The best digital invitations for a modern christening

The christening has a date. The restaurant seats 40, the church seats 60, and three people have already asked what time it starts. That's the point where a digital invitation starts earning its €29.99: one link that holds the headcount, the godparents' names, the map and the photo.

It isn't a PDF with a blue border and a dove on it. It's a page of its own that opens in any browser with nothing to install, and you can build it today from the catalogue: pick a design, set the cover in trial mode, unlock the rest of the scenes when it looks right. Guests open it on a phone, a tablet or a laptop and reply from the same page.

The best digital invitations for a modern christening start with the headcount

Call it a christening or a baptism — the guest list is the same. Decide the chairs before the colours. If the dining room takes 40 and the church takes 60, the number on the invitation is 40, not the one that sounds better in a message. Everything else gets easier once that figure exists, because the RSVP lives inside the invitation instead of in a family chat.

• Count real seats in both places and write down the smaller number. That's the one that goes on the page.
• Confirmations arrive as one ordered list inside the invitation, so nobody counts "we're 34" by scrolling a chat.
• A grandmother who never installed WhatsApp opens the same link in a browser and replies from there.
• You write the RSVP questions yourself, so you ask what you need and skip the rest.

Names and photos are what people look at

Put "Godparents: Maria and Toni" on the cover and the awkward question two days before the baptism doesn't happen. Each piece of text has its own field — label, names, date, line, place — so fixing a surname doesn't push the rest of the layout out of place. If the godparents live abroad, the invitation can be set in English, Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese or German.

Flash straight on, curtains behind, a living room in 2011: that's what makes an invitation feel old. Stand the child by a window and use daylight instead. You can upload up to six of your own photos — one cover, the rest decorative — and each one fits the frame on its own. Natural light, no flash, the face in focus: that's the whole trick.

Count the chairs first. The photo, the godparents' names and the time can all change once the link is out.

A digital invitation you can still change on Thursday

Moving the start from midday to half past twelve happens to everyone. Edit it in the browser and whoever opens the link sees the new time; the same goes for the venue, the map or the dress code. Nothing is reprinted and no second message goes out. One invitation costs €29.99, paid once, with no subscription — and it's a page, not an attachment. If someone wants paper for a drawer, print a handful and send the link to everyone else. Pick a design, set the cover in trial mode, and have it ready to send today.