Digital invitation for an autumn christening: time and lunch

The christening is on the last Sunday of October. The clocks go back that night, the mass is at twelve, and lunch will run until five. You already typed "12:00" into a group chat nobody scrolls back through, and two cousins are asking whether that is local time or theirs. A digital invitation for an autumn christening fixes this in one link: mass time, restaurant, map and confirmation form on the same page. You can build it and send it today from the catalogue.

The point is not having something nice in a chat. It is that when the parish asks you to come at one instead of twelve, or the restaurant moves you to the room upstairs, you change the page and everyone sees it. No new message. No reprinted envelope. No "sorry, I forgot to tell you".

An autumn christening: fix the mass time before the menu

Get the hour from the parish first, in writing. Only then book the table, and put the lunch at least an hour and a half after the ceremony finishes — a christening with photos in the church doorway always runs over. Write the time zone next to the hour, "12:00, local time", for guests coming from another region or flying in. And make the reply date concrete: the restaurant wants a headcount, not a maybe.

• Confirm the mass time with the parish before you book the restaurant table.
• Write the time zone next to the hour for guests arriving from another region or from abroad.
• Add the drive time between the church and the restaurant, not just the address.
• Leave the reply option open until a fixed date, 15 October for example.

A digital invitation that survives a change of plan

This is where a page beats a PDF, and it is the real difference between digital invitations and a picture of one. If the restaurant swaps rooms or the mass moves to one o'clock, you edit that scene and the link stays the same. The link opens in the browser on any phone: the grandmother, the godparents and the cousin abroad all get in without installing an app, each at their own pace.

Photos behave the same way. Up to six of your own, cover plus decorative, and they frame themselves, so a vertical shot of the baby among leaves does not get cropped. Mark which one is the cover and swap it later without touching the rest of the invitation. Pick two autumn colours — rust and olive, say — and let the photo do the work. Confirmations arrive inside the invitation in an ordered list, so you stop counting "yes, we're coming" across the family group and the godparents' group. You set the questions: "reply before 15 October", "how many of you?". Open the list on your phone while you are on the call confirming numbers with the restaurant.

Close the church, the table and the hour first. The rest takes an afternoon.

How much a digital invitation costs, and where the lunch is

One payment of €29.99 per invitation, no subscription, and that covers every scene, the photos, the music and the RSVP list. Before you personalise anything, put the location in its own scene: if the restaurant is twenty minutes' drive from the village, write that, because "how do we get there" is the question you will answer most. One line of dress code does the rest — "light jacket, the courtyard is cool at seven". Try the design free, edit the cover, and publish once the autumn plan is settled. Then send the link.