What are the essentials of an invitation?

Every invitation begins with the same short step, whatever the design. The essentials asks only for what the invitation cannot go out without. Left blank, the design's own sample words would print in their place, so the form asks for them before anything is created.

What the step asks for

• Invitation title: shown in your dashboard and in WhatsApp previews, and printed wherever the design uses it.
• Date & time: drives the countdown, the calendar links and the automatic reminders. It cannot be earlier than now.
• Time zone: set from your device. Change it if the event is somewhere else.
• Venue and Address: pick a place from the search and the address fills itself, with a directions link guests use. Every function is held here unless you tick Different venue on it.
• On the invitation: the names and words the design is built around, such as the groom and the bride, who the birthday is for and their age, the guest of honour, and the invitation message. While the message box is empty, Use the suggested wording fills in the design's own words.

Fill them in

1. 1Choose a design in the catalogue and choose Use this design, then Build from scratch.
2. 2Fill in the essentials. The phone beside the form shows each line in the design as you type.
3. 3Choose Next. The bar at the foot says "Required first, the rest is optional", and that is how it works: the later steps can all be skipped.

The host line

"Hosted by" (or "Organised by" on a corporate design) is an optional line. Leave it blank and it leaves the invitation, together with its label. The same goes for the parents' lines on a wedding design, which sit directly under each name.

Changing them later

Open the invitation from your dashboard and choose Update details. The first step, Essentials, holds the same fields. On a published invitation, moving the date to another day counts as a date change; see Can I change the date or venue after sending?. Once the event has taken place, the title and date lock.