Digital wedding invitations, with RSVP, on one link

What is a digital wedding invitation?

A digital wedding invitation is an invitation you send as a link, by text, WhatsApp or email, instead of in the post. On Kehdoo it opens as a small wedding website: your names and photo at the top, then each event of the weekend in order, such as the welcome drinks, the ceremony, the reception and a farewell brunch, each with its time, place, map, dress code and an RSVP. Guests open it in their phone's browser. Nobody downloads an app or makes an account.

It does the job of three things couples usually buy separately: the invitation, the wedding website with the schedule, and the reply card. What it doesn't do: there's no gift registry, no seating chart and no printed stationery. If you want paper for a grandparent, print a few and send the link to everyone else.

How to make a digital wedding invitation

You need your names, the dates and the venues. Everything else can wait, and you can change any of it after the link has gone out. You sign in once, when you make the invitation.

1. Add your names and the dateType both names and the date of the first event. The invitation starts with a ceremony and a reception, in the time zone your phone is set to.
2. Pick a starting setClassic, Church wedding, Civil / registry, Jewish, Chinese tea ceremony, Destination or Indian wedding. Each fills in the usual events. Rename, reorder, delete or add your own, up to eight.
3. Fill in each eventThe date, the start time, the venue and its address, and the venue's time zone if it's somewhere else. Add a map link, a dress code and a short note.
4. Choose the lookWhite floral, Black tie or Red lanterns, your own colours, a font for your names, and a photo of the two of you.
5. Set up repliesChoose which events ask for an RSVP, write a line of welcome and who it's from, then tap Make the invite.
6. Send itCopy the link into a text, a WhatsApp group or an email. Each event has its own link too, so the rehearsal dinner can go only to the people invited to it.

Your hosts' page opens on the phone you made the invitation on. Sign in later with Google or an email link to open it anywhere.

Every event of the weekend, on one invitation

A wedding is often more than one event, and guests need to know which ones they're invited to and where each one is. One invitation holds them all. Each event gets its own card in the same design, its own time and place, a map button and an add-to-calendar button, and its own link.

1. Fri, 7 pm
   Welcome drinks

   Summer casual, on the terrace. For everyone who has travelled in.

2. Sat, 5 pm
   Ceremony

   In the garden. The calendar button blocks out the right hour wherever the guest lives.

3. Sat, 7 pm
   Reception

   Dinner and dancing, black tie optional.

4. Sun, 11 am
   Farewell brunch

   At the lake house, before everyone heads to the airport.

The starting sets cover the common shapes of a wedding. Classic is a ceremony and a reception on the same day. Church wedding adds an engagement party before the service. Civil / registry is a ceremony at the registry office and a lunch after. Jewish has the ketubah signing, the chuppah and the reception. Chinese tea ceremony has a morning tea ceremony with family and an evening banquet. Destination spreads welcome drinks, the ceremony and a farewell brunch over three days. Indian wedding brings the haldi, mehndi, sangeet, wedding and reception, for families who are celebrating one abroad.

Save the date first, the full invitation later

Send the link as soon as you have a date and a city. Turn RSVP off on your hosts' page until the details are settled, then fill in the times and venues and turn replies on. The link doesn't change, so guests who saved your date open the same page and find the full invitation.

RSVP for each event

Guests reply to each event on its own: yes or no, and how many people are coming. You see the numbers per event on your hosts' page, so the caterer, the venue and the shuttle bus each get a real count.

• Plus-ones. Each reply says how many are coming, up to the number you allow per reply, from 1 to 20. For a couple or a family, add them as one line with a number, like "The Chens (3)", and their personal link answers for three.
• Invited events only. Guests on your list see only the events you invite them to, so the rehearsal dinner stays with the wedding party. Mark a private event "Only for invited guests" and the open link never shows it.
• A reply-by date. Set one, and guests can change their answer from the same link until then. After it, replies close.
• Notes. Guests can leave a note with their reply, such as a flight time or an allergy.

Guest list and reminders

Paste your guest list from a spreadsheet or your notes, one name per line, and Kehdoo turns it into a list with a personal invitation link for each name. Add a phone number with its country code (+1, +44, +61) to send invites and reminders on WhatsApp with one tap. For anyone without WhatsApp, copy their link and text or email it.

