Hen do invitations with an itinerary that answers itself

It's the Thursday before, and someone asks in the group chat whether Saturday starts at seven or eight. You scroll back through two hundred messages looking for the answer. Nobody wrote it down, because nobody was put in charge of writing it down. A hen do invitation with an itinerary settles that before the question is even asked.

That's the whole idea: three or four timings your friends can hold in their heads, plus one line on what to wear. Not a schedule to follow to the minute, and not a PDF that sits unopened in a downloads folder. Everything you would otherwise end up typing into the chat, in one place people already open — and where they can reply without leaving it.

What goes into a hen do itinerary (and what to leave out)

Three timings are enough: start at 19:30, the surprise at 21:00, the last drink at 01:00. That kills the 'does it start at seven or eight' question for good. Leave out the block-by-block grid. 'Long dinner, 21:30' reads at a glance; six rows and two transfers don't. One detail per line, and if a block needs a scroll on a phone, cut it.

• Start time and meeting point, with the address linked to a map
• Dress code in three words: comfy, and white
• What to bring, one thing each — bikini, flat shoes, something red
• The surprise, with the time you think it starts, marked as a secret

The itinerary is a scene, not an annex

An invitation here is built from linked scenes — a threshold, a patio, a long dinner, a last dance. Give the itinerary one of those scenes. Put it after the opening and before dinner, with its own heading and a photo of the table already laid.

Then lay it out as blocks: the time in large type, the place underneath, a line of detail below that. If the venue changes, you edit the field and the same link shows the new version. Nothing to reprint, nothing to resend to the group.

An itinerary isn't admin. It's the answer to a question you'd otherwise type out twenty times.

A time change doesn't mean resending the invitation

The booking shifts half an hour? You change the time and that's it. The link stays the same, so nobody has to work out which version of the plan they saved. Confirmations land inside the invitation in one ordered list, so you can see how many chairs to ask for before you lock in the booking. No chasing replies in the chat.

It has to read on a phone, or it doesn't work

Most people will open this one-handed, standing in a kitchen. So: big time, plan name, one line. Use one colour per kind of plan — food, activity, travel — and keep the same tone for everything in that group. A glance then tells someone whether they need to move. The link opens in any browser with no app to install, which also covers the friend who only carries a work phone.

If one person will want the plan on paper — a mum, a bridesmaid with a fridge-magnet habit — print two or three copies for them. Everyone else keeps the link, which always shows the current version. You can try a design for free, build the itinerary as its own scene, and publish once the plan stops moving.