Digital Invitation: When to Send a Halloween Rooftop Dinner

The table is on the roof: dark linen, two carved pumpkins, a candle that keeps going out. The lift stops at the fifth floor, the last flight is stairs, and the door at the top creaks. Before any of that, there's a smaller decision people get wrong: when to send the Halloween invitations for a rooftop dinner for two. You can open the catalogue today, pick a digital invitation and have the link out before the evening.

The short answer is two weeks out, then one reminder the night before. The rest is order: what goes in the first send, what you write in each field and what you leave alone once the link is out.

Two weeks before: the digital invitation opens the door

If the dinner is Saturday 31, the invitation goes out Saturday 17, in the morning — before coffee, not at eleven at night. That first send carries everything the other person needs to say yes: the date, the arrival time, the exact address of the roof and one line explaining the plan ('we go up at nine, the table is already up there'). A link with a cover and a photo of the set table does more than three separate messages: it gets read once and answered from a phone.

• Saturday 17: send the link with the date, the exact time, the address and how to reach the roof.
• In the place field: door number, the floor the lift reaches, and the stairs after that.
• One line of dress code, written out: black, plus something orange.
• A photo of the table and one sentence about the plan; the hard facts go in their own fields.

The best digital invitations for a Halloween dinner for two write the details down

A rooftop has its own trap: a door that creaks, a lift that stops one floor short, a decorated entrance that sends people to the wrong block. Write 'number 12, lift to the fifth, then stairs' in the place field. Put 21:00 rather than 'around nine'. The time gets read once instead of asked three times in a chat.

Dress code in a single line — 'black, plus something orange' — kills the message that arrives at six in the evening asking whether costumes are mandatory. If they are, say so and add what you're wearing, so nobody turns up as the only pumpkin.

What to write, and how far the joke goes

A creaking door and a buzzer at eleven: both fine. Anything with blood in it: no. One sentence with a real detail — 'at eleven the buzzer rings once and it's us' — does more than three lines of horror, and a carved pumpkin on the cover carries the mood while the words carry the facts. Leave the mystery for the night and the clarity for the time. Photos can change after you send: swap the shot of the empty table for the real one on the day, and the link stays the same.

The link does the asking and the collecting. You send it twice and open the door.

One reminder the night before, then leave the link alone

Twenty-four hours out, send one short message with the same link: 'Tomorrow at 21:00, the roof is ready. Here it is again in case it got lost.' Then stop. Replies arrive inside the invitation in one ordered list, so you're not scrolling three chats for a yes. If the candles don't turn up or the time moves, edit the invitation and save: the link doesn't change and both guests see the new version. It's one payment of 29,99 EUR, with your own texts, music and up to six photos, and nobody has to install an app. Pick a design from the catalogue and publish it today.