Since wedding season is rapidly upon us, I thought a refresher would be in order as it’s been four years since my last post on monograms.

Most any item can have a monogram embroidered on it. Most often, it is towels, napkins, or personal items. Monograms Made Easy focused on traditional rules for standard single-person and married-couple monograms. Here are some of the more non-traditional rules.

Note: This is just a guide. Today’s etiquette is much more lax than that of centuries past so you are apt to find numerous suggestions for the same situation.

Surnames with Prefixes De, as in De Beer or St. as in St. James:

Drop the De or St. Single monogram would be B. Married couple Carrie and Hugh De Beer would be C B H.

Same-sex Partners/Married Woman Keeping Maiden Name:

For same-sex partners, or married couples where the woman kept her maiden name, both first initials of partners' last names are used together as the surname (middle initial of the monogram). If JLH and WES were same-sex partners, their monograms would be either of the following:

HS as a single monogram or JHSW as a couple monogram.

Hyphenated Names:

 Debbie Henry-Kuhns would be D K H.

Suffixes:

Suffixes such as Jr., IV, etc, are traditionally left off of monograms.

Compound Names:

With MacKenzie as a first name or McDonald as a last name, just use the M. Susan Rae McDonald would be S M R.

Here are some wonderful monograms to get you started:

Circle Monogram

Big Bold Monogram

Fleur de Lis Font and Monogram

English Rose Font

Check out even more designs here.

 Debbie SewBlest