Digital invitation etiquette: a bats-and-cobwebs dinner

It's the Tuesday before Halloween. There's a pumpkin on the step, a paper bat hanging off the porch light, and a group chat with fourteen people in it. One asks what time, one asks whether the kids should eat first, one asks which door. You answer the same three questions four times, then type it all out again on Thursday. A digital invitation does that job once: pick a design from the collection, put in your own words and photos, and send the link the same day.

The design isn't the hard part. The wording is. A family Halloween dinner carries small practical decisions — two times, one gate, sausages pretending to be witch's fingers — and all of them have to sit on the invitation in plain sentences. Here's what goes in for a bats-and-cobwebs dinner in the garden, and what stays out.

The digital invitation for a Halloween dinner: two times on one line

Children arrive running and adults arrive late. Write both times next to each other so nobody has to guess which one means dinner. Then say where the evening actually happens: a house with cobwebs on the porch has at least two doors, and the neighbours' looks similar.

• Two times, side by side: '20:00 the garden gate opens' and '20:30 we sit down'.
• Which entrance, in the same sentence: 'through the garden gate, the one with the cobweb' — not the front door.
• The patio note: 'we eat outside, bring a jacket'. It saves the person in a vest when the temperature drops.
• The address or a map pin right under the time, so nobody is scrolling at 19:55.

The menu line, the sweets, and the dress code

One line is enough: 'pumpkin soup, then witch's fingers (sausages)'. It sounds like a party, not a restaurant booking. Don't list ingredients and don't open a debate about diets inside the invitation. If one guest has a serious allergy, that's a two-minute message to that person, not a paragraph everyone else has to read.

Say whether there's cake or a bag of sweets at the end — parents like knowing if their child comes home with sugar at midnight. The 'should they eat first' question takes one sentence in the welcome paragraph: 'the little ones eat at home; there's cake at ten.' Put the dress code in the same breath: 'come in something black and a layer you can stain.' That's a request people can meet on a Tuesday, unlike a full bat costume. And don't ask anyone to bring decorations: a plastic cobweb ends up on the patio floor before pudding.

Write the two times, the door and the food. Everything else is a message you'll be sending anyway.

Digital invitations for a bats-and-cobwebs dinner: what you get for €29.99

Digital invitations do one thing paper can't: they change. The gate, the hour or the menu moves, you edit it, and the link stays exactly the same — no reprints, no second round of messages. Confirmation replies land inside the invitation in one ordered list, so you're not chasing people on WhatsApp the night before Halloween. Guests open the link on a phone and answer from there, with no app to install. One payment of €29.99, no subscription. Pick a design, try the cover for free, and publish once the time and the menu are settled.