Announce your date six to twelve months before the wedding, send the full invitation three to four months before, and set the reply deadline about a month before the day itself. If your wedding falls in high season or if guests are coming from far away, take the top of each range.
These three markers come from paper, where every step was a mailing: one card, then another, then a reply slip to put in the postbox. With an online invitation, it is no longer three mailings but a single page, published early and filled in week by week. The link never changes, and your guests see the latest version the moment they open it. The calendar that follows makes the most of exactly that difference.
The calendar, month by month
As soon as the date is settled · prepare the page, don't publish it. A draft is visible to you alone. Just remember to confirm your email address, otherwise no message will go out to your guests. And if you are starting on the Découverte plan, its 30 days only begin when you publish. What that plan includes and what it doesn't is set out item by item in its own article, and building the page, step by step, is in another.
Six to twelve months before · announcing the date. This is the save-the-date moment, and it is where going online gains you the most. You are not posting a card: you publish your page with what you already know, your first names, the date, the town, and you share the link. The programme hour by hour and the exact venue will settle in later, in the same place. One exception, and it counts: if your guests are sleeping over, the accommodation is announced right now, with the date, because a room gets booked early. It opens with the Signature plan, and the detail of who pays for what is here. Twelve wording templates are there for the opening line.
If you publish more than 12 months before the wedding, plan for a renewal: it is added to the term you are already on, without costing you a day. The Découverte plan is not made for that, since its 30 days start the moment you publish.
Three to four months before · the full invitation and the replies. The page now carries the run of the day, the practical information, and the access map that leads to the venue, which opens with the Essentiel plan. This is where you open the reply form with its deadline, and where you send one personal link per household rather than a single link in a group chat. What that link changes for the guest, and what gets them to reply, is in the RSVP article.
The months that follow · you do nothing, and that is the idea. The automatic reminders go out on their own at 45, 20 and 10 days before your deadline, to the guests who haven't replied. If you send late, a first reminder goes out straight away and the others on their dates: it is the gap between when you send and your deadline that decides how many reminders there are. They are sent by email to the guests you sent the invitation to from your own space. They are not held back for any plan.
About a month before · the deadline falls. On the day itself, your guests can still reply: the form closes the day after. After that the form disappears from the page, a banner points them to you, and nobody can reply or correct a reply any more. That is what finally gives you a settled number. Give it to the caterer without waiting on the last silences, even if it means ringing the two or three who are missing. Exporting the list, one line per person, opens with the Signature plan.
The final weeks · the seating. Only people whose attendance is confirmed go into the seating plan, and that is why it comes after the deadline. It opens with the Prestige plan, and its method fits in another article. Just one move has to be made much earlier, and it is about places: grant each household more than one place, and their form will ask for the first name and surname of every person they bring. You will get them with the replies, instead of asking for them again one by one.
What changes compared with paper, and what does not
What changes: sending is no longer a single, irreversible act. A time pushed back, a misspelt name, a ceremony venue confirmed after the fact: you edit the page, and nobody is left holding an out-of-date version. Nothing to reprint, no new stamps, no date to hold to on pain of starting again.
What does not change: the lead times. A guest who has to book time off, reserve a train or find a room needs just as long as they would with a card. And an invitation sent very early with no deadline gets lost exactly like a card left on a fridge.
When the date moves, or the venue
You correct the page, and that is all: your guests see the new version, the link stays the same. Telling them is therefore never compulsory, but it is a useful thing to do for a date, a time or an address.
The "Tell the guests" button picks up on its own what has moved since publication, field by field, and drafts the message for you. Nothing goes out when you save a change: you decide. The first campaign is included from the Essentiel plan, and sending it by SMS from the Essentiel plan. Two campaigns are at least 2 hours apart: better to group your changes together. The whole mechanism is in the article on building the page.
Three particular calendars
Guests who are coming from far away. Take the top of the range: a plane ticket is booked months ahead, and it is that lead time that decides whether they come, not your invitation. Switch on the English or Spanish version of the page as well, which your guests switch to with one button: it doesn't depend on any plan.
A wedding in high season. From June to September, your guests often have two or three weddings in the same summer, and the first one announced wins the Saturday. Announce as early as you can.
A wedding prepared in three months. The save the date no longer has any point: publish the full page and send the links the same day. Bring the deadline closer to the day itself, but keep it as far as possible from the day you send, since it is that gap that decides how many reminders there are. If the gap stays short, change the rhythm of the reminders from your guest list: "Every week" chases the non-responders every week up to your deadline, where the default rhythm would send only one reminder.
Create your invitation for free to put the page together without publishing it, or open a sample invitation on your phone to see what your guests will receive.
