Guides to inviting people well
The questions hosts ask before they send anything, answered plainly. Each guide gives the answer first, then the reasoning, and says separately what Momen9 does about it.
- What is a digital invitation?A digital invitation is an invitation sent as a link or a file instead of a printed card, usually on WhatsApp. The simplest kind is an image or PDF of a card. The fuller kind is a web page that opens on the guest’s phone with the date, the venue and a map, lets them RSVP, and can be corrected after it has been sent.
- How do you send wedding invitations on WhatsApp?Send each guest the invitation in their own chat, with a short message that uses their name and says what you need from them. An image of the card is enough to announce the date. A link to an invitation page also carries the map, the schedule and the RSVP, and stays correct if something changes. Use a group only for a link that is meant to be shared.
- Digital or printed wedding invitations: which should you send?Send both, in different numbers. A printed card is for the people and the rituals where handing it over matters: close elders, the family deity, the guests you visit in person. A digital invitation is for everyone else, and for everything a card cannot do: reaching people in other cities the same day, taking the RSVP, and showing a changed timing to everyone at once.
- What should a wedding invitation include?A wedding invitation needs six things: who is inviting, who is getting married, every function with its date, time and venue, how and by when to reply, how to get there, and whom to call. For an Indian wedding with several functions, the invitation also has to make clear which of them each guest is invited to.
- How do you collect RSVPs for an Indian wedding?Ask every invited household one clear question, how many of you are coming, on the invitation itself, with a reply date set a few days before the caterer needs the numbers. Collect the answers in one list rather than across chats and phone calls, and follow up only with the households that have not replied.
- What are the ceremonies of an Indian wedding, region by region?An Indian wedding is a run of ceremonies over several days, and both their names and their order change from region to region: a Tamil wedding turns on the muhurtham, a Bengali one ends with the bou bhaat, a Punjabi one has the jaggo the night before. The lists below set out each tradition’s ceremonies in the order an invitation would give them.
- Can a digital wedding invitation be in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu or another Indian language?Yes. A digital invitation can be written in any language a phone can display, and the choice is usually the language the family’s elders read. On Momen9 an invitation can be in English, Hinglish, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Odia and Urdu, set in a typeface made for that script, with a personal note to each guest in whichever language that guest reads.
- How do you make a birthday invitation online?Decide the five facts first: whose birthday, the date, the time, the place, and by when you need a reply. Choose a look that suits the age, put those facts where a phone shows them without zooming, and send it to each guest personally on WhatsApp with a way to reply, so you know how many are coming before you order the cake.