Digital Invitation: Plan Your Gala Dinner Speech

The main course plates are being cleared and a hundred people are holding glasses nobody has asked them to raise yet. The host leans over and asks the question that should have been answered weeks ago: who is speaking, and when? You can sort that out today. Choose a design from the catalogue, build a digital invitation with the running order inside it, and send the link before you go to bed.

Because a gala dinner speech doesn't start when someone taps a glass. It starts with a phone call, a line in the programme and a speaker who knows exactly what time to stand up — and when to sit back down.

A gala dinner speech starts with a phone call

Call the person you want at the microphone yourself. Not the day before, when the seating plan is closed and nobody wants to admit there was never a plan. Give them the things they cannot guess from the outside of the room.

• The exact time, not 'around eleven'. Between the first course and the final toast there are two hours of dinner that only the kitchen can predict.
• The microphone: handheld, clip-on or none at all, and whether there is a lectern or they will speak standing between tables.
• The walk to the front: whether there is space between the chairs or four people will have to push their seats in to let them through.
• Who introduces them, by name, so they are not left standing while the room wonders who just got up.

How to organise a gala dinner speech: who opens and who closes

Three voices are enough. The host welcomes everyone in two sentences, the guest of honour speaks after the main course, and the toast closes the speeches. Five voices across one evening is four too many, and everyone at the tables knows it by the third.

Never put two speeches back to back. Between one and the other, change the scene for real: serve dessert, cut the music, bring the lights up. And write the names on the programme — 'Marta introduces her father' saves a guest of honour from standing up in silence.

Fix who speaks, when they speak and who introduces them. Everything else in the evening can be improvised.

The digital invitation is the programme for the night

Speaker's name, exact time, order of interventions: all of it fits in one scene of the invitation. Guests check it when they want instead of asking you on WhatsApp, and confirmations land in a list inside the same link — so the top table count is settled before you close the script.

Digital invitations and the dress code: one line, no surprises

'Black tie' means something different in a hotel ballroom than on a country estate. Write one clear line: tuxedo required, or a dark suit is fine. Change your mind a week out and the link shows the new version, with no reprint and no second message to a hundred people. Most guests open the invitation the night before to check the time, which is exactly when that line gets read.

Check the spelling of the guest of honour's name with someone who actually knows them, keep the toast to four sentences, and put the whole running order in one link: time, speaker, dress code, confirmations. A digital invitation from Send The Joy costs 29.99 EUR as a one-off payment, and if the timing moves you edit the scene — the same link shows the new version. Digital invitations in the collection are ready to try for free, so you can see the programme before you pay a thing.