Digital invitation or video invitation for a wedding

It's 8:40 on a Friday, you're at the bus stop with your coat already on, and you open the wedding video invitation your cousin sent three weeks ago. It loads. You skip forward. You still can't find whether dinner is at the venue or at the church hall. A digital invitation is a web page with your names, your date, the map and the RSVP inside it: you pick a design from the catalogue, try it free and send it today.

Both formats work on day one. They behave very differently from the moment you send them until the last dance, when 200 people are trying to remember what time the shuttle leaves. That's the comparison worth making: not which one looks nicer, but which one gets opened again.

Digital invitation vs video invitation for a wedding: what gets opened, and when

A video invitation is watched once, forwarded once and then buried in the thread. Nobody scrolls back to it to check whether dinner starts at two or three. The link sits at the top of the message and gets opened in the coat queue to check the dress code, the map or the time of the bus. When somebody types 'what time was it again?' in the cousins' group, the quick answer is a link, not a two-minute file. A video is a good opener; that's the job it does best.

• Check whether the video price includes edit rounds, or whether every new version is charged separately.
• Work out who looks things up on the day: 200 guests open a link, not a video.
• Confirm the RSVP arrives inside the invitation and not in loose messages you have to sort by hand.
• Ask what happens if rain moves the time or the venue, and what that costs.

How much does a digital invitation cost? 29.99 EUR, paid once

Send The Joy sells a digital invitation for 29.99 EUR per invitation. One-off payment, no subscription, no fee per guest and nothing to pay monthly after the wedding. You can test it before you pay: in test mode you edit the cover without spending anything, and buying unlocks every scene in the invitation. If you're weighing up other digital wedding invitations, check what's included in the price before you decide.

The budget line that runs away with video is revisions. Ask whoever makes it how many rounds of changes are included and who pays for each new cut. Change the date or the venue twice and you're negotiating. Here, a change is an edit in the browser: you fix the text and the link your guests already have shows the new version.

A video gets watched once. An invitation gets opened until the last dance.

RSVP without chasing anyone, changes without resending the link

Confirmations land inside the invitation, in one ordered list, instead of loose 'yes, the two of us' messages you sort out by hand later. You decide which questions the RSVP form asks. If the time, the place, the map or one sentence changes, you edit it in the browser editor and the link stays exactly the same: nothing to resend, nothing to reprint. Two honest notes before you choose: the invitation needs a phone, tablet or computer with a connection, and if somebody in the family wants paper, combine — a link for everyone, printed copies for whoever keeps them.

If what you need is something people open again and again until the banquet, pick a design, try it free and publish your digital invitation for 29.99 EUR, paid once.