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Keepsake prompts — a real question for every guest

Instead of a blank box, ask guests how they know the guest of honor and serve each of them the right question. With voice, and a branch for people who can't come.

Last reviewed 5 min read

On this page9 sections
  1. What it's called on your event
  2. Setting it up
  3. What your guests see
  4. People who can't come still get asked
  5. Recording instead of typing
  6. Where it all ends up
  7. Asking the guest of honor
  8. Common questions
  9. Related articles

A blank box that says "leave a message" gets you forty copies of the same sentence. "Congrats!" "So happy for you!" "Enjoy your retirement!"

Keepsake prompts fix that by asking one question first — how do you know them? — and then handing each guest a question that actually fits their answer. A colleague someone mentored gets "What did they teach you that you still use?" An acquaintance gets "What quality did you admire most?" Someone who worked beside them for fifteen years gets "What's one moment with them you keep replaying?"

Same screen, same effort for the guest. Completely different keepsake at the end.

What it's called on your event

It's the one place each occasion collects words, under the name that fits:

  • Baby shower — Advice for the parents
  • Bridal or couples shower — Advice for the couple
  • Birthday — Wishes & memories
  • Graduation — Advice for the next chapter
  • Retirement — The memory book

Setting it up

Switch it on in your occasion's suite. That's genuinely the whole setup — every collection comes with its questions written and its relationship options ready, so a host who touches nothing has a working keepsake.

If you want to shape it:

  • Switch individual questions off, or add your own.
  • Pick a different set. A birthday can collect wishes, or — for a milestone birthday — a memory book. A retirement can collect memories, with the bucket-list questions included, or a round of toasts.
  • Turn the relationship question off if your guest list is all one kind of person and the extra tap isn't earning anything.
  • Turn voice off if you'd rather have everything in writing.

The questions follow your event: a baby shower for one parent asks about "the kind of parent Jess will be", and a preschool graduation asks what the family hopes the graduate keeps loving.

What your guests see

It's one screen in the RSVP, just before the final note. On it they:

  1. Tap how they know the guest of honor (one tap, one time).
  2. Get the questions that fit — and pick the one they want to answer.
  3. Type an answer, or tap record and say it out loud instead.

Under the box, a couple of real answers other guests have already left show what "good" looks like — the best predictor of a long, warm answer is having just read one.

Answers aren't sealed: you can read them as they come in. The letters meant for later — letters to the baby, a letter for a couple's first anniversary — are a separate time capsule.

People who can't come still get asked

A guest who RSVPs no normally hits the thank-you screen and that's the end of them — at exactly the moment they feel worst about missing it.

With keepsake prompts on, a guest who declines gets one screen on the way out: "You can't be there — but you can still be in the room." Their answer lands in the same collection as everyone else's, marked so you can see it came from someone who couldn't make it.

For a retirement especially, this is where the good stuff comes from — the colleague who left a decade ago and will never fly in, but will happily record forty-five seconds.

Recording instead of typing

Voice is on by default. Guests get the same questions with a record button, and plenty of people who would never write three paragraphs will talk for a minute. It matters most for the people least likely to type: grandparents at a milestone birthday, senior colleagues at a retirement.

Where it all ends up

In the suite you get What's come back — every answer, grouped by the question it answers, with a running count of contributors, how many recorded rather than wrote, and how many came from people who couldn't attend. Download it all as one keepsake PDF. On the day, you can also put the answers on the big screen with the kiosk's wishes wall (it's off until you add it), and hide any single answer from the wall.

Asking the guest of honor

At a birthday, the guest of honor answers questions of their own on the private link they use for Who knows them best: The birthday interview for kids and teens, or Their wisdom for adults and milestone birthdays — the best advice they ever got, what they'd tell their twenty-year-old self. Their answers join the same keepsake. Guests never see a "hand the phone over" screen in their RSVP.

Common questions

Does this add a step to my guests' RSVP? It's one screen. It's also the only words step, so an occasion never asks for wishes twice.

Can guests answer more than one question? They pick the one they want to answer. One good answer beats five thin ones, which is the whole reason this exists.

What if I don't want the "how do you know them" question? Turn it off in the setup. Everyone then gets the general questions from your chosen set.

Some questions don't show for some guests. That's the feature working. Questions are matched to how a guest said they know the guest of honor — a question about mentoring doesn't reach someone who ticked "we didn't work together much".

Can I see who wrote what? Yes — every answer carries the name of who left it.

Is there a limit? A collection holds up to 5,000 answers. You'll get a notice when it's nearly full, and after that new answers are politely turned away rather than older ones being lost.

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