How do I send guests an update?

Open Manage → Messaging and press New message. On the website the composer has three steps, Write, Guests and Send, shown as a small bar at the top. In the app it has four, Write your message, Choose guests, Choose when and Review, which hold the same choices.

You do not choose how it is sent. Each guest gets an email if they have email on, and a text if they turned texts on, so a guest with both gets both. Guests turn texts on when they RSVP, under the mobile number question, or later from their account; if your form never asks for a number, turn on Ask for a phone number in the RSVP sheet (Edit on the RSVP card in Manage → Features). The composer counts the emails and texts the message will send, and how many guests can't be reached. A text says only that you sent a message, with a link to the guest's own copy.

Write

On the website, Start from, above the subject, says what the message began from (Start from: Blank for a new one) and opens the ways to begin: Blank, the built-in starters, Your templates once you have saved one, and Write it for me, which drafts an email from your description; review its wording before sending. Search finds a starter or a template by its name or wording. To keep the words you have written for another time, press Save as template at the foot of Start from (under the message in the app) and name it. In the app the ways to begin are buttons over the subject: Blank, Starters, Your templates and Write it for me. An event gets 20 drafts an hour. Your templates holds up to 100 saved templates for your account.

Starters, saved templates, Write it for me and Blank all replace the subject and message. When the composer holds writing of your own, the control you press says what it is about to do and waits for a second press. A starter you have not edited, or wording you have already saved as a draft, is replaced at once.

Press Insert under the message for a guest or event detail: Their name, Party name, Date and time, Their invitation, Their RSVP, How many they are, Their city, Coming from out of town, Days to go, and Their invitation tier on an event with two. Each goes in at the cursor, in place of any words you have selected (at the end of the message if you have not put the cursor in it), with a space either side where it would run into a word. In the message it shows as a tinted chip with its name, such as Their name, and it is filled in for each recipient. A chip goes as one piece: backspace removes all of it, and typing next to it never splits it. The subject can hold the same fields. A field with nothing to fill for a guest, such as a city they haven't given, or days to go once the event has started, is left out along with the space beside it. Web addresses become clickable links.

To link some words instead of printing an address, select them and choose A link from Insert. Under the message, Words to link holds the words and Goes to where they lead: Their invitation, Their RSVP, or A web address, which you type in. Press Done and the words show underlined in the message. Press a link to change its words or where it goes, or to take the link off with Remove link, which keeps the words. In the email the words are underlined in your event's color, and the guest's own copy of the message links them the same way.

The six starters cover Save the date, RSVP nudge, Maybe follow-up, Event details, Travel notes and Thank you. RSVP starters appear only when the event has RSVPs enabled. A seventh, Nametag reminder, appears while guests who are coming still have a nametag to make before the event, and goes to Attending, no nametag yet. Each guest's copy names whose nametags are still to make, and its link opens the builder on the first of them. Event details, Travel notes and Thank you leave a shaded line for you to write, such as Add your own note. Press it and type to replace it; the message can't continue to Guests, or be sent, while one is still there. Check the recipient list before sending.

Guests

The To list hides empty groups and choices that do not apply to the event. An existing draft keeps its selected group.

For a custom list, open Choose individual guests and search by name, email or mobile number. Each guest's email, or their mobile when they have no email, shows beside their name. Clear all at the top of the list takes every guest it shows off the message, so you can pick a few from nothing; once none is chosen it reads Select all. With a search typed, both act only on the guests the search shows. Your selections stay checked when you change the search. Once your picks change who it reaches, To reads Custom list; choosing a group from To starts from that group again. When nobody chosen can get the message, the step says so and Continue waits.

Send

Choose Now, On a date, Before the event (a number of days or hours), or Repeating email; see How do I manage scheduled and automatic emails?. Times use the event's timezone. A time before the event that has already passed is refused as you choose it, with the reason, and the button stays off until you pick another. Check who it reaches and the preview, and email yourself a test if you like. Then press Send message, Schedule message or Start repeating email, and press it again to confirm. In the app, Choose when holds the timing and Review the check, the preview and the button.

