Kids menu on a wedding invitation: one line, no boxes

The restaurant wants the number of children's meals by the 20th. Eleven kids are coming: your sister's three, two cousins, the twins from next door. You have to ask eleven sets of parents without turning your wedding invitation into a booking form. So the question waits. Meanwhile your phone fills up. Is there a kids menu? Do they eat the same as us? What age counts?

It takes less than you think. The kids menu on a wedding invitation is one sentence, and it has a right place to sit. Get those two things right and you stop answering the same message twelve times.

The kids menu on a wedding invitation is one line, not a form

Forget the two tick boxes, 'adult menu / kids menu'. Nobody fills in a questionnaire halfway through an invitation, and 'indicate your preference' is not something anyone says at a wedding. Write it the way you would say it at the table, in the same voice as the rest of the page.

• Instead of boxes, one line: 'The little ones have their own menu, pasta and ice cream.'
• Cut the office words: 'option A', 'indicate your preference', 'mark the box'.
• One sentence reads well on a phone and keeps the tone of the scene it sits in.
• Keep your own words. If you call them 'the small ones', write that.

The dinner scene is where parents look for it

A digital invitation is built from scenes you chain together: the threshold, the promises, the long dinner, the last dance. If you have a dinner scene, that is where the kids menu lives, on its own line.

Put it right after the venue and the time. Not at the bottom, not folded into a note. Parents scroll to the dinner information because that is where their question is. You do not need the whole menu either. Say it exists and what is roughly in it.

One clean line in the dinner scene answers more than any form ever will.

Say the ages and settle it before anyone asks

Give the range: 'kids menu, ages 3 to 10'. That way a 13-year-old is not waiting for a plate of pasta that was never coming. If the restaurant applies the children's menu from a certain age, or charges a supplement, put that in the same line. And leave a door open for allergies without turning it into a required field.

• Age: 'ages 3 to 10', so nobody has to ask about their own child.
• What they eat: a short reference, like 'pasta and ice cream'.
• Where: 'at their own table' or 'at their parents' table', never left unsaid.
• Allergies: a clear 'write to us', no boxes and no form.
• A date to confirm: a real one, not 'as soon as you can'.

If the menu changes, the link already says so

The restaurant swaps the ice cream for seasonal fruit in June. You edit that one line and the link your guests already have shows the new version. Nothing to resend, nothing to reprint, and nobody is reading last month's details.

One line, in the right scene, and the kids menu sorts itself out without your invitation reading like a printout. You can try the cover for free, edit everything in your browser, and publish the full invitation for 29,99 EUR, one payment.