Christening Invitations for Coeliac Guests: Start Early

Two weeks before the christening, one of your guests opens the link in a supermarket queue. She scrolls past the church, the time, the restaurant with the courtyard, what to wear — and still does not know what she will eat. She is coeliac, and she has done this before: the bread basket passes her twice while she works out whether to ask the waiter or stay quiet. By the cake, she has had a plain salad and half a glass of water.

That is not a catering problem. It is an information problem, and christening invitations for coeliac guests usually fail in the same spot: the gluten-free menu sits in an email thread with the caterer and never reaches the people who need it. Move it into the invitation, in one neutral sentence, before anyone has to ask.

Coeliac guests read the invitation before they see the menu

Put the note in the first scene, next to the date and the venue, so it lands before the logistics. Keep it neutral so nobody is singled out: “There is a gluten-free table — text us on the number at the bottom.” Every guest reads the same sentence, and nobody has to announce themselves at the table. However your kitchen spells it, coeliac or celiac, the note works the same way.

• The exact sentence about the menu, dishes named: mushroom risotto, a fish main, bread in a sealed bag. “Options for coeliac guests” only sends people back to ask.
• The number to use if someone needs a portion kept apart, on the same line as the note.
• A photo of the plate or the separate table, so it is visible before anyone arrives.
• Venue and time in the same scene as the note, so nobody scrolls back three screens to check them.

Give the gluten-free table its own scene

These invitations are built from chained scenes — a threshold, a courtyard, a long dinner, a last dance — and each one holds its own text and photo. Give the meal its own scene and label it “Gluten-free table”. Then say what actually arrives: the separate buffet, the sealed loaf, the dessert that is not the christening cake.

The character counter in the editor keeps you short. If the note does not read at a glance on a phone, it will not be read, and the WhatsApp message lands mid-ceremony. One photo does more than three lines: the risotto on the plate, or the table set slightly apart.

The gluten-free note is the line that changes last, so keep it where you can edit it without printing anything.

The menu changes, the link stays the same

Caterers confirm late. If the first course moves from pasta to polenta, you edit that one scene and the link stays the same — nobody gets a second message with a correction in it. The QR code on the printed copy you gave your grandparents opens the live version, so a new time or a new dish never goes stale in their hands.

The one WhatsApp message that does the work

Send the link once, with one line of context: “Here is Marco's christening invitation — the gluten-free menu is in the dinner scene, and you can reply from there.” Keep the detail inside the invitation rather than the group chat, where thirty people lose it under stickers in half an hour. If someone asks about a specific intolerance, answer privately with the caterer's number. The invitation carries the general note.

Paper still has a place: two or three printed copies for the people who will keep them, with the link as the official version where the menu stays current. Then do the rest. Choose a design, write the dinner scene, check your own note on a phone before you send it. It is 29,99 EUR once per invitation, no subscription, with your own photos and music, and replies arrive in the invitation's own list instead of three separate chats. Guests just open a link — nothing to install.