Digital wedding invitations in the UK: the 2026 guide

A digital wedding invitation is an invitation your guests receive on their phone rather than through the letterbox: a link, an image or an e-card, sent by WhatsApp, text or email. In Britain many couples now send at least one of their invitations this way, and a growing number send nothing on paper at all. This guide explains the four kinds you can buy, what each costs as checked in October 2026, how guests reply, and how to choose. We make one of them, and we say so where it matters.

The four kinds of digital wedding invitation

1. A picture or PDF sent by WhatsApp. A designer, Canva or Etsy gives you a JPEG or PDF of a card, and you send it to the group chat. Cost: free to about £30. Guests reply in the chat, which means you count forty "yes!" messages by hand, nobody knows who has not replied, and the dietary notes are lost in the thread. Fine for a small wedding; painful past fifty households.

2. An e-card service. Paperless Post and Greenvelope send a designed card by email with a reply button, priced per guest or per mailing. About $157 on Paperless Post Premium for 150 guests, about $159 on Greenvelope for one mailing of 150. Good designs, American pricing in dollars, and the card is a card: the venue, the timings and the hotels live somewhere else.

3. A wedding website with an RSVP page. Joy and Zola give you a free multi-page website with an RSVP section; a custom domain and premium designs cost extra, and the sites are built around an American registry. Guests get a link to a home page and find the RSVP form a few taps in. Riley & Grey and RSVPify are the paid versions of this, at $299 a year and from $24 a month.

4. An invitation page with the reply built in. The invitation itself is the web page: your names, the date, the venue with a map, the timings, the dress code and the reply form, on one link, for one price. This is the newest kind and the one we make. RSVP Websites is £40 one-off for any number of guests, live for a year, with a personal link per household and the replies in a list you can export. The British one-off options in the table below are the same idea at different levels of finish.

What they cost in the UK, October 2026

Prices are as shown on each company's site in October 2026; dollar prices are what the American services charge from Britain. Bridebook's figure is the average for a full printed set, from save the dates to place cards.

How guests reply to a digital invitation

The reply is the part that separates the four kinds. With a picture, guests reply in the chat. With an e-card, they tap a button and you see a count. With a wedding website, they find the RSVP page and type their name. With an invitation page, the link they open already knows who they are: "Dear Priya and Tom", two guests, a meal choice each, a dietary box, and any question you added, such as which events or whether they need the coach. The replies land in a list that shows who has not replied, and that list is what you send the chase to a week before the deadline. Our guide to collecting wedding RSVPs online goes through the questions to ask.

How to choose

• Under fifty households, one day, no meal choices: a picture sent by WhatsApp will do, and it is free.
• A big list, a sit-down meal, or more than one event: you need replies per household with the meal and the dietary note attached, and a list of who has not replied. That means a form, which means an invitation page or a wedding website.
• Guests in Britain: prefer a service priced in pounds, with VAT shown, that does not sell your guests a registry. The American sites are built for the American wedding, where the registry is the point.
• An Asian wedding with four or five functions: you need a programme, the right script and a question on the form about which functions each household is joining. Few services do this; ours has designs for Indian, Pakistani and Bengali weddings with the functions and the wording in place.
• A wedding abroad: travel, hotels and an early deadline matter more than the design. See the destination wedding page.
• You still want something on paper: send a printed save the date or a keepsake card to the older generation and do the invitation and the replies digitally. The digital versus paper guide has the sums.

What a good digital wedding invitation needs

1. Opens on a phone without an app or an account. Half your guests will not sign in to anything.
2. Shows the invitation, not just a form. The date, the venue with a map, the timings, the dress code.
3. Takes one reply per household, with the names already on it.
4. Asks what you need: meal choice, dietary needs, which events, the coach.
5. Tells you who has not replied.
6. Lets a guest change their answer by opening the link again.
7. Stays live for months, because people reply late and then lose the link.
8. Exports to a spreadsheet for the caterer.

Is a digital wedding invitation acceptable?

Yes, and it is now common for the invitation itself. The question people still ask is about the older generation, and the honest answer is that a text message with a link, sent by the couple or their parents, is opened more reliably than a card that goes to an address that may be out of date. For the few relatives who would value paper, print a handful. The wording guide has the lines for both.

Where we fit

RSVP Websites is a British service, made in London, that turns a wedding or party invitation into one web page with the RSVP form built in. One payment of £40, no VAT added, for any number of guests, live for a year, with twelve designs including ones for Asian weddings, nikahs and weddings abroad. Nothing to pay until you have built it and seen it on your phone. The facts are on one page about the service. You can compare it with the alternatives on their prices as checked, or start with a design.