Digital Invitation: When to Send a Wedding Invitation

Your cousin is booking flights for a wedding in another country and the last thing you sent her was a photo of a venue gate. That's the moment the question stops being about design and becomes about timing: when to send a wedding invitation so nobody finds out weeks late. The answer is three deadlines. A digital invitation covers all three, and you can build one from the catalogue today and send the link this afternoon.

Twelve months, six weeks, three days. Miss one and nothing collapses — you just end up sending the same details four times in four different ways, to people who half-remember them. Here is what goes out, and when.

When to send a wedding invitation: twelve months out

If the wedding is in another city, or half your list flies in from another country, those people need the date before they book holidays. Date and city is enough — no timings, no menu, no dress code. What goes out at this point is a notice, not the invitation.

• Twelve months out, send the date and the city to anyone travelling. A message does the job; a full design doesn't.
• Don't send a link while you're still choosing between two venues. Send a WhatsApp with both options and a date to answer by.
• Settle the language now. If you have family in France or Germany, the invitation needs to be readable in theirs, not translated the week before.
• Decide who gets paper. Three or four printed copies for the people who keep things, a link for everyone else.

Six weeks out: the digital invitation leaves the drawer

Six weeks before the day, guests are booking trains, deciding on an outfit and clearing a weekend. This is the window for the invitation itself: a link, a QR code or a message, and each person confirms from their phone without installing anything.

Give a clear reply deadline — the Friday three weeks before, say — because the restaurant will ask for numbers sooner than you expect. And look at the cover again: pick the photo that actually looks like you two and save the other five for the inside scenes. Nobody remembers a cover with six faces squeezed into it.

An invitation is late the moment someone has to ask you twice for the date.

Three days out: the rescue message, and why the link still works

The ceremony moved to six, or the dress code went from whatever to cocktail. In a digital invitation you edit that scene and the same link shows the new version — no reprints, no thirty individual calls. For anyone who hasn't answered, send the link with one direct question: "Are you coming to dinner?" Not the whole design again, which they already ignored. The day before, that same link is the map: address and time in the place where they confirmed.

Running late with digital invitations: what to send and what to cut

Four weeks out and nothing sent? Don't rush an order to a printer. Send date, place, time and a deadline to reply. Cut the story of how you met and keep one good line on the cover. If the menu isn't final, don't promise a menu: publish what you know and update that scene when the restaurant confirms.

• Twelve months out: date and city to everyone travelling.
• Six weeks out: the link sent and the reply deadline marked.
• Three weeks out: numbers to the restaurant and a first personal message to whoever hasn't answered.
• Three days out: check the time, the address and the dress code in the invitation.
• The day before: send the link again, only to the people who haven't replied.

If the wedding is six weeks away and nothing has gone out, don't print in a hurry. Publish today and you keep room to fix the hour or the map without telling anyone. A Send The Joy digital invitation is 29,99 EUR, paid once, no subscription: you edit it after sending, the link never changes, and confirmations land in a list inside the invitation itself.