• "(4)" after a name makes it one household with one link for four people. "#work" adds a tag.
• Repeats are flagged before anything is saved, and you can filter by tag, event, or who hasn't replied.
• A phone number without a country code can't be read for sure, so the guest is saved without it and flagged for you to fix.

Remind next walks through everyone who hasn't replied, one chat at a time: WhatsApp opens with the message written in, you press send, come back and tap Sent. Reminders cost nothing extra, and they come from a number your guests already know. The guest list holds 25 names. More names are kept and wait for a bigger list, which is coming soon.

A countdown to the day

Every invitation has a countdown page: the days, hours and minutes to the next event, counted in the venue's time, so a guest in Sydney and a guest in Toronto see the same number. It moves on to each event in turn, says "Happening now" during one, and after the last it thanks everyone and shows the wishes. You can share it as a tall picture for a story or a status.

A digital guestbook, on the screen at the venue

Guests scan a QR code on the tables, type a wish and add a photo, and the wishes show one at a time on a TV or projector at the reception. It's a digital guestbook everyone can watch fill up, and nobody needs an app or an account.

• Each wish waits for your OK before it reaches the screen. Switch to "show straight away" once you trust the room.
• The screen keeps showing the wishes it has if the venue Wi-Fi drops, with a small "Reconnecting" dot and nothing else.
• Print table cards: an A5 card with your names, "Scan to leave a wish" and the QR code.
• Up to 200 wishes, with one photo each. A keepsake book of every wish and voice notes are coming soon.

Friends who can't make it can still send their love together: a group card goes round as one link, everyone writes a line, and the two of you open it all at once.

Thank-you cards

After the wedding, make one thank-you card and Kehdoo makes a copy for every guest with their own name on it. Add up to three photos from the guestbook, a line for one particular guest, and a "we missed you" version for anyone who couldn't come. Send each one on WhatsApp or copy its link into a text or email, and see when it's been opened. It works for up to 25 guests. If you're stuck on the words, start with these thank-you messages.

Sending your invitation by text, WhatsApp or email

Tap Share and your phone offers every app you use: Messages, WhatsApp, email and the rest. Or copy the link and paste it anywhere. Most apps show a preview with your names, the theme and the dates, so the link arrives looking like an invitation. Each event has its own link and preview.

Kehdoo doesn't make video invitations or print stationery. It makes the page your guests open on the day to find the venue.

Time zones for guests abroad and destination weddings

Every time on the invitation is the venue's time, with its time zone. A guest whose phone is set to another time zone also sees the same moment in their own time, such as "That's 11:00 am in New York", under each event. The add-to-calendar button puts it in their calendar at the right hour.

For a destination wedding, set each event's venue zone when you add it: the welcome drinks in Italy, a second reception back home in London. Each event keeps its own zone, so nothing shifts when a guest opens the invitation from another country, and the countdown counts the venue's days, not the guest's.

Who can see your invitation

Only the people you send the link to. Wedding pages on Kehdoo are kept out of Google and other search engines and are never listed anywhere on the site. Anyone who has the link can open it, so share it the way you'd hand out an invitation.

• Your guest list, phone numbers and replies are only on the hosts' page, never on the invitation.
• A guest's personal link, and the venue screen's link, each carry a private key.
• If the hosts' link is forwarded too far, the person who made the invitation can change it.
• Up to ten co-hosts can help run it. Only the person who made it can delete it.

Digital invitations compared with paper, PDF and video

Paper is still the keepsake, and some guests will want it. A PDF or image is easy to send but can't take replies or change. A wedding website and a separate RSVP tool can do most of it, but that's two places to keep up to date. A digital invitation puts it in one link.

Is it OK to send wedding invitations digitally?

Yes. Digital invitations are now common for weddings of every size and style, and many guests prefer them because the details are always on their phone. The usual courtesy is to send paper to the few people who'd miss it, often grandparents and older relatives, and the link to everyone else. Send the invitation six to eight weeks before the wedding, or earlier for a destination wedding, and send save the dates a few months before that.

Wedding invitation wording examples

Short messages to send with the link. Copy one, change the names and the date, and send it with your invitation.

Going to a wedding rather than planning one? See congratulations messages for the card, anniversary wishes for the years after, and, if it's an Indian wedding, what to write in an Indian wedding card and how the gift of cash works.