Digital invitation etiquette for a civil wedding

Two weeks before the registry office, someone in the group chat asks what time they need to be there. Someone else asks whether their partner is invited. By the evening you've answered the same question four times, in four different threads. None of that is a wedding problem — it's a wording problem, and civil wedding invitation etiquette is mostly about writing things down before anybody has to ask. A digital invitation puts all of it in one place: you choose a design, fill in the fields and send the link the same day.

Below are the four things a civil ceremony invitation has to spell out, with the wording that stops the follow-up messages. Times, names, dress code and a reply deadline. The rest is decoration.

Digital invitation etiquette for a civil wedding starts with the time

The registry office runs on a clock, not a mood. Your guests are sorting trains, babysitters and parking, and they need the exact hour they should be sitting down. Give each part of the day its own line with its own address, even when two of them are ten minutes apart.

• The registry office hour exactly as it is: '12:00, Pradillo registry office', never 'in the morning'. Guests need to know when to be seated.
• The drinks afterwards as a separate line with its own time and address: '13:30, courtyard on Calle Ferraz'. Folding the ceremony and the drinks into one sentence is where most of the week-before calls come from.
• A finish time, if the day has one. If dinner is at 20:30, write 20:30, so people can plan the gap between the two.
• If the court hasn't given you a slot yet, say so in one line outside the main text and update it when it lands. 'Time to be confirmed' inside the ceremony line reads as a mistake.

Who is invited, and what to wear

Write names. 'Marta and Luis' tells two people they're invited. 'And family' lets someone assume their parents are coming, and in a small room that's a real problem. If the space is tight, say who goes inside and where everyone else waits: 'The ceremony room holds 20 people, so we'll meet everyone at the door at 12:45.'

'Day formal' or 'cocktail' settles more than a paragraph of description. Then add the one practical detail that matters: if the drinks are in a stone courtyard, warn about thin heels. If the ceremony is at noon and the party runs past midnight, say what changes after 20:00. And if there's a colour you'd rather not see in the photos, say it once, kindly, in the dress code line.

If a guest has to ask, the invitation didn't say it. Write the time, the names, the dress code and the deadline once, in the same place.

The RSVP is etiquette too: one deadline, one channel

Give one deadline and one way to reply: 'Confirm before 5 May, from this same link.' Two channels produce two lists and you end up merging them by hand at midnight. The confirmation questions are yours to set, so ask exactly what you need — how many of you are coming, whether you're staying for the drinks — and the answers arrive in an ordered list inside the invitation instead of scattered across WhatsApp. Add a name for everything else: 'Any questions, talk to Ana.'

Why digital invitations suit a civil wedding

A civil wedding usually comes with a short guest list, a tight schedule and a court that can move your slot. That's what a page handles better than paper. It opens in any browser, with nothing to install. The replies land inside the same invitation. Change the hour, the map or the dress code after sending and the link stays as it is, so nobody needs a new message. A digital wedding invitation costs €29.99, paid once. And if someone wants something to keep, send the link to everyone and print a handful of copies for the people who'll actually put it in a drawer.

Get those four lines right — time, names, dress code, deadline — and the wording is done. You can build it today: choose a design, edit it in the browser, publish with one button and send a single link.