Digital invitation for a gala dinner: when to send it

The date is set, the venue is holding a table for forty, and you need real numbers before you confirm the menu. The first useful thing you can do is send a digital invitation: pick a design from the collection, fill in the details and publish it today. The harder question is when to send a gala dinner invitation, and it's the one that decides whether the last fortnight is calm or chaotic.

Here's the week-by-week version, from the first link to the last confirmation, including the case that needs eight weeks instead of six. Two things stay constant throughout: the link never changes, and you never reprint anything. If the plan shifts, the invitation shifts with it.

When to send a digital invitation for a gala dinner: the six-week mark

Six weeks out is the usual answer. Long enough for people to block an evening — a Thursday in November for an end-of-year dinner, say — and short enough that the date doesn't sit forgotten in a calendar. Put the time, the venue and the dress code on the same page, so nobody has to ask. Replies arrive from that same page and land in a list you can read at a glance. If the venue confirms a different start time later, you edit one field and the link stays the same.

• Week 6: publish the link with the date, time, venue and dress code, and send it to everyone at once.
• Week 4: read the confirmations inside the invitation and update the map or the time if something moves.
• Week 2: lock the menu with the venue and open the link on your own phone to check it still loads.
• Week 1: resend the same link to anyone who hasn't answered. Nothing to print, nothing to post.

December galas and guests arriving from out of town

If your dinner lands on a holiday weekend, a bank holiday eve or anywhere in December, move the whole schedule up to eight weeks. A gala on 31 December means the first link goes out in the first week of November. That feels early. It isn't, when half your guest list is choosing between two events on the same night.

The extra fortnight matters most for guests travelling in from another city. It gives them room to compare trains or flights before prices climb and before their own weekends fill up. Leave it to three weeks and you'll be closing numbers with the venue while people are still deciding whether they can make it — and paying more to get there.

Send the link early and edit it later. The invitation is the one part of a gala that keeps up with the plan.

Before you hit send: fields, dress code, photos

Every piece of text has its own field — eyebrow line, names, date, phrase, venue — with a character counter, so nothing gets cut off on a phone screen. Write the dress code plainly in its field: black tie, cocktail, or whatever it actually is, plus one short line if people will ask what that means. Then check the details that always get mistyped: the start time, the postcode, the spelling of the names. You can try the cover in test mode for free; the 29.99 EUR unlocks every scene, and you can add up to six photos of your own, music and the RSVP questions you want answered.

Guests don't download anything: they open the link in a browser and reply from their phone. Pick the design, fill in the fields, publish and send. Don't leave the table for the last week — create your digital invitation now and start the countdown, so when the venue asks for numbers, you already have them.