Preview a message as a guest

Fields such as Their name, Their invitation tier and the nametag reminder's wording are filled in differently for every guest, so the preview shows the message as one guest will get it. Once the message has a subject or some words, Preview shows it: beside the editor, half and half, on a wide screen, and behind a Preview button on a smaller one or in the app. Send always shows it. The email is scaled to fit, so it reads at a comfortable size, and moving to another guest keeps your place in it.

The preview is the email that guest will receive, in your event's colors, with its fields filled in. It says whether the guest gets an email, a text, both, or can't be reached; a guest who gets a text shows the text too, whose link opens their own copy of the message. When the message goes to more than one guest, use the arrows to move through them, or search for a guest by name. Only guests in the message's audience can be chosen.

A draft opens in the composer with the same preview. A scheduled message's panel has Preview, which shows it as each guest would get it if it went now: guests who answer or make their nametag before it sends may get different wording, or none.

Save draft, Back and Continue stay at the bottom of the screen on every step, with the send button in place of Continue on Send, and each new step opens at its top. Use Save draft to return later. A repeating email can't be saved as a draft, so Save draft is not offered once you choose Repeating email, and Close then asks only whether to leave without saving. Close exits immediately if nothing has been written or changed. Otherwise, including a message a button such as Nudge who hasn't answered or a starter filled in for you, it asks: Save as a draft, Keep writing, or Discard (press it twice). A button like that fills in the composer once; New message always starts blank.

Your messages

Messaging is one list, on the website and in the app from version 1.3. A line over it counts your drafts, what is coming up and what has gone, whichever chip is chosen, beside New message. Press Filter beside Find a message for the chips that narrow the list: All, Drafts, Scheduled (one-off and repeating, soonest first), Sent, Questions once a guest has asked you something (see How do I keep track of new responses and guest activity?), and Archived. A chip appears only when it holds something and is not the whole list; with nothing to choose between, there is no Filter. The chips open by themselves while a question waits for you, and stay open while one other than All is chosen.

The list and each panel show a message with its fields filled in, as the first guest it reaches would read it, and links as their words; the panel names that guest when the words are about them. A sent message shows its fields by name instead (the party's name aside), because today's values may not be what went, and its panel shows the whole message. Press a message for its panel: what it says, To and When, and Continue for a draft or Use as new message for the rest. Archive closes the panel and takes a draft or a sent message out of the list at once, with Undo for a few seconds; it moves to Archived, where Unarchive brings it back. At the foot, Delete draft or Cancel for a message that hasn't started sending, after a second press. An app version before 1.3 has tabs instead: Messages (drafts and what is coming up), Sent, Event plan, Questions and Automatic, with each message's controls on its card.

A sent message's panel has a Delivery row saying how many guests it reached. Open it to see when and how it was sent, the text where one was sent, and who it reached, guest by guest: Delivered, Sent (handed over, no confirmation yet), Bounced, Marked as spam, or Not sent with the reason, such as no email address, unsubscribed from email, an address that bounced before, or a guest who has not opted in to texts. Messages sent before this record existed show reached and not reached without a provider outcome. Drafts and scheduled messages have no Delivery row.

For a changed time or venue, put the new details directly in the message. Updating the guest page does not rewrite an email already delivered.

If you have not yet given the name guests should see, the send stops and asks for it first; add it and send again. If delivery is paused or some addresses are refused, read the result before retrying. Unsubscribes and delivery failures are not fixed by sending the same message repeatedly.

Guests read sent messages under Messages on Guest home, their page for the event, attributed From the host: the newest one on the page itself, and the full list, newest first with unread ones marked, under All messages. An emailed message links to the guest's own copy. Messages sent to selected guests are visible only to those recipients. Opening a message clears its unread mark. A guest who runs nothing of their own sees an unopened message under New on their invitations page; a guest who also hosts sees it in the bell as well. See Where are the messages my host sent?.