— “A baby shower for Maya.” If it is a couples shower, say so, and both names go on.
The date, written out with the day— “Saturday, April 18.” Writing both is your typo alarm: if the 18th turns out to be a Friday, you catch it before your guests do.
Start and end time — showers run about two hours, and the end time lets guests plan the rest of their Saturday.
The place, on one line — the house address, or the venue and town.
How to reply and by when— one method, one date. “Text Dana by April 4 — 555-0163.”
The registry, in one line— “Maya is registered at Target.” One line, never a paragraph.

On a gender reveal invitation:

Whose baby — your own names, since parents usually host their own reveal.
Whether you already know— the line guests genuinely wonder about. “We find out when you do” and “We know — you don’t yet” set two different moods; pick the true one.
The date, time, place and reply line — the same as any party.
A no-spoilers line— if one person holds the secret, say so: “One person knows. It isn’t us, and she isn’t telling.”

And what to leave off a reveal card: anything pink, anything blue, the name you have picked, and the scan photo. The card’s job is to promise the answer, not leak it — reveal wording works best in neutrals: golds, greens, clouds, question marks.

When to send them

Baby shower invitations go out four to six weeks before the shower. Gender reveal invitations go out two to three weeks before the party.

Showers usually land one to two months before the due date — far enough along to celebrate, early enough that the guest of honor still enjoys a party — so count backward: due date, minus six weeks for the shower, minus another month and a half for the invitations. Most couples schedule the reveal within a few weeks of the 20-week scan, which leaves no room for a long lead time — and a reveal is usually a smaller, closer circle who will hold the date on shorter notice.

Two adjustments:

Guests traveling — add two weeks, and send a heads-up text the day the date is set.
A date near Thanksgiving, Christmas or a holiday weekend — add two weeks. Calendars fill early.

And if you are reading this twelve days out: a digital invitation sent today lands today. Nothing goes in the mail unless you choose to print, so a late start costs you nothing but reply time. If you are still weighing digital against paper, that question has a guide of its own.

The send windows at a glance

4–6 weeks beforeBaby shower invitations
2–3 weeks beforeGender reveal invitations
Add two weeksGuests traveling, or a date near a holiday
1–2 months before the due dateWhen the shower itself usually lands

Wording examples you can copy

Take these as they are or trim them. Short reads better on a card, and better still on a phone.

Casual and modern

Backyard shower:“A baby shower for Maya — she is due in June and we are celebrating early. Saturday, April 18, 2 to 4 p.m., 14 Rowan Street. Text Dana by April 4: 555-0163.”
Brunch shower:“Pancakes before the baby: a brunch shower for Elena. Sunday, May 3, 10 a.m. to noon at Marigold Café. Reply to Sam by April 24.”
Couples shower:“Nina and Marcus are having a baby, and we are throwing them one last loud Saturday. May 16, 3 p.m., 22 Alder Way. Partners and kids welcome. Text Rosa by May 8.”
Baby sprinkle:“Baby number two is on the way — a sprinkle for Jess, diapers and good company only. Saturday, March 7, 2 p.m., 8 Linden Court. Reply by February 27.”
Reveal, nobody knows:“Pink or blue? Even we don’t know! Help us open the envelope — Saturday, August 8, 4 p.m., Grove Park pavilion. Tell Leah by August 1 if you are in.”
Reveal, parents know:“We know something you don’t. Cake tells all on Saturday, July 25 at 3 p.m. — 31 Beech Street. Reply to Marcus by the 18th, and wear whichever color you are rooting for.”

Formal and family-focused

Hosted by family:“Please join us for a baby shower honoring our daughter, Maya Chen. Saturday, April 18, at two o’clock, The Garden Room at Hollis House. Kindly reply to Susan by April 4.”
A church community:“The women of Grace Fellowship warmly invite you to a shower for Hannah and her baby boy. Sunday, May 17, following the eleven o’clock service, in the fellowship hall. Reply to Ruth by May 10.”
A family reveal dinner:“Boy or girl? Join us for dinner and find out with us. Saturday, June 6, 6 p.m., at Nonna’s on 5th — grandparents, aunts, uncles and the very patient. Please reply by May 30.”

Co-host, RSVP and registry lines

Two hosts:“Hosted with love by Aunt Dana and Priya.”
A group of friends:“Thrown by the night-shift crew at Mercy General, who cannot wait to meet her.”
RSVP, with the reason:“Reply by April 4 so we can count the cupcakes.”
Registry, gently:“Maya is registered at Target and Babylist — links in the message.”
No gifts:“No gifts, please — your company and your best baby advice are plenty.”
Diaper raffle:“Bring a pack of diapers, any size, to be entered in the raffle.”

Choosing a design and personalizing it

Pick the design for the party’s tone, not for a color rule. Plenty of parents skip pink-and-blue signaling altogether — soft neutrals photograph better and never spoil anything, and for a reveal, neutral is the whole point. Three things separate the good designs:

Typography first. The names and the date are the card. If the type looks clumsy at a glance, no theme rescues it.
One idea, not four. Clouds or florals or gingham — a card with a single visual idea reads calm; a card with all of them reads like a flyer.
Room for your wording. The samples above run three to five lines. A design crowded with decoration will fight them.

Ours sit together on the baby shower designs page — Little Cloud, soft, quiet and a little dreamy, suits a calm afternoon shower — and gender reveal designs will sit on the same page as they arrive. There is no template file to download and wrestle with: you personalize the design in your browser, and the live preview redraws as you type, so the secret stays wherever you put it and nowhere else.

The two files, and how to print

Every order arrives with both files, so this is about using them, not choosing:

The print-ready PDF is for paper.It is a 5×7 inch card at 300 DPI — the resolution print shops ask for. There are no crop marks and no bleed to set up: hand the file to any shop and ask for flat 5×7 cards on 110lb cover cardstock, or print at home with borderless selected and scaling at 100% — “fit to page” is what blurs type.
The PNG is for screens.It drops straight into a text thread, group chat or email and shows right in the message, with no attachment for anyone to open. Send it with one line above it: “Shower for Maya, April 18 — details on the card.”

Printing and mailing some cards? Allow a week for the printing and the mail, and start a week earlier than the windows above. For replies you do not need an app — a note on your phone with three columns, yes, no and silence, does the whole job, and the silence column gets one friendly nudge the day after the reply date passes.

Photos, privacy and keeping the surprise

A shower and a reveal both produce photos of a pregnant person and, sometimes, a very personal announcement. Decide before the party where those photos may go, and put it on the card — one line is enough, and nobody blinks at it anymore:

For a reveal:“Please keep the answer off social media until we have told the whole family — we will post first.”
For a shower:“Photos welcome, posting not — we will share an album afterward.”
For a private album:“We will collect everyone’s pictures in a shared album after the party — the QR code will be on your table.”

Three etiquette rules sit alongside the privacy lines: the person being showered never hosts alone, so a co-host line fixes the optics; the registry gets one line on the invitation and no more; and a reveal stays honest — if you already know, do not pretend otherwise on the card.

How ordering works here

The whole path, from this page to files in your inbox:

Pick a design from the Baby showers page.
Personalize it in the form — names, date, place, your wording — and watch the live preview redraw as you type. What you see is exactly the card you get.
Pay once. A baby shower or gender reveal invitation is $8, flat. No account to make, no subscription hiding behind the button.
Open your email. Both files — the print-ready PDF and the PNG — arrive the moment the payment goes through.
Keep the email. If anything is off — a misspelled name, the wrong Saturday, your own typo — the revision link in it corrects the wording and re-sends the files. One free revision, no reason asked.

The line worth repeating, because almost nobody else selling invitations can say it: no account, one payment, both files in your inbox before you have closed the tab — a card designed by a person, personalized by you.