Digital invitation: the vegetarian menu is not a footnote

Two weeks before the gala dinner, a phone lights up: "Does the menu have a vegetarian option?" The answer was on the invitation all along, in a footnote at the bottom, on a screen nobody scrolled to. It does not have to work that way. You can pick a design from the catalogue, write the gala dinner vegetarian menu next to the date and the venue, and send the link to your digital invitation today.

What follows are the mistakes that come up most often and the wording that fixes them. None of it is about cooking. All of it is about saying plainly what will be on the plate, before anyone sits down and the first course is already served.

Hiding the vegetarian menu on a digital invitation

When the vegetarian menu lives in a footnote, or arrives later in a separate WhatsApp message, half the guest list never sees it. The kitchen then gets the questions on the night itself, when the plates are already leaving the pass and the one in front of your guest is the wrong one.

• Put "vegetarian menu" in the same block as the date and the venue, not in small print at the bottom.
• Name the main dish in two or three words people recognise: mushroom risotto, vegetable lasagne.
• Say whether the vegetarian menu is a full alternative or a side dish inside a set gala menu.
• Add an email or a phone number for allergies and special plates: the RSVP form does not collect them.

How to create a digital invitation that names the menu properly

"Green option" and "alternative menu" only create doubt. Write "vegetarian menu" and then say what the dish is. If fish is part of it, spell that out too, so a vegan guest is not surprised when the plate lands in front of them.

A guest reads "special menu", messages you to ask whether it comes with chicken, and now you are answering questions at midnight. Two clear words stop that message before it starts. On a gala dinner with a fixed three-course menu, guests also need to know whether the vegetarian dish replaces all three courses or turns up next to them.

Nobody should have to ask, from their seat, what they are about to eat.

Digital invitations update; printed cards do not

If the caterer replaces vegetable lasagne with mushroom risotto, you change that scene in the editor and the same link shows the new dish. Change the time, the venue or the dress code and there is nothing to resend: guests open the link and read what is current. That is the practical difference between digital invitations and a stack of cards that ends up in a drawer the week after.

Check the vegetarian menu before you send: one clear line saves a table full of explanations. Browse the collection, pick a design and build your digital invitation today. It is 29.99 EUR, one payment, and you keep editing the same link as the menu changes.