Digital invitation for a 50th birthday tasting menu

You booked the long table back in March. Twenty-two people, a Saturday, and a restaurant that only serves the tasting menu: eight courses, no à la carte option. The deposit is paid. Now someone has to tell twenty-one people what time to arrive, what they will be eating and why the cake shows up at half past eleven. That is what a digital invitation does. You pick a design from the catalogue, write the restaurant, the time and one line about the 50th birthday tasting menu, and send the link the same day.

The menu is the easy part. The group is not. Before you sign anything with the restaurant, get two things straight: what the kitchen charges per head, and how you are going to tell everyone the time, the place and what is on the table.

The 50th birthday tasting menu gets booked before the speech

Ask for a fixed price per head with VAT, service and bread included, and ask for it in writing. Wine pairing, the cake and the final glass are charged separately in almost every private room in Madrid, and that is where the quoted price stops being the final bill. Fix the arrival time and the closing time in the same conversation: eight courses need about three and a half hours, and the kitchen closes before the cake and candles come out. Settle the number of diners before you negotiate. A table of 20 and a room of 70 are not priced the same way, and the per-head figure moves with the size of the group.

• A fixed price per head, with VAT, service and bread included, and the quote in writing.
• Arrival time, cake time and the time the room closes.
• What the menu covers and what is charged separately: pairing, final glass, coffee.
• How many diners are confirmed, and that week's cancellation policy.

A digital invitation can carry the menu without printing 100 cards

In the editor, every piece of information has its own field: label, names, date, phrase and place. Write the restaurant, the time and one line about the menu — eight courses, pairing poured at the table, cake at midnight — and the invitation is ready. You can add up to six of your own photos, choose which one is the cover, set music and write your own confirmation questions. Guests open the link in a browser on their phone, install nothing and reply from there.

If six of them are flying in from abroad, the site runs in seven languages and the invitation content can be set per language. Nobody has to translate a tasting menu at the airport.

The tasting menu is the plan. The link is how everyone hears about it, and it changes the moment the restaurant does.

If the restaurant moves the time, nothing gets reprinted

Rooms move things. Dinner is pushed to 21:00, the terrace closes because of rain, the cake arrives late. You edit the scene in Joy Studio, the link stays the same, and guests see the current version every time they open it. No envelopes, no second message, no calling the aunt who never reads the family group chat. Decide how you will tell people before you decide the menu: a digital invitation from Send The Joy is €29.99 in one payment, you can try the cover for free before you buy, and you can have the link out before you confirm the courses with the kitchen.