Hen do invitations: dinner and drinks, one night only

The group chat says "Saturday — Marta's hen do!" and within an hour someone has checked trains, someone else has asked about a cottage, and one friend has booked Sunday off work. Nobody planned a weekend. The plan was dinner at a restaurant you can walk to, drinks in the same street, and everyone home by two.

That gap is the invitation's fault, not the group's. A hen do invitation for dinner and drinks only has one job: two times, two questions, every answer in one place. Here's how to set it up.

Dinner and drinks only: put both times on the hen do invitation

The cover does most of the work. Write the label and the hours where nobody can miss them: "Marta's hen do — dinner at 9, drinks at 11.30." If only the day is there, half the group keeps the whole weekend free just in case. Add the end time too. "Last round at 1" means the friend who's up early on Sunday can decide before she says yes.

• Label and date: "Marta's hen do — Friday, dinner and drinks only."
• A dinner time and a drinks time, same restaurant or same street.
• An end time: "last round at 1am."
• A line on what isn't happening: "no trip, no cottage, no costumes."

Two questions instead of one: dinner, drinks, or both

Set the RSVP form up with two questions rather than a single yes — "Are you coming to dinner?" and "Are you staying for drinks?" Now you book exact chairs instead of guessing at a number. A third question, "Coming straight to drinks — what time?", kills the last-minute messages asking what's going on.

Share one link in the group chat. Everyone answers from their phone in the browser, without installing an app or creating an account. If someone hasn't replied, send them the same link in a private message — they'll see the plan as it stands now, not a version from three weeks ago.

If the plan is one night, the invitation should be one page: two times, two questions, one list of answers.

The dress code fits in six words

"What you'd wear to dinner" says more than three lines of rules. If something matters later, put it in the same sentence — "flats for the bar after" or "the jacket you won't cry about". A photo of the table laid, or of the bar at night, sets the tone faster than describing it. You can add up to six photos of your own, choose which one is the cover and swap any of them later; they're framed for you, so nothing needs cropping.

A change of time doesn't mean a new invitation

The bar closes earlier than you thought and drinks move to 11. Edit the wording, publish, and the link is the one you already sent — no second notification, no reprinting, nothing to chase. Same for the map, the dress code line or the cover photo, because it's a web page, not a PDF. Build the hen do invitation, test it free, edit the cover until it sounds like Marta's group, and publish once the bar is booked.