Digital Invitation: Wedding Dietary Restrictions and Cost

Your caterer wants final numbers on Thursday. On Friday a guest mentions she can't eat gluten. Now you're on the phone, and the plate you already paid for is going to sit in front of someone pushing salad around it. A wedding dietary restrictions list should be closed before the menu is. Asking costs nothing. You can pick a design and send a digital invitation from the catalogue today: the asking still happens in a message, but the replies end up in one place.

Two lists run in parallel at a wedding: who's coming, and what they can eat. They close at different times, usually with different people holding them. Here's what to ask, what to write down, and where the €29.99 sits next to printing, postage and the phone calls.

Wedding dietary restrictions: the cost of asking late

Ask your caterer for the cut-off date on special menus. It arrives earlier than couples expect. A plate nobody flagged gets solved with an omelette at two in the morning, and the guest who spent the toast moving food around remembers it longer than the speech. A gluten allergy, a vegetarian and 'I don't like fish' are three different requests: one needs a separate kitchen, one needs a different dish, the third needs a smaller portion.

• Who is coming, by name, with the number of people on each reply.
• Whether it's an allergy, an intolerance or a plain preference: they're not cooked the same way.
• The dish they will eat, not only the one they refuse.
• Who passes it to the caterer and by what date. Write it down, even if it's only a note on your phone.

Asking about allergies without sounding like a survey

A short message to your fifteen closest guests works better than a form with twenty fields. 'Is there anything you can't eat?' opens the door; a list of fourteen allergens closes it. Ask three things: what they avoid, whether it's an allergy or a preference, and whether they're sharing a menu with someone at their table. One answer can cover two plates.

Then write it where you'll find it again: a note, a screenshot, a line in the same document as the guest list. Decide who passes this to the caterer and by what date, and give the caterer that person's name. On the day itself, nobody remembers who said what.

The cheapest part of the menu is the question you ask before you order.

Digital invitations that keep every answer in one list

Confirmations arrive inside the invitation, in a list, with names attached, so you're not rebuilding the count from three chats on the Monday before. You configure the RSVP questions yourself and can reword them later without resending anything: the link stays the same and guests see the updated version. Nobody installs an app, because the invitation opens in the phone browser, which matters when a third of the guest list is over sixty. The site also runs in seven languages and the invitation text can be set per language, useful when some guests need the menu explained in something other than English.

How much does a digital invitation cost, and what stops costing you

€29.99, paid once, no subscription. If the time moves or a dish changes, you edit the text and the same link shows the corrected version: no reprint, no new envelopes, no second round of calls to say the starter is different now. A printed card with the menu on it is out of date the moment it's on someone's fridge. Keep three or four paper copies for the people who'll want to hold one; that's a choice, not a requirement. Pick a design, test it free, and publish when you know what's on every table.