Digital invitation: Halloween dinner party etiquette

Someone in the family group chat asks what time dinner is. You answer. Two hours later an aunt asks again, and your dad wants to know whether he has to come in costume. A Halloween witches' supper for three generations rarely falls apart over the food. It falls apart over the details nobody wrote down. Most of what people call Halloween dinner party etiquette is one decision: say it once, in a place everyone can open. You can build a digital invitation today from the catalogue, send the link and stop repeating yourself.

No printed cards, no app to install, no cousin who designs for a living. One page with the date, the address, the time the table actually sits down, and who brings what. The rest is tone, and tone is easier when the facts are already on the screen.

Halloween dinner party etiquette starts with the broom list

Ask for actions, not for enthusiasm. "Bring your broom" means nothing until you say whose broom, which broom, and where it goes when it arrives. Split the list by who you are asking and ask each person for one thing. A single clear request gets a yes; a vague one gets a "we'll see".

• Grandparents: the wooden broom from the village house, or an old photo of them in costume. The photo goes on the cover of the invitation and hangs in the hallway afterwards.
• Children: a bat drawing for the living-room door and a battery torch for the garden. Nothing that cuts, burns or genuinely scares them.
• Adults: a blanket for the porch and a savoury dish to share. That fills the table without anyone asking three times.
• Hosts: LED candles inside the pumpkins and the link in the family group. Plus one printed copy for whoever wants to keep it.

The best digital invitations for a three-generation witches' supper

Put a clock on it, not an "around eight". Aperitivo at 19:30 by the front door with the pumpkins already lit: the children stay awake and the grandparents are not driving home in the dark. Sit down at 20:15 exactly. Turn up at 20:40 and you miss the toast, and that line belongs in the invitation, not in a conversation at the door. Last dance at 22:30, kids in pyjamas. A clear ending saves everyone the "we should probably head off" loop.

Then the map. A farmhouse is not a restaurant: say where the dirt track starts, where to park and which lantern marks the gate. Warn people that the door will be covered in fake cobwebs and that the bell gets rung once. The joke lands better when it is announced. If the aperitivo is outside and dinner is in, write that down too, so nobody arrives in heels for an October garden. And when the aperitivo moves half an hour earlier because it gets dark sooner, you edit the invitation and the link stays the same. Nothing gets reprinted, nothing gets resent.

Etiquette at a witches' supper fits in one line: this is what we are doing, this is when, and this is what you bring.

What a Halloween invitation should not ask, even as a joke

Do not demand a costume from your parents. Ask for "one black thing" — a scarf, a hat, a pair of socks — and nobody spends the evening dressed up against their will. Do not write "bring whatever you can" and hope for the best; name the savoury dish and the blanket for the porch. If someone cannot eat something, the invitation text tells them to message the hosts directly, and you answer by phone like an adult. And no per-head fee in the message: if you are splitting the cost of the cottage, sort that out beforehand and let the invitation confirm date, time and place only.

Nobody has to install anything to read it. Guests open the link on a phone or a tablet, confirm inside the invitation and land in one ordered list, so you are not chasing replies one by one. One digital invitation costs 29.99 EUR, a single payment. Open the catalogue, pick a design, drop in your own texts and photos, and send it to the group before someone asks the time a fourth time.