Digital invitation: a Halloween cat dinner in Bilbao

The black cat painted on the bar door went up on Tuesday, and the dinner is Saturday the 25th. Eight of you, one long table, three pumpkins on the step that nobody has volunteered to carve. You want a digital invitation for a Halloween cat dinner in Bilbao, and it has to be out by Thursday — you can build one tonight from the catalogue, send the link to the group and get back to the candles.

Below is what to ask before you pay, what goes inside the invitation, and which evening you do what. No speeches about the season.

Five questions to ask before you pay for a digital invitation

Put what you already know on the table: black cat dinner, Saturday the 25th, table for eight, a bar that opens at nine. With that in front of you, the first question isn't the price. It's dates and margin — how long it takes to build, and who fixes it if the plan moves.

• Can I see it built before I spend anything? At Send The Joy, test mode lets you edit the cover for free; paying unlocks all the scenes of the invitation.
• If dinner slides to ten, do I resend the link? No. It's the same link, and everyone sees the updated version.
• Do my friends need an app? No. They open the link in a browser — phone, tablet or laptop — and reply from there.
• Where do the replies land? Inside the invitation, in an ordered list, with the RSVP questions you set yourself.

Halloween in Bilbao: digital invitations versus a PDF in the group chat

With a PDF, every change is a new file buried between memes, and someone always opens the old one. With a digital invitation you edit and the link stays put, so the version your friends see is the one you last touched. If the bar changes door, or the dress code goes from all black to black with one orange thing, you change the sentence or the map and nothing gets resent.

The invitation is its own web page for the event, shared with a link, a QR or a message, and it opens in any browser. On Thursday at eight you send it to the group. On Saturday at half nine nobody is queuing at a printer. Nobody installs anything either: if your lot can open a video on WhatsApp, they can open this from the bar.

The invitation people actually open is the one that is still live on Saturday night.

What a digital invitation costs for a Halloween dinner

29.99 EUR per invitation, paid once, no subscription. The figure doesn't move with the guest list — eight at the table or twenty — and you know it before you start. If someone wants paper in their hand, the sensible version is a mix: the link for everyone, a handful of printed copies for whoever will keep one.

Cover, photos and details: the bits you fix on Wednesday

In Joy Studio, the browser editor, each piece has its own field — heading, names, date, slogan and place — with a character counter and a preview that updates without reloading the page. Up to six of your own photos go in, cover and decorative, framed automatically. The cat on the door can be the cover, and you can swap it later without starting over. If a friend lives abroad, the site runs in seven languages and the invitation content can be set per language. Monday, try covers. Wednesday, tighten the words and photos. Thursday, publish with one button, and the 25th is candles, ice and not much else. Try the cover tonight and keep the week for the pumpkins.