Digital invitation guide for a Barcelona christening

The church is booked for half past twelve and the table for 24 is confirmed for two. The details, meanwhile, are in three WhatsApp threads, one screenshot and the back of an envelope. One guest asks where the church is. Another asks whether the restaurant is the one near the port. The grandparents ask if there'll be a paper invitation. You answer the same three questions four times and the confirmations live in your head. A digital invitation from the catalogue sorts that out in an afternoon: pick a design, fill in the fields, publish and send the link today.

Digital invitations are web pages, not files, so the same link opens on any phone and nothing needs printing. But the order still matters, and it isn't the order most people follow: parish first, table second, design third. Get those two wrong and no amount of sage green rescues the day.

First the parish, then the design

The parish sets the time, not the family. Ask which slot they have before you book a restaurant, because a christening that starts at one and sits down at half one means cold plates and hungry children. Write the exact address, the name of the person at the parish office and their phone number in the same place you keep the guest list. Then look at the walk: if the church is in Gràcia and the restaurant in the Born, a convoy of cars with car seats eats forty minutes. Ten minutes on foot beats a fashionable room across town.

• The parish slot, the exact address and the name of whoever answers at the office, written down once.
• A restaurant that confirms minimum and maximum covers in writing before you send anything.
• A deadline with a day on it: 'by Sunday 18 May' works, 'let me know when you can' doesn't.
• The link opened on a phone that isn't yours, before it reaches forty people.

The headcount decides the menu

Ask the restaurant for a minimum and a maximum of covers in writing, then split the list into four: grandparents, siblings, your friends, work colleagues. Four groups tell you who to chase and who to leave alone. Put the confirmation date in the invitation itself so nobody has to ask you for it.

Confirmations land inside the invitation, in an ordered list, so at nine in the evening you know who's in without scrolling through chats. The questions on the form are yours to set. The wording can be set per language too: Catalan for one side of the family, Spanish or English for the other, from the same link.

What the link doesn't do

It doesn't print paper. If a grandmother wants a card in her hand, print five copies for the people who'll keep them and send the link to everyone else. Guests need a phone, a tablet or a computer with a connection, so tell the ones who never check email in person. And a link can't carry a plate of food: allergies and menu choices are settled on the phone with the restaurant once you know your numbers.

Church, table, list: one link holds all three, and changing it never means sending it again.

How to create a digital invitation for a Barcelona christening

Start in trial mode: edit the cover for free, and the moment you buy, every scene unlocks — the ones with names like Umbral de cal or Cena larga. The editor runs in the browser, one field per detail (heading, names, date, phrase, place), with a character counter and a preview that updates as you type. Up to six of your own photos, and you choose the cover. Then publish, share the link, and the church, the table and the list are finally in the same place.