How to send wedding invitations on WhatsApp

Six to eight weeks before the wedding is the usual window for guests in the same country — long enough to book leave and tickets, close enough that nobody forgets. For guests travelling from abroad, or a destination wedding, send a save-the-date three to six months ahead and the full invitation at the usual time.

Send the elders first. A grandparent or an elder in the family who hears about the wedding from somebody else's forward will notice.

Posting the card to a family group is quick, and it is how invitations get lost. It is buried under good-morning messages within the hour; it goes to people who were not meant to be invited; and there is no telling who has seen it. Nobody feels personally asked by a message sent to two hundred people.

A broadcast list is better — each person receives it as a private message — but it only reaches people who have saved your number, and it sends everybody the same words. The version that works is the slow one: a message to each family, from your own phone, with their name in it.

Short, warm and addressed to them. Say whose wedding it is, the main date and city, and what you would like them to do — look at the invitation, and reply. The details belong in the invitation itself, not in the message.

Most weddings have more than one guest list: the Haldi for close family, the Sangeet for family and friends, the reception for everybody. A single card that lists every celebration either invites colleagues to the Haldi or leaves them wondering whether they are meant to come.

The fix is to send each guest a version with only their celebrations on it. With printed cards that means separate inserts; with an invitation sent as a link, it can be a different link for each family. On Nimantran each guest's link shows only the celebrations they are invited to, and the message for each family is written for you with their own link inside it.

• A link that opens in the phone's browser is easier than a PDF that has to be downloaded and zoomed into, and far easier than anything that needs an app.
• Put the most important line — the date and the city — in the message itself, so it is read even if the invitation is not.
• For the eldest relatives, a phone call as well as the message is still the respectful thing to do.

Somebody always has not replied. Ten days before your reply date, send those families a short, friendly reminder — not to everybody, only to them. Keeping a tick list of who you have sent to, and who has answered, is what makes that possible.

Nimantran keeps that list for you: you tick families off as you send to them, and the replies arrive as counts for each celebration, so the families still to answer are the ones left over.

A venue moves, a time changes, a celebration is added. A forwarded PDF cannot be recalled, so the old one keeps circulating. If the invitation is a link, change it in one place and send one short message saying the details have been updated — everybody who opens their link sees the new